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  Are Kids at Higher Risk of Bullying?

  Bullying has existed since the playground was invented. Kids will be kids, and sometimes they will cross the line into dangerous behavior. While bullying isn’t new, bullies do have novel ways of accessing their targets now that technology has been added to the mix. And we as parents (and teachers) need to understand some of the new ways these behaviors are expressed—and what to do about it.

  First of all, just as in the analog world, you need to be able to discern between everyday, run-of-the-mill hurt feelings and more serious behavior (I’ll address many of these issues in more detail in chapter 6). How do you know when the danger is elevated? Trust your instincts. Aside from the intensity of the harm, the frequency of the incidents is an indicator that the problem has risen to a level of concern. When your kid is the subject of intense haranguing, threats, or even blackmail, the situation becomes highly emotional. Kids and their parents struggle to resolve these issues.

  We need to give kids very clear guidelines for when they should reach out for help. I’ve encountered numerous stories of kids blackmailing other kids, threatening one another, and worse. We need to be sure our kids can come to us if they feel threatened or are being coerced by others. Let your kids know that if someone tries to harm them, you’ll help them. They need to know that your help is unconditional—even if they’ve broken the rules and are using a social platform you’ve forbidden, for instance. Their safety is important, and no one is allowed to mess with them! A bully’s or abuser’s threat, “I’ll tell your parents what you’ve been doing,” is less effective if you let your children know that they can always come to you.

  Of course, it’s up to you as a parent to make rules and set boundaries. There is no uniform set of standards your child’s school or local law enforcement will use to handle problems like bullying or harassing behavior among kids. One of the most important things you can do in an ongoing harassment situation is to cut off the harasser’s contact with your child. This will keep your child safe, but keep in mind that she might feel like it is a punishment if you are cutting her off from friends.

  Realize that your child may not perceive the situation the way you do: “If you tell anyone…” is a threat, plain and simple. Explaining this to your child will let him know that he has rights, and that this behavior is aggressive and must be stopped.

  Kids are much more likely to be able to deal with the ups and downs of drama and concerns about missing out than with bullying or harassment, but it is important to acknowledge any feelings of ostracism and to take them seriously if it does happen. Some schools are much better at dealing with instances of harassment than others. If the school has supportive policies in place and your child is being treated badly by school peers, you can collaborate with the school to get some help. You might also look for counseling in the community with a social worker or psychologist who has experience with young people experiencing social challenges.

  Are Kids Seeing Inappropriate Content?

  It goes without saying that the Internet is filled with things you’d prefer your child not see. Violence, sexual content, and other intense, adult-oriented content has no place in a child’s world. Our fear that kids will be exposed to upsetting content is realistic, and the issue is bound to come up, even if your child wasn’t seeking the inappropriate images he sees.

  So, what do you do if your kid sees pornography or other content you wish he hadn’t? With very young kids (pre-K to second grade), try not to freak out. Ask your child, “What did you see?” Assure him that you are not mad at him, but you are sorry he saw something “not for kids.” Ask, “How are you feeling?” and give him space to talk about it.

  This can be a different conversation for different age groups. One parent told me that her six-year-old daughter was shown pornographic content by another six-year-old at a friend’s house. This mom told her daughter that she would go to “kiddie jail” if she tried such things, in a panicked attempt to protect her from inappropriate sexual experimentation.

  While the mother’s panic is understandable, a fear-based response could backfire and actually increase the child’s interest. As calmly as possible, you should tell your child that she saw something intended for grown-ups and that it is not for kids. Let her know that most grown-ups don’t even watch those kinds of videos, and say, “I will help you make sure that you don’t see something like that again.”

  Kids are drawn in by social pressure. The “fear of missing out” (FOMO) is a real thing. This is why you’ll want to give them the language to use so they can remove themselves from situations where they might feel pressured to join in. Empower them to walk away, turn the computer or other device off, and say, “That it is not for kids,” and “I don’t want to see that.” It helps to have this discussion before a problem arises, if you can.

  What If What They Saw Wasn’t an Accident?

  If your kids are in third to eighth grade or beyond, assume there is a good chance that curiosity led them to find inappropriate content. This can be hard on parents, because we don’t want to believe that our children would do such a thing. Remember that it is natural for kids to be curious, and they are learning boundaries. The positive thing is that you’ve stepped in to help them—at the right time.

  It is okay to say, “Adults make content for other adults,” and let them know that even many adults feel that such content is not positive, or that it demeans women, or that it depicts a narrow view of sexuality. Pick your own line—you likely have strong feelings about the subject, and it’s perfectly reasonable to let that show.

  One woman reported that her nine-year-old searched “sexy naked ladies.” This is a kid who needs good information, to be told his interest is normal and not aberrant. But this is also a kid who—like all kids—does not need to be doing unsupervised Internet searches.

  Deborah Roffman, an expert on sex education, thinks parents should do as much as possible to keep young children away from pornography.2 Roffman believes that seeing graphic performances that are devoid of context strips sex of its meaning between people. She advises that, if your children do see pornography, you talk to them about how different it is from real sex. She also advises that you talk with your kids about the possibility that they will see “naked people” on the computer, once they are old enough to search, and ask them to come and talk to you if they do.

  In Sexploitation: Helping Kids Develop Healthy Sexuality in a Porn-Driven World, author Cindy Pierce points out that parents she interviewed claimed their teenage boys don’t view pornography, despite research suggesting the average age of initial exposure to pornography is eleven. Pierce says, “Almost all the boys and young men I have interviewed count on their parents’ naiveté. Guys share humorous stories about parents bragging to other parents about how much time their sons spend studying in their bedrooms.”3 As kids get older, Pierce shares that it is important to let them know that their sexual desires and fantasies are normal, but that pornography could make it harder for them to enjoy their relationships once they are ready for partner sex.

  At one of my talks, a mother told me that her eighth-grade son had become addicted to pornography on his phone. When his parents found out about his viewing, they confronted him and he admitted that he felt unable to stop. In this situation, putting a filter on the phone—and each home device as well—could be helpful in breaking a habit that the boy himself said he wanted to change. Obviously, friends, and possibly even the local library, still have unfiltered devices, but making the constant flow of Internet pornography less convenient might be enough to help some kids in this situation.

  No News Is Good News

  Whether the material appears on TV, YouTube, or Facebook, there is a lot of content beyond pornography that you wouldn’t want your child to see. This has happened to me personally. While I was speaking with a group of parents at a school in New York City, my five-year-old son was staying with his grandfather. He sneaked downstairs while my father was watching the ten o’clock news, and he saw a terrible act of violence that had been filmed by a bystander and replayed on the news, as well as all over the Internet. This video was not something I would have wanted my child (or even an adult) to witness. We talked about how scary it was, and I listened to my son and answered his questions honestly, but in an age-appropriate way. And my husband, my dad, and I all talked about how to be a little more vigilant in the future.

  Kids’ interests may lead them to unexpected places. For example, a young man I know loves to watch extreme weather videos, but he was unprepared to see graphic video of injured people after a tornado. Because YouTube and other websites can feature graphic violence as well, it is worth asking yourself when your child is ready to operate independently on the Internet. Come up with a plan together for what to do if he sees something scary or upsetting.

  Kids are More at Risk, in General

  Lack of understanding leads to fear and suspicion, which is why I’m such a strong believer in giving parents, teachers, and school administrators as much information as possible about kids’ digital lives. Information, coupled with a strategy, affords you more power over the difficult issues surrounding life in the digital age. Two issues that many parents ask me about are connecting with geo-tagging and talking to strangers.

  Geo-Tagging

  Mobile devices have precipitated a huge change in our culture, to say the least. A decade ago, we didn’t expect to know where our friends, spouses, and children were at all times. Maybe we could picture our kids at school, walking home, or playing outside, but we didn’t know for sure. And when we were eleven, twelve, or thirteen, our parents certainly did not know our whereabouts constantly.

  At least, mine didn’t … I still remember a police officer asking me
if I was Devorah Heitner—I was thirteen and walking with a friend in New York City. My friend and I had gone into the city to celebrate his birthday and were wandering around Greenwich Village like the suburban kids we were, trying on sunglasses and eating dollar slices of pizza. Turns out, his parents were holding a surprise birthday party for him and he was out walking around with me instead! The cops were annoyed but also amused. My friend’s parents called the police to find us, but this scenario is unthinkable today—the parents would have just texted their son, in the unlikely event the kid was in an unknown location in the first place!

  Not only are we always reachable now, but geo-tagging is a “new” concern as well. With every post, every check-in, and every message about where we are, we are leaving a trail. You may want to know where your kids are, but do you want everyone to know where they are? The dangers of that are pretty obvious.

  Talking to Strangers

  Through social platforms and online games, people whom you don’t know may have access to your kids. The Internet makes it easy to be anonymous or, worse, to pose as a child in order to make contact with children. Though this is a real danger, try not to panic just yet. The good news is that, the research shows, most kids don’t want to connect with strangers. Most kids, most of the time, want to use technology to connect with people they already know.

  But they might not mind playing Minecraft with strangers. They also might enjoy using apps that offer them the chance to speak with people across a wider geographic area, so some apps, games, and sites may potentially be problematic.

  The most important thing to remember is that you want to know what your kids are doing with any given app. The app itself may be harmless, but their actions are what’s important. With whom are they using the app? What kinds of experiences and interactions are they having?

  Clearly, you don’t want your young kids on dating apps, hookup apps, and those that are focused on connecting with strangers. Having a policy for young users that any new app needs to be parent-approved seems sensible, but know that kids can hide icons to make it appear that they don’t have a particular app. In general, monitoring leads to more monitoring, so talking with them about their app use is often a better way to know what’s going on.

  The most important insurance against your children having bad experiences is letting them know they can come to you. Even if they have done something they regret, they need to feel that they can talk to you about it. If kids don’t feel isolated, they are far less at risk.

  When you read stories of kids extorting one another you have to think about how isolated the victims felt. These kids felt that they “had to” do what the aggressor asked, even against their better judgment. We want to help our kids understand that someone who would try to extort you cannot be trusted. The more of yourself you give, the more power you give up, and the more vulnerable you are to continued harassment. This is a critical message to impart, because kids may end up in these situations and have no idea how to get out of them.

  Putting Knowledge into practice

  Awareness of digital safety and etiquette is important. Talk with your child and see if she can come up with some reasons why it might not be great to let everyone know where you are at every share. Aside from safety concerns, has she considered the possibility of hurt feelings? Waiting to share certain events and activities is a strategy kids sometimes use to diffuse the sense of exclusion other kids may feel when they are not invited. A simple solution is to turn off geo-tagging/geo-tracking—and for many families, this is a helpful decision.

  Invite your children into conversation about how to make the best use of digital devices. What are the issues surrounding technology use? What are the benefits and dangers? How can you make good decisions? What are the family criteria for green-lighting an app or game? What are the criteria for when to be connected and when to unplug and how do they align with your values? We’ll get into all this and more throughout the book. While there are a lot of things we don’t want our kids to be doing with technology, we will focus in this book on how to live with, and actually thrive with, technology day to day. Let’s start by taking a peek behind the curtain at your kids’ digital lives.

  CHAPTER 2

  The Kids Are Alright

  Kids’ knowledge of technology may seem intuitive. After all, they learn it quickly and become fluent in new applications rapidly. But that doesn’t mean they see the whole picture. They still must be taught explicitly to use technology for its best purposes—and they are best taught by you.

  Here’s an example. My five-year-old reorganized my apps into a folder labeled “Grown-Up Apps.” The spelling (GROONUPPP) was a dead giveaway that it was his handiwork. Just because he can organize a smartphone interface doesn’t mean he is ready to go to the app store and choose high-quality kids’ apps for himself, do his own Internet research, or get his own smartphone!

  Studies show that, for all their fluency, kids still demonstrate a lot of weaknesses when it comes to their tech world. For instance, they don’t always know how to evaluate and interpret data.1 They also have too much trust in the results of a quick Internet search. “Just Google it” may seem like the answer to everything, but as parents, we can help our kids cultivate true digital literacy. We need to help kids understand how to evaluate sources and have a sense of how they should rank a source of information for quality and truthfulness.

  Kids learn some digital literacy skills in school, to be sure. Teachers are more tech savvy than they have ever been, but you can’t guarantee that digital skills will be a meaningful part of the curriculum. Even in schools where information literacy is emphasized, educators and parents tell me that kids don’t always apply those principles in their personal searching and reading. Doing research with your child about a historical or current event, or about a destination where you plan to travel, is a great way to assess his skills in this area.

  The good news is that kids want to get this right. They want to create a positive impression and be a good friend in online gaming and social media environments as well as in person. By high school, most of them tell me they want to avoid drama. They are creating content, sharing fan fiction, and using social media in fun and appropriate ways. Let me share some voices of kids to give you a sense of their perspective. And, of course, ask your own kids to fill you in as well. You’ll learn a lot!

  What Kids Do with Technology

  “What are they doing on there?” It’s a question parents ask me constantly, expressed as an urgent worry. I’ve interviewed a lot of kids, and I have answers for you. What they are doing might surprise you. I’ve taken what I’ve learned and categorized the activities in four ways:

  •

  They consume (and create) content

  •

  They control their digital world with varying amounts of help/success

  •

  They connect with others—constantly

  •

  They are mean to others—sometimes

  Let’s look at each of these activities briefy, so you can get a window into your kids’ digital world.

  They Consume (and Create) Content

  While kids may not always be great at evaluating the quality of information they find, they certainly know how to search for it. YouTube is their go-to search engine, and the world-dominating search engine Google (at least at this writing) is also a huge source for kids. Ask your kids to search for something. They’ll likely have the answer for you before you finish asking the question! While some kids are consumption junkies, many others create as much as they consume. The tools for creation are so accessible now that most kids are creating. Even five-year-olds can make videos.2