Answering parents' MySpace questions

How to keep real-life friends?
"What if your child likes his MySpace, or in my kid's case, YouTube, persona so much better that he lets go of past friends at school? He has shrunk his life down to just YouTube because it's easier. How can this be healthy?" — Susin C., Framingham, MA

Rosen: Adolescent development requires real-life contact.That’s tough if the kid has given up all his offline friends. It seems like his behavior has reached the stage of an addiction. That’s really important for the parent to understand, why is my kid doing this? When MySpace use becomes addictive, you have to apply different rules. You can’t make somebody go cold turkey just like you can’t take cigarettes away from a nicotine addict. Addicts want to be rewarded with what they’re addicted to. Practicing the addiction in a public place tends to reduce the behavior. Much of addictive behaviors are done behind closed doors. It’s addictive because it’s done privately and exciting. And in public, it loses its allure.

Steinberg: It’s not as healthy for your social network to be an electronic one than a real one. But for a kid who doesn’t have any friends at all, YouTube offers some social contact rather than none. If your child doesn’t have any friends in the world other than those he met on the Internet, I would try to figure out why that is. Research says is that it's important for kids to have at least one good friend. If your child has one good friend in the real world and spends a lot of time on the Internet, I wouldn’t be concerned. One close friend is more important than being popular for mental health.

Cybersnoop on children?
"I am on [my daughter's] friends' list so I can read her bulletins, I also monitor who she's talking to and find out what is happening in her world. Sometimes this is the only way of knowing about what's going on with her because she is more likely to share with her friends and publish to the world than share with her parents. Is this normal? I just don't want to rely on MySpace to learn about what she is doing and problems she is facing. When should I step in and get her to talk to me instead — or should I?" — Anonymous

Steinberg: During early adolescence, it is perfectly normal for kids to want privacy as part of the process of growing up. That’s why they start closing their bedroom doors. Privacy is important because your child is struggling to develop an identity that is separate from you. Parents who don’t allow privacy, their kids are more likely to suffer from anxiety and depression. So a parent needs to find the right balance of being involved and being intrusive.

Pascoe: Kids do need their privacy, but they have to earn it. Spying on them without their knowledge is not the way to do it. It’s in general a bad idea. It’s not going to bring you closer. The trust and conversations have to start offline. You have to actually listen to your child.

Grant kids some privacy?
"I have a 12-year-old daughter who logs on daily. I asked her for her password, and she said she didn't want to give it to me. She is basically a very trustworthy, good girl, so I decided to respect her privacy. I told her she needed to be prepared for random audits, where I would have her log in, and I would check her comments, messages, and some of her friends' profiles. So far I have performed three or four audits. She has been very willing to log in whenever I ask, and I've never found anything questionable. Should I be concerned that she doesn't want to give me her password, or this just a normal desire for some privacy?" — Anonymous

Rosen: Developmentally, younger kids are not ready to handle a variety of issues they could encounter on MySpace. The brain of a kid is different than that of an older adolescent. The part of the brain that is primarily for making decisions and multitasking doesn’t completely develop until the late teens or early 20s. Being on MySpace, kids are always making decisions. A small amount of MySpacers are approached sexually or experience cyberbullying. All the research shows, when faced with somebody coming onto them, 95 percent of 12- to 17-year-olds do handle it well. But when something does happen, the younger the kid, the less adept they are at handling it. You have to do more monitoring and pro-active parenting than with older kids.

Pascoe: The password thing is such a hard one. Different rules may be appropriate for different ages. It might be more appropriate to watch a 12-year-old. If she proves herself responsible, she doesn’t have to share her password anymore. You can’t get their password and just go on without their knowledge. You have to have a conversation as a family. You have to promise not to rat out their friends to their friends' parents. Your child can’t get in trouble for what their friends say. That’s really humiliating for a child to be the kid whose parents ratted out everybody.

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