A Parent's 12-Step Guide to Facebook

Read the Writing on the Wall 

By Susan Flynn

Here’s a News Feed for parents out there:

Kids as young as fourth grade are routinely lying about their age to open Facebook accounts.

Colleges have rescinded admissions offers after discovering what they deemed troubling posts by prospective students.

Two Brookline, MA, high school seniors were arrested earlier this year after police learned of their Facebook chat that centered around plans to commit a “massive genocide” at school. They were just kidding, their attorneys told the judge.

“It’s not that kids are evil or bad, they’re just not wired well to use these tools thoughtfully,” says Doug Fodeman, co-founder of Children Online, a website that gives parents information and tips to help their kids navigate cyberspace safely. “Our experience has shown us that their strategy to deal with difficult situations online is simply impulse, whatever pops in their head.”

And probably, with the exception of Einstein, most of us are better off without the whole world knowing whatever pops in our heads.

For good or bad, Facebook appears to be more than a passing fad; 500 million people now use the wildly popular social media site founded in 2004 by then Harvard University student Mark Zuckerberg. It’s helping friends and family stay connected all over the world, and has forever changed how teens socialize with one another.

Even the movie The Social Network about Zuckerberg (Time magazines’ 2010 Man of the Year) was expected to do very well at this year’s Academy Awards.

Rather than fight it, Fodeman and others who study child behavior say parents can use Facebook to help teach children how to make good decisions by talking about who they choose to “friend,” what they and others post, and even what they “like.” His research indicates that 90 percent of all ninth-graders are now on Facebook.