The 4 Things You Aren’t Teaching Your Kids About Technology
Will you be the parent who has a real and honest convo with your kids about the benefits of using technology and how to use it safely, or will you be the parent who keeps your kid in some sort of unmaintainable, punitive, dark age of a household where tech is banned?
You are fooling yourself if you think outlawing technology at home is a means of safety. It’s only a matter of time before you experience an explosion of teenage angst that can only be likened to that seen in the greatest tale of American teenage oppression, “Footloose”.
I know this can be hard to hear, but your student does have access to some form of technology during the day, and they do have access to the ability to message random people in some way shape or form.
If you think the school has this situation on lockdown, you’re very wrong. Almost every student that we’ve met (and we’ve met a lot) knows how to get around the restricted sites at their school by logging in with a different account, using incognito windows, using sites that scrape the blocked sites on a school’s list to display the data on a website that isn’t blocked, and even spoofing an I.P. address.
If you think that your student is sitting on a computer in typing class and not playing games online while the teacher isn’t looking, consider this your wakeup call.
Kids are online. They just are.
Here is an example…
We have a photo release form that we ask parents to sign when their students enter our programs at South Bend Code School (it’s okay with us if they don’t sign it, we still take their students). We had one student’s mom be very adamant about not having her son’s photo online, and we were sensitive to her concern and complied.
On the first day of class, her son walked into our room, sat down at one of our laptops, Googled his name, and the first thing that popped up on Google was a photo of him.
Despite her concern for having her son’s photo online a mother who thought she was implementing protective measures for her child had failed at her goal.
It is my belief that these tools are here and they aren’t going anywhere anytime soon. It is better to prepare your child for the reality of the digital age rather trying to protect them from unavoidable truths.
With this in mind, I have broken down some of the common “need to know” aspects of the digital world based on what we have seen students, and parents, struggle with over the last few years of teaching. If you have a child who is either in, or about to enter, their teenage years, these suggestions are for you.
A lot of parents aren’t realizing this, but your child has probably signed up for an email account. They also probably have a ridiculous email address, like alexbdope1999456234678@yahoo.com. This type of email address doesn’t really give people a solid first impression, mostly because it looks like the kind of email address that spam comes from.
I’ll also mention that the number one reason they setup this type of email account is most likely to play online games during one of their classes in school.
As the guardian of this precious, naive, special snowflake, it is your duty to help them get in front of their prepubescent email problem. It is actually your duty to sit down and inform them of how to not look like a total jackass with their email etiquette.
Here are some easy steps you can take to help them:
- Don’t let them use anything other than their name (or a variant of their name) as an email address.
- Don’t let them use any platform for email other than Gmail. Sorry people, Comcast, Yahoo, Hotmail, and other fly by night email platforms are all garbage and don’t have the same capabilities and tools that Gmail has. Some of you reading this will have a Yahoo, Comcast, or (gasp!) an AOL account, and it is probably time for you start assessing your digital life choices as well.
- Show them how to manage their inbox. I can’t tell you how many sophomores in high school have an email inbox with over 2,000 unread emails in it. If your student has an email address that is a variation of their name and is using Gmail but has 2,000 emails, I suggest a purge. Delete them, delete them all. Start over with a clean slate and guide them through not letting this happen again.
- Help your student understand how to write an email. There is usually a salutation, a clear understanding of what you are asking for, and a signature. Don’t let them send crappy, unintelligible, emails to teachers, professors, and potential hiring managers.
- Show them how to file emails away for later or delete them to clear their inbox. Don’t let your kids develop the early habit of unorganized email. They will be using email even more than we do. It is going to be important for them to know how and where to find things they have received previously.
- Cover the safety tips. Let students know that their aren’t princes in Nigeria who will actually give them money, and let them know that they won’t need viagra for a very long time. Also let them know that they should never give any type of personal info through an email. Especially not their physical address.
- Let students under 18 know that you are the gate keeper when it comes to sharing personal info online and that you want to know when someone is asking. Soften that blow by saying if it is for something important we want to celebrate with you (like college applications) and if it is something scary we want to be sure things don’t escalate to a point where you get hurt (like talking with an adult they’ve never met in person).
Calendars
You’re doing a student a huge disservice if you don’t teach them how to use the calendar on their computer. We’ve met a lot of high schoolers who are in 20 after school activities on top of being locked in a building for 7 hours each day and they can’t keep a damn thing straight when it comes to scheduling.
In real life, school bells don’t ring to let you know when class is up, and your mom or dad won’t be there to pick you up and drive you to soccer practice (hopefully).
You have to be ready to manage your time and your schedule, and a calendar is the best way to do that.
Setting up a calendar in Gmail is a necessity…Hopefully you’ll have listened in the “Email” section of this post and used Gmail, but if for some reason you hate making life easy for yourself and you are on a different email platform there are still tools available for setting up a calendar…You have to show your student how to use the calendar tool and there is some time it will take to get comfortable with it, but if you have them practicing early it will only help later on.
Start with something simple like plugging in their class schedule and after school activities. Include blocking out weeks for breaks and things like that. If your student has an issue staying on top of this, help them out once or twice a year. The point isn’t to have them managing their schedule in a calendar app like the most buttoned up CEO, it’s to get them exposure to what using a calendar app is actually like.
You may think that this is overkill, but I’ve seen a ridiculous number of high school kids who should be old enough to get themselves somewhere on time fail at doing so. Kids (just like adults) are going to miss appointments from time to time. The key is accelerating their path to success in the future where using a calendar will be critical to managing life.
You need to show your kid how to use Google. You just do. I have a strong opinion that knowing how to learn is the most important skill a human can possess, and the number one way this happens in modern society is with a Google search.
If your student can’t figure out how to ask a proper question they are going to be fighting from a deficit for their entire life. And if your student doesn’t know how to Google to find answers on their own by the time they’ve graduated high school, every adult in their life has failed this student in the most fundamental way possible.
The next time your child asks you a question that requires some thought or explanation don’t answer directly. Say something like, “You know what, that is a really great question! Let’s use Google to see what we can learn!” Then pull out a computer or mobile device, hop on Google and get to searching.
If you are ready for the challenge, demonstrate the complexities of a Google search as you look for the answer.
For example, if your student asks where elephants live, don’t search the the words “where do elephants live” right away. Search the term “elephant” and show your student how to comb through the search results for the answer they need. Then say, “Hmmmm. I wonder what would’ve happened if we had just asked Google where elephants live?” Then do your search for “where do elephants live”. This will show your student that one result yielded the exact answer we were looking for in the first search result, and the other required us to explore more for the answer.
Little exercises like that will show a student how powerful Google can be in a really inadvertent way.
Social Media
This is probably the one you were expecting rather than all that Google stuff that came first (I promise I am not working for Google).
Social media is a big deal for a lot of parents, and I understand the concern. You have a kid on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Myspace (jk, jk), and you can’t see who they might be talking to, what they might be saying, and what images they might be seeing.
General Use:
I’ve seen a few different methods to handling this from parents all with varying results. One of the most interesting one was a mom who sat down with her daughter once each week and went through all of her social media accounts with her. I thought this was an interesting modern day replica of sitting at the dinner table and talking. “Oh, I see that boy you like gave you a like on Facebook!” or “Oh she said that?!?! I’m not sure I want you hanging around with her.” It’s just taking the old model of, “go play with your friends and let’s talk about it”, and turning it into “Go tweet with your friends and let’s talk about it.” It also gives mom the opportunity to see if anyone is saying anything inappropriate to her daughter.
The best strategies for handling social media with your child is not to impose martial law and prohibit them from all accounts. These tools (yes tools) are becoming more and more important in the modern world, and it is your job as a parent to guide your children through it.
Social media is here, and it is here to stay. We are going to be on these platforms for many years to come. You have to teach you kids what healthy interactions in a digital world looks like, as well as the unhealthy interactions.
Only recently are we starting to see parents who are digital natives. As a society we don’t have a lot of experience guiding young people through digital interactions that are healthy and safe.
The real burden is on the parent. If you know your kid is on Snapchat, or wants to be, you better damn well bust out your phone, open the app store, and start downloading Snapchat. You probably also want to Google it and see what all the hype is about. If you’re really smart, you can learn more about Snapchat and teach your kid how to Google all at once!
If your kid wants to be on Snapchat, they are going to be on Snapchat. You may have the keys to the digital kingdom in your home and outlaw Snapchat there, but you won’t have any idea when they go over to their best friend’s house and use their Snapchat account from their friend’s phone.
It’s going to happen. Do you want to equip your child with the ability to make smart decisions when it does?
Bullying:
Bullying by way of social media is where you’ll have to step up the parenting game a bit. Bullying on social media happens a little differently than the traditional schoolyard confrontation that Saturday morning cartoons prepared us for. You won’t always know if your child is being bullied or acting as a bully.
Online bullying can come in a variety of shapes and sizes and it is becoming more and more difficult for students while popularity on social media is clearly measurable by numbers of likes, retweets, and views.
However, it isn’t completely different than advising your child how to navigate the popular clicks (pun intended) at school or helping them understand that it is wrong to ostracize other students. The best way to handle this is to build you child up and help them to understand their self worth isn’t tied to a number of likes or the comments on their Instagram photo, and let them know that just as it is wrong to think that themselves, it is also wrong to imply that to others.
If you can jump to action early enough, you can help turn a negative comment into a life lesson. “It doesn’t matter what Billy says, do you think that the picture on Instagram is good? Yes? Then it’s good. Don’t listen to what other people think. Be you. ”
This is another scenario where it helps to talk with your child about what they are seeing online on a regular basis. Don’t fall into the trap of believing that social media doesn’t come with all of the emotional intelligence and self knowledge of regular human interaction. Sure, it’s a little different, but as a parent you have the responsibility of understanding what is happening out there in social media land, what is happening in your kid’s head, and how those two things intersect.
Professionalism
Jus as in the email section of this post, social media is something that people will make first impression judgements on. The difference is, it isn’t just an email address, it’s everything you post.
Here is where the trap is for most of the 18 year olds we meet:
The young person’s first interaction with social media is usually as a method of validation within their circle of friends. They’ll post what it takes to get the likes, shares, and views from their friend group. If their friend group is 14 years old when they start this, you’ll see the humor, conversations, and imagery of a 14 year old. Kids will be kids.
However, on most social media accounts, it is possible to see the entire history of the account. So when a high school student goes to apply for college, a college student goes to apply for an internship, or a graduate enters the job market, the stupid fart joke they made when they were 17 will potentially be visible to these potential employers or institutions.
*Note: South Bend Code School employs teachers, developers, administrators, and creatives, and we look up everyone on all of the social media platforms before we offer anyone a job…..and we go through the entire timeline. :)
It is your responsibility as a parent to let your children know that what happens online will be there forever. It doesn’t matter if you delete it, someone still has that data (also, you should know this as an adult if you don’t already). This can seem scary, but it’s the reality we live in and it is completely navigable. You just have to be aware.
A great way for parents to manage this early is to get on every social media platform your child is on, follow them, and turn on notifications for all of their accounts. Know that you aren’t going to be able to catch everything they do online, but we’ve found that with students, attitude toward what they put online changes dramatically when we say, “Your parents are going to be able to see this.” Yes, there are ways they will be able to communicate with their friend groups privately, but this is a good easy and low emotional cost way to be preventative.
*Note: It is also important to realize that professional interactions happen on social media. Being able to communicate effectively and professionally on this platform is critical in high school years and beyond. See the email section for message crafting.
Social Media Summary
Your kid is going to be on some kind of social media. We’ve met middle school kids who are figuring it out without mom or dad’s permission. They’re going to be on these platforms. As a parent, you need to know what the platforms are, know what to look for in terms of things that you find acceptable, and not be naive enough to think that your kid won’t be on social media just because they aren’t at home.
The long and the short of it is, you need to get your kids familiar with what tools, platforms, and forums exist online. If you are the type of adult who makes hokey excuses like, “I’m a luddite”, “I just don’t do technology well”, or “We need less screen time in our house.” You can only fool yourself for so long. Time to learn the skills, learn the tools, and learn what your kid is going to be getting into.
Education is the way. Learn it, know it, go through it with you kids together. They’ll probably take it for granted now, but they’ll thank you one day for being the cool parent who understood the value of these tools and the way to guide them through those tools safely.
Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this story please give it some love by clicking the applause button (Hint: you can click that button up to 50 times for a story).
Alex Sejdinaj is a cofounder of South Bend Code School, GiveGrove, and Code Works. He loves building cool stuff that helps people.
