There was a time I thought, “Man, I wish we had Facebook when I was in high school and college.” However, I take back that thought. I am so glad that we did not have Facebook when I was in school, especially middle and high school. Don’t get me wrong, I love using Facebook now. But, I am learning that most teenagers would be better off without it. I teach at the high school level and I have seen things blown out of control because of Facebook. Well that is not really a fair statement, not because of Facebook, but because of the kids that really don’t know what is appropriate and what is not. It isn’t really a new battle. We have seen it with email and especially with texting. Teenagers are impulsive; they have always said things that were inappropriate before thinking about it. Now they are putting these things in writing.
I have a 14 year old son and he is just like every other teenage boy. It doesn’t matter that we have had the conversation about what not to post, text, email or just write down. I have even used examples from my school and students. He always said the correct thing. “Oh that is stupid, why would they post that.” This is what I thought, however just a few weeks ago, while patrolling my son’s Facebook (something his Dad and I warned him from the beginning we would do) I found a conversation on his wall with another individual that was awful. Language I was sad to see him using (not really surprised, remember I teach high school, I know they use it), slander, threats, and hateful awful things. I was furious. We had been over this, he knew, you CAN’T post this type of thing. I went into his Facebook account and deleted the posting. We had a little more heated discussion this time. The consequences this time were that he would lose his internet access on his ipod (his main Facebook source). He would have to get on the family computer if he wanted internet for anything. It was also discussed that if we found one more thing on Facebook that was inappropriate, we would be deactivating his account until further notice. He of course sees it as his evil parents invading his private life.
I am saddened by the number of parents that do not monitor their kid’s Facebook (let alone any other internet activity). Now, many kids have 100% free reign on their unlimited data plan on their smart phone. I have dug my heels in and refused to allow this for my son. He catches flak from other kids about how “behind” he is in the phone world, but as my husband put it, “It is like handing them a loaded gun, without spending anytime teaching them how to use it safely and correctly, without putting in the time to be sure they know it’s dangers and then saying, “be careful with that ok””. We would not do this to our children so why are we not putting in the time to teach and monitor what they do online and on Facebook?