- Ask them where they hang out online: Have them show you their favorite sites and games. Then have them help you build a profile, create an avatar, play the game.
- Ask them about their privacy settings: Find out if their profile or blog is public for the world to see or just for their friends.
- Be their guide: Help them evaluate and find credible Internet sources for homework as well as to be critical of sites they go to for fun.
- Set limits: Tell them when to turn it off. Limit multitasking when studying.
- Teach teens cyberethics: Emphasize what’s different about bullying online, the public nature of the internet, plagiarism and cheating
- Keep the computer in a central space. Even if they have a laptop up until they are 16 or you feel like you have built enough trust for them to compute in their bedroom.
- Ask if you can be their online “friend” so you can see who their “friends” are. Some parents make it a condition younger teens (13 and 14) who may be on social networking sites for teens 13 and up.
- Know their buddies. For younger teens, ask them to go through their IM buddy list and tell you who everyone is. If they ever want to meet an online friend in person, insist on going with them.
- Encourage them to tell you when something bad happens: Promise you won’t “take the internet away.”
- Talk about appropriate use: When to put their phones on silent, not to use text messaging acronyms in papers for school, not to record and post “hidden camera” images of their friends.
Anastasia Goodstein via Totally Wired on valuable conversation points for discussing social internet use with your teenager. (Click through to her article for more detail.)
