More and more schools are keeping parents informed via Twitter. “Tweets” - little 140-character messages and updates like phone text messages in a Web site - "about student achievement, homework, school plays and school boards in Georgia and across the nation are being sent to [parents] like breaking news bulletins interrupting network programming," the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports. As of … [Read more...] about Schools twittering parents
Parenting
Being up front about monitoring online kids
I see no point in parents secretly monitoring kids' online activities - except if a parent feels a child is in danger and the child is unwilling to communicate or make a change in those activities and is being secretive him or herself. If those exceptional criteria are met and a child is at risk, surreptitious use of monitor software is very probably necessary. Otherwise, the only kind of … [Read more...] about Being up front about monitoring online kids
How a family’s handling YouTube fame
The two-minute "David After Dentist" video has gotten more than 18 million views since 6-year-old David's dad posted it on YouTube. David is now, in effect, a child star. Chris O'Brien at the San Jose Mercury News talked to David's father about how the effects of this apparently unsought near-instant fame. The original idea was to take a video of David after he'd had a tooth pulled so Mom, who … [Read more...] about How a family’s handling YouTube fame
‘Kids being raised in captivity’: UK’s Byron
This may sound about right on this side of the Atlantic too: UK clinical psychologist Tanya Byron - prime minister-appointed author of the 2008 Byron Review of child safety on the Web and in videogames - told an audience that their risk-averse society was keeping children cooped up at home on a "global playground" called the Internet, where they can be at greater risk than if allowed out more, The … [Read more...] about ‘Kids being raised in captivity’: UK’s Byron
Virtual helicopter parenting
We've all heard of helicopter parents, people who hover a lot over every aspect of their children's lives. Well, now there's some hovering happening in cyberspace too, with parents setting up social-networking profiles and attempting to friend their children and all their friends. It's a bit much, and it can get creepy too (and not just from a teen's perspective), when the result is like insisting … [Read more...] about Virtual helicopter parenting