• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

NetFamilyNews.org

Kid tech intel for everybody

Show Search
Hide Search
  • Home
  • Youth
  • Parenting
  • Literacy
  • Safety
  • Policy
  • Research
  • About NetFamilyNews.org
    • Supporters
    • Anne Collier’s Bio
    • Copyright
    • Privacy

Mobile parenting 2.0

June 1, 2012 By Anne Leave a Comment

There are some good mobile parenting pointers on the Web these days, one example being “Five things to do before giving your teenager a smartphone.” But – practically speaking – these are just useful talking points in the broader, on-going conversation families need to have about how social-media tools like phones can be used to connect with others kindly, meaningfully, and successfully in everybody’s very fast-paced lives. These little full-blown connected computers called smartphones can do so many things that they have appeal for different reasons and are used in different ways based on who the owner is and where s/he is in her life (though their small size and huge portability appeal pretty universally!). Which is why some rules work well for a while, but two-way conversations work better than set rules. And it’s wise to choose not to be “skittish,” as writer and “appolicious advisor” Brad Spirrison put it, because parental anxiety can put a real damper on communication.

[Pew Internet tells us 77% of US 12-to-17-year-olds now have cellphones and 23% smartphones, so if your 12-year-old tells you “everybody has a cellphone,” s/he’s less and less far off the mark. But when to get a kid his or her first cellphone is very individual too, based on how s/he handles technology, people, and responsibility!]

So I’m not sure anyone could come up with the exact right set of rules for everybody. It would be a huge set. Better to work from the kid (and parent) out: Why do I want her to have a phone? What would he use the phone for? Gaming (individual or social)? Being better organized? Socializing, mainly? How is he with peers and are they good to each other? What sort of balance is there between self-control and rules at this point in this kid’s experience? Just a few talking points (you’ll find more here, at ConnectSafely.org).

Ideas for rule making – or not

Interestingly, Brad chose to focus four of his five tips (I love his fifth one about staying positive) on just two aspects of kids’ smartphone use: basically, physical and financial safety. All good, but if I were to prioritize those, I’d start right off with texting while driving, statistically the most widespread and risky use of cellphones there is (see this), whether our kids are drivers or passengers (one good rule for everybody in every family: nobody texts while driving!). His pointers around check-ins are smart. But for kids in their mid-to-late teens, an outright ban probably isn’t realistic or necessary, as long as critical thinking’s applied and they check into places only when they’re with friends, ideally a bunch of them.

There are lots of other rules more specific to trouble spots in your own kids’ phone use. For example, if they’re not getting enough sleep, could it be that it’s being interrupted by a phone still on in the middle of the night so they can receive texts and notifications from friends who also aren’t getting enough sleep? That may call for a rule that phones are off and charged somewhere else in the house (maybe even your room) every night. Does someone need to think more about how others in their presence feel about someone texting right in the middle of a conversation? Then maybe there needs to be a no-texting-during-meals rule, or one about excusing oneself if an expected “important text” is received? Maybe a blanket rule about no phone photo-shooting happens during parties at this house so people can learn to respect how others feel about being tagged in embarrassing photos (see this, BTW, about taking control of tagging). Customized rules like these yield greater success because designed to show kids proper care and respect for themselves and others. They’re clearly not just about cellphones.

Because all of this is much more about our humanity than our technology, here are some tips for parenting in a very mobile, digital, networked age:

  • Try to be open-hearted & open-minded – share curiosity, not fear!
  • Talk with them, listen more, take an interest, but also…
  • Give them some space and some trust.
  • Let them know we have their backs.
  • Think as much about what we’re modeling for them as about rules.
  • Treat their media – and media use – as consequential, not trivial.
  • Support their agency & efficacy – they are stakeholders in their own and each other’s well-being online and offline. See them as agents of social good in the world.

Related links

  • “Surge in kid apps: Parents & providers sorting it out”
  • “Teens keep texting more, talking less”
  • “Growing signs social media are good for us”
  • “The wisdom of Finn, 10”
  • “Only sometimes ‘alone together’ in the same room”
  • Mobile parenting in 2008
Share Button

Filed Under: mobile, Parenting, Social Media Tagged With: cellphones, mobile phones, Parenting, rules

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Primary Sidebar

NFN in your in-box:

Anne Collier


Bio and my...
2016 TEDx Talk on
the heart of digital citizenship

Subscribe to my
RSS feed
Follow me on Twitter or even better:
NEW: Follow me on MASTODON!
Friend me on Facebook
See me on YouTube

IMPORTANT RESOURCES

Our (DIGITAL) PARENTING BASICS: Safety + Social
NAMLE, the National Association for Media Literacy Education
CASEL.org & the 5 core social-emotional competencies of SEL
Center for Democracy & Technology
Center for Innovative Public Health Research
Childnet International
Committee for Children
Congressional Internet Caucus Academy
ConnectSafely.org
Control Shift: a pivotal book for Internet safety
Crimes Against Children Research Center
Crisis Textline
Cyber Civil Rights Initiative's Revenge Porn Crisis Line
Cyberwise.org
danah boyd's blog and book about networked youth
Disconnected, Carrie James's book on digital ethics
FOSI.org's Good Digital Parenting
The research of Global Kids Online
The Good Project at Harvard's School of Education
If you watch nothing else: "Parenting in a Digital Age" TED Talk by Prof. Sonia Livingstone
The International Bullying Prevention Association
Let Grow Foundation
Making Caring Common
Raising Digital Natives, author Devorah Heitner's site
Renee Hobbs at the Media Education Lab
MediaSmarts.ca
The New Media Literacies
Report of the Aspen Task Force on Learning & the Internet and our guide to Creating Trusted Learning Environments
The Ruler Approach to social-emotional learning (Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence)
Sources of Strength
"Young & Online: Perspectives on life in a digital age" from young people in 26 countries (via UNICEF)
"Youth Safety on a Living Internet": 2010 report of the Online Safety & Technology Working Group (and my post about it)

Categories

Recent Posts

  • The missing piece in US child online safety law
  • Generative AI: July 2023 freeze frame
  • Threads: The new social media kid
  • Surgeon general’s advisory: Let’s take stock
  • Lawmakers, controlling and banning kids doesn’t help
  • New clarity on child sexual exploitation online
  • Game-changer: Child rights-by-design
  • Why I struggle mightily with the new Utah law

Footer

Welcome to NetFamilyNews!

Founded as a nonprofit public service in 1999, NetFamilyNews quickly became the “community newspaper” of a vital interest community of subscribers in more than 50 countries. Site and newsletter became a blog in the early 2000s. Nowadays, you can subscribe in the box to the right to receive articles in your in-box as they're posted – or look for toots on Mastodon or posts on our Facebook page, LinkedIn and Medium.com. She welcomes your comments, follows and shares!

Categories

  • Home
  • Youth
  • Parenting
  • Literacy
  • Safety
  • Policy
  • Research

ABOUT

  • About NFN
  • Supporters
  • Anne Collier’s Bio
  • Copyright
  • Privacy

Search

Subscribe



THANKS TO NETFAMILYNEWS.ORG's SUPPORTER HOMESCHOOL CURRICULUM.
Copyright © 2023 ANNE COLLIER. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.