"We are raising our children in captivity," British psychologist Tanya Byron has said many times (including here). Some kids are monitored and scheduled to within an inch of their lives, it seems, leaving little time for reflection and creativity. In a thorough look into this question of over-parenting, USATODAY found a US psychologist, Laurence Steinberg at Temple University, who agrees with … [Read more...] about Kids these days: Overparented?
Parenting
Facebook’s new Family Safety Center
I serve on the site's Safety Advisory Board so of course I have a bias, but where Facebook says (at the top of its new safety center), "We believe safety is a conversation and a shared responsibility among all of us," belief and bias really aren't at issue. You can see this is pure logic right? In today's social, user-produced media environment, safety and privacy are by definition a shared … [Read more...] about Facebook’s new Family Safety Center
Net-related ‘juvenoia,’ Part 2: So why are we afraid?
Last week I wrote about why we don't need to be so afraid (of the Net where our kids are concerned); this week why we are. I've been asking myself that for more than a decade, and I have my theories, but watching David Finkelhor's talk "The Internet, Youth Deviance & the Problem of Juvenoia" was a breakthrough for me. See if it is for you.... Here's how Dr. Finkelhor, who has studied child … [Read more...] about Net-related ‘juvenoia,’ Part 2: So why are we afraid?
‘Facebook depression’ claim is research-challenged
The good news is, there's a lot of good advice for pediatricians and parents in "Clinical Report: The Impact of Social Media on Children, Adolescents, and Families," just published in the journal Pediatrics. The bad news is, the "Facebook depression" part is not grounded in the very research the report cites – and of course that's the part (on p. 802 of the PDF version of the report) that all the … [Read more...] about ‘Facebook depression’ claim is research-challenged
3 new products for monitoring online kids
Some really creative thinking has gone into kid online monitoring products lately, and the category is segmenting in interesting ways. More on that in a minute, but what they have in common, thankfully, is that at least the leaders in this space all seem to be acknowledging the importance of baking parent-child communication into product design and allowing parents to calibrate how much privacy … [Read more...] about 3 new products for monitoring online kids