We spend all this time parenting offline, how about online?

It’s funny to me, in our politically correct world, how something as simple as the inference a word has can change our emotional response to it. I’m speaking this moment of rules. Oooh rules are bad! As soon as we mention enforcing “rules” on our kids they immediately get defensive. Instead we seem to have discouraged rules and now we encourage “boundaries.” Boundaries seem to be ok with kids. Rules are taboo and to be broken whereas boundaries are simply pushed against.

Setting boundaries on our kids doesn’t mean forbidding them from doing things they enjoy. In my humble opinion it does the opposite; encouraging them to get the most out of whatever task they’re doing.

Consider our life as adults. We have boundaries on absolutely everything we do. We just usually prefer not to think about them. Who wants to think about the limits we have on our life? We’d rather focus on the enjoyable things in it. They’re still there nonetheless.

As adults, and even more so as parents, there are boundaries set on us daily. We have boundaries for what time we have to be at work, how we dress at work, what we do at work, what we can and can’t do while at work. We have boundaries for our kids schools. They have to dress a certain way, carry a certain kind of healthy lunch, be there at an appointed time.

We have boundaries set on us by our life; how much can we afford to spend on groceries in a given week, how much electricity we can use before the power bill is too high, the dreaded monthly mortgage or rent payment we have to make. All of these things are boundaries we have to work within as adults if life is to function smoothly.

For the most part we do the same with our children in the “real” world. They have certain grades they are expected to maintain in school. Those are boundaries the school sets for them. You can get an A, or a B, or a C. Anything within those boundaries is considered acceptable. They have certain ways they are allowed to talk to adults in most families, certain manners they are expected to follow at the dinner table, boundaries within sports and athletic activities. Children’s lives are full of boundaries. Their “digital life” should be no different.

1.  Don’t talk to strangers.

In the real world, you don’t let your kids talk to strangers, don’t let them catch rides with people you don’t know, don’t let them take off without you knowing they’re going, etc.

2. Connecting them to the Internet with no boundaries is one of the most dangerous things a parent can do to their children.

In the real world it would be the equivalent of giving them your car keys, filling the tank with gas, and letting them leave the house with no idea where they’re going, who they’re going with, or when they will return.

3.  Just like in the real world, it’s not usually your children you’re most worried about.

The boundaries aren’t because THEY are bad kids. If your kids are old enough to drive, then you might remember the fear as a parent you have when you let your child out on the road at night for the first time. Rarely are you concerned about their skills. You’ve spent the better part of a year or more teaching them how to act properly on the highway. It’s the other idiots out there we parents are most often worried about. The same is true in the digital age.

4. Set boundaries for your kids, and set them sensibly.

If your children easily accept ALL your boundaries, well… either you’ve got the best kids in the world, or your boundaries are a little too lax, or they know they’re smarter than you on the internet. Either way you might want to re-evaluate.

5. Limit time.

Most of us don’t let our kids watch more than a couple hours of television per night. Set a similar boundary for them online. There is nothing in a young adolescent’s life that is important enough online to require more than an hour or at most two of their day. I know some families who restrict their teenagers to 30 minutes a day during the week and 4 hours on the weekends. Amazingly, their kids manage to survive just fine.

6. Keep doors open.

If your have a 12 year old son, would you allow him to have a 12 year old girl in his room with the door locked until all hours of the night? Probably not, right? But why do you allow him to do it online for hours at a time? Tell your son that as long as he’s a minor and lives in your house that you’ll have his password and you’ll periodically reserve the right to see what he’s saying, and to whom. Set a boundary for what your expectations are for his or her behavior in social media, or even texting to friends.

7.  Location location location.

Consider restricting Internet usage to a location where you can safely feel like you have an eye on things. If the computer is in the living room, but faces away from you as parents, you don’t know what they’re doing. On the other hand you can pretty much guarantee that no adolescent is going to be searching for pornography when Mom and Dad can simply look over and see the screen.

8.  Know who they hang out with online.

In the real world you probably get to know your kid’s friends before you let them hang out together. Do the same thing online. Monitoring or having your kid’s passwords to their Facebook account is the digital equivalent of meeting their real-world friends. In my house I have all my kid’s Facebook friends as friends of mine as well. I don’t so much monitor their daily activity, because quite honestly it bores me to death, but I do keep an eye out on those kids who constantly post the “I hate my life” and “insert-four-letter-word-here” kinds of things. Those aren’t people I’d let my child associate with in real life, so I won’t let them associate with them online either. I have boundaries for the kinds of people I want affecting how my child develops. Yes, I know, you’re probably thinking that it’s overkill, but let’s put it all back into terms you understand…. which means back in to “real world” scenarios.

Would you let your kid go over to a friend’s house at, let’s say 15 years old, and hang out with an 22 year old that you KNEW smoked pot, drank nonstop daily, you suspected of selling drugs, and whom you knew had been in trouble with the law?

I’m going to assume you’d say “No. That’s crazy.” Then, why in God’s name, would you be OK with them hanging out with the same person in cyberspace?

Boundaries don’t have to be evil. Set times your kids can use the computer, places where it’s allowed in the home (not in their room with the door shut at midnight), sites they can and can’t visit, and people they can and can’t talk to. All you have to do is be the same parent you probably already are in the “real world” to them online.

If you find that it’s too much trouble to learn how to do all these things, consider simply not allowing them the tools at all. Would you buy your child a car, never teach them to drive safely, and simply hand them the keys one day simply because they’re “old enough?” To bring it closer to something near and dear to my own heart, would you purchase a dangerous tool, like a gun, one you’ve never learned how to use yourself, and then trust your child to be safe with it, even though you don’t know how to use it yourself? If someone did that, most parents would likely call Child Protective Services.

The Internet is just as dangerous a tool for your kids. Use it safely and wisely, and with boundaries.

AUTHOR OVERVIEW

Tommy Jordan

Tommy Jordan is a concerned parent you understands first hand the importance of protecting your kids online. You may have seen his tough love message to his daughter in response to her Facebook post that ended with him shooting her laptop eight times (over 32 million people have viewed it already on YouTube.) In addition to being a concerned parent, Tommy is the author of Internet and computer how-to books and the founder of Twisted Networx, a national computer and cabling support company. Learn more from Tommy about how to protect your kids online at http://www.8minutesoffame.com/.

Tags: Boundaries, children, Don't talk to strangers, Kids safe online, Laptop Shooting Dad, location, protection, Tommy Jordan