Cyberbullying, Sexting, and Fighting: What Is the School's Responsibility?

Jenny Evans — Sat, 27 Aug 2011 06:11:08 +0100

Legislators often demand that schools take more responsibility for students who engage in cyberbullying, sexting, or posting fight videos on the Internet – even when it doesn't happen in school or during school hours. One major question many parents are asking themselves is: can a school possibly police their students' online lives? And even if they can, should they?

Actually, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that schools can discipline their students for activities that occuRead More...

New Jersey Teens Can Now Sext Each Other Legally

Jenny Evans — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 17:29:57 +0100

Parents have watched as sexting tweens and teens across the country have been charged with creating or distributing child pornography. States are struggling to address the problematic behavior of teen sexting, but many legislators feel that applying child pornography laws is misguided.

For instance, New Jersey recently passed a bill specifically targeting the issue of minors who send nude or racy photos of themselves to each other consensually. Minors age 12 through 17 who share phRead More...

What's the Right Age for a Cell Phone?

Tim Woda — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 04:00:00 +0100

How old was your child when they got their first cell phone? 14? 12? 8? If your pre-teen is begging you for a phone of their own and telling you that “all their friends” have one – they're probably not lying. The average age of kids who receive their first cell phone is falling like a brick.

A Pew Internet Forum survey in 2009 asked parents of cell phone owners the question, “How old was your child when s/he got her/his first phone?” The average age waRead More...

Teen Video Sexting

Tim Woda — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 04:00:00 +0100

Sexting used to mean sending nude or racy pictures to someone else's cell phone, but today's teens are upping the stakes with a new kind of sexting. Sexting is evolving from pictures to video – and video sexts can be twice as dangerous and twice as risky.

Most parents know that sexting in any form carries a lot of heavy consequences, ranging from damaged reputations to criminal charges. Once a sext is sent, the sender has no control over where it ends up or how it is used, anRead More...

Impact of Online Gaming on Teen Sleep

Jenny Evans — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 04:00:00 +0100

Like most things teens might do to fill their time, online gaming has its pros and cons. Gaming improves hand-eye coordination, encourages problem solving, and can foster teamwork and social skills (in multi-player games.) On the other hand, too much of a good thing can be, well, bad. Several studies have followed the effects of gaming in teens, including the latest released by the American Psychiatric Association revealing a correlation between too little sleep and Internet gaming.

Proposed CA Legislation on Social Networking Privacy

Jenny Evans — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 04:00:00 +0100

Every parent knows that children on social networking sites need to vigilantly safeguard their privacy. Apparently lawmakers know that too, and legislators in California are proposing a new bill aimed at protecting the privacy of social networking users.

Initially, the proposed bill only applied to users under 18, but that provision has since been struck and the bill would now apply to users across the board regardless of age. It would require social networking websites to:

CookingGames.net for Girls

Jenny Evans — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 04:00:00 +0100

Online gamers used to be mainly teen boys interested in playing first-person shooter and car racing games. But the face of online gaming has changed significantly in recent years. CookingGames.com is one of the many recent start-ups that caters to the preteen girl gamer market. Its tagline? “Why should boys have all the fun!”

The free games at CookingGames.net are very simple, brightly colored, animated games with titles like Pink Girls, My Cute Puppy, and Justin BieberRead More...

Boys, Flirting, and Sexting

Jenny Evans — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 04:00:00 +0100

Most of the time, when we talk about sexting (the act of sending nude or suggestive photos of yourself via cell phone) we focus on the harm it does to our girls. Of course I’m concerned about the risks of our girls posing for racy photos and distributing them – especially in high school – but what about our boys? Boys sext, too, almost as much as girls do.

Why do boys sext? A lot of reasons: peer pressure, to be funny or gross, or as a form of flirting. In fact, bRead More...

Disable Geotagging on Your Kids' Smartphones

Jenny Evans — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 04:00:00 +0100

Did you know that people can tell where you were when you took a particular photo? We're not just talking about identifying landmarks in the background, we're talking about geotagging.

Geotagging happens when you snap a picture on any device with a GPS chip: it embeds detailed information about where, when, and how the photo was taken, including latitude and longitude coordinates that generally pinpoint the location to within 15 feet.

Without even being aware of it, your chilRead More...

Lowering the Minimum Age for Facebook

Jenny Evans — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 04:00:00 +0100

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerburg told the public at an education summit in California last month that he wants to get rid of the requirement that Facebook users have to be at least 13 years of age. He says that Facebook is an avenue for education that should not be denied children under 13.

Current legislation (the 1998 Children's Online Privacy Act, or COPPA) forbids sites like Facebook that collect information on its users to allow children under 13 to sign on. Of the COPPA legislatiRead More...

Evolution of Social Networks

Jenny Evans — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 04:00:00 +0100

Every site has a brand in the collective opinion of your teen's peers – ask and your kids can most likely tell you which social network is for professionals, older people, or younger teens. (They can probably also name the social networks where they are most likely to be approached by shady characters, scam artists, and pedophiles.) And when it comes to what's hot or what's popular, social networks are constantly evolving.

When social networking seriously appeared on the markRead More...

Is Facebook Depression Real?

Jenny Evans — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 17:27:00 +0100

“Facebook depression” is a term that first started showing up around March of 2011 after studies linking depression and overuse of social networking sites were publicized. How real is Facebook depression, many parents wonder, and should we be worried?

Several groups report on the Facebook depression phenomenon, including the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP.) Follow-up studies have also replicated the findings: depressed teens are more likely to report excessivRead More...

New DARE 2B Cybersafe Program Takes DARE into the 21st Century

Jenny Evans — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 04:00:00 +0100

Remember DARE? If you're like me, you were probably part of the DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) program when you were in elementary school. In fact, I can still recite the saying, “DARE to keep kids off drugs.” I think I even have a ruler printed with the slogan in a drawer somewhere.

Since 1983, DARE has partnered schools and law enforcement officials to teach kids how to avoid involvement with drugs, alcohol, gangs, and violence. In addition to the old standardRead More...

Teen Relationships – Stalking By Text

Jenny Evans — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 04:00:00 +0100

Texting is how most kids communicate – it's easy, it's fast, it's convenient, and teens always have their phones with them – but sometimes it can go too far. You've heard of cyberbullying, but have you heard of cyberstalking and text harassment?

Statistics from the U.S. Justice Department reported in 2006 that 23% of stalkers used texting and email to harass their targets. And the kicker is that with texting the victim has to pay for it, sometimes as much as 15 Read More...

Facebook, Twitter Worst Innovations of Decade, Says U.K.

Jenny Evans — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 04:00:00 +0100

Earlier this week I wrote about the many constructive ways our kids can use social networking. A recent survey conducted in the U.K. reveals that many adults don't feel quite as positive about social networking.

Anyone who knows a teen with a MySpace status-checking addiction knows that social networking can be a perfect way to waste time. According to one survey in the United Kingdom, Facebook and Twitter ranked among the “worst innovations of the decade”, most likely Read More...

Positive Ways Teens Can Use Social Networking

Jenny Evans — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 04:00:00 +0100

Maybe it's just the parent in me, but when I hear the words “social networking” and “kids” in the same sentence I get a little tense. There are so many things we need to worry about when our kids start using Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter: cyberbullies, online predators, sexting, loss of privacy – the list goes on. But don't forget that social networks can be a great way for our tweens and teens to get involved in good causes, spend their time productively, and dRead More...

Peer Pressure, Girls, and Sexting

Jenny Evans — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 04:00:00 +0100

Given the number of teens participating in a sexting incident – approximately 25% by the time they leave high school – sexting is every bit the plague-like phenomenon the media makes it out to be. Sexting is the taking and sending of racy pictures or sending racy texts to someone else. For those of us parents who didn't grow up with camera phones, the biggest question about sexting might be: Why?

There are many reasons why kids seRead More...

Gamers Beware of Hackers

Jenny Evans — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 04:23:30 +0100

The gaming giant Sony has been hacked twice in the last few months, compromising the identities and personal information of millions of users worldwide. Even when users think their information is completely safe, it never truly is on the Internet.

The first hack occurred between April 17 and 19, affecting 77 million PlayStation accounts. Personal information such as names, addresses, emails, birthdates, and PlayStation IDs, logins, and passwords were accessed. Credit card informatiRead More...

Be an Example of Safe Online Behavior

Jenny Evans — Thu, 19 May 2011 04:00:00 +0100

Have you used on the same passwords for the last decade? Is your Facebook account still using the default security settings? If so, you may want to think about the example your own Internet use is setting for your kids.

If we expect our teens and tweens to think about protecting themselves and being selective about what they share and with whom on the Internet, we have to model that behavior ourselves:

Require a password to access your computer
Install a password on your wireless nRead More...

Protecting Privacy on YouTube

Jenny Evans — Mon, 16 May 2011 04:00:00 +0100

YouTube is quickly becoming to online video sharing what Kleenex is to facial tissue, or what Band-Aid is to adhesive bandages. It's the most popular video sharing site on the Internet by a long shot, getting more than 100 million views per day. When it comes to YouTube, teach your kids to be over-protective of their own privacy – because when a video clip goes viral on YouTube everybody knows about it.

Of course there are upsides to the awesome viewing power of YouTube. MusiRead More...

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