Anya cited Weblogged who cited Anne (ha!ha! ha! - so many citations) all reaching to this article about a mother who is so enlightened that she has realised that not only are blogs not harmful, but they could also be educational.
Well, yes, I agree this is what we are all driving after, but I am not sure I see this parent (great credentials 'single mother of two') as liberated and enlightened as Weblogged does.
I may well be a bit too lackadaisical in my care of my two teens, but I would never feel I should vet their friendships anymore than I would stand at the edge of the playground; follow them round town; or check out who they spoke to at the bus stop (etc.)
I agree that it is important to try and ensure that your children make sensible decisions about others; that they are careful etc, but the idea of signing contracts is way out of my league:
This is what Laura, ('single mother and freelance journalist') says:
'Like any privilege, computers can be a lesson in responsibility. Before gaining access to the computer at age 13, my children had to sign a computer contract of appropriate online behavior (see box below). They learned early that Internet privileges stem from whether I (the bill-paying head-of-household) think that they (the eager self-expressive socializers) have a full grasp of the issues. The contract was a first step in proving their understanding of what was at stake.'
For what it's worth, I think that teaching kids values is not a one off where you swear to agree to a contract, but shown through daily lived experience and ongoing discussions about people, about life, how to judge situations. And after that you have to trust and let them take their own risks.
I cannot believe she insisted on being able to access her 16 year old daughter's Xanga blog!! Surely a blog can be private if the blogger wants.
When Laura writes:
'To keep a blog going, you have to have the discipline to write daily. This puts today's young bloggers on the fast track to future Pulitzers. To keep your friends coming back, you have to be interesting, funny, intelligent, relevant. These kids are all that and more. Once I got past the immature spelling and punctuation (along with usual teen slang and vulgarity), I was treated to some of the best poetry I've ever read. '
I think the blog is being judged in a way that is inappropriate and intrusive. I'd like ,to think beyond the idea of blogs being just a training ground for novelists; how about being a good blogger fullstop? The spellings I have observed are not immature; what kind of comment is that?
Yes I AM glad about the fact that she does say some good stuff and may be encouraging othes to be less bigotted; but I think we need to ask for even more understanding than this.
OK. Am I being mean to Laura?
Am I too permissive with my kids?
Have I been cossetted by my own good luck of having kids who act responsibly? (Am I naive?)
Or are they like they are because I DO trust them?
One little anecdote: my friend's Mum used to stand at the back of youth club discos when we were teenagers - just checking that she did not kiss boys. But I can tell you, where her Mum did not follow (i.e. in the youth club cloakroom) she did things her Mum did not dream of - but was the only one who did behave like this.
What do you think of that?
About Me
- Joolz
- Sheffield, South Yorks, United Kingdom
- I am an academic interested in New Literacies, Digital Lifestyles, Informal Online Learning.
10 comments:
Hey! I object to being linked as though I supported that! *grin* I liked some of the points about Web 2.0 that were made in Weblogg-ed's Internet Literacies slides. But I find the constant obsession with moral panic over the internet painful. I think its more an American thing. There are whole school districts in the US that have banned blogging, flickr-ing and any other sort of interesting online experience for kids. I completely agree with your objections here.
Ooops sorry Anya I did not assume you agreed with it but can see I have made it look that way. I was just keen to show where the link came from as I did not want to pretend I had found the link myself...
Really sorry that I now realise it looked like I was criticising you ...
Having said all that the article has made me think some more about the tracks we make through the web and am going to post on Blogtrax today on this very matter.
I have not yet looked at the slide show but will do - yesterday I was on my apple mas which would not recognise that format of powerpoint for some reason. I'll try on my pc today.
Anyway sorry again - I disrupted our lovely friendship for a moment there.
Awww no need to apologise, not for a teensy tiny milisecond was I upset otherwise I wouldn't have given you a *grin*!! I look forward to reading Blogtrax :>
*huuuuuuuuuuugs* A
Hey,
It is an American thing, I think, and please don't count me among those feeling moral panic about the Internet. I'm trying to ease people here in precisely the other direction. And, I'm not agreeing with every point the author makes either, although I do think that there is a general lack of understanding by parents here about what their kids are doing online. Liberal, no, but enlightened? In this country, definitely. These days, finding any story in the American press that says kids and the Web are good for each other is rare.
Sorry I even offended you for a milisecond Anya.
Will, Hi! I think that here in the UK too most parents have a kind of moral panic thing about the web too and I s'pose my reaction against the article is due to my being a bit fed up with having to defend my views to parents of my kids' friends etc. After a while, you just want everyone to wake up and REALLY REALLY see what is good, and not be locked into the terror of paedophiles hanging on every site (etc.). I also want people to trust their kids more, let them learn to be autonomous .. oh dear listen to me again, preaching to the converted. But I just want to get on with moving those parents on, helping the kids who are NOT part of cultural pioneers so called 'digital generation' and I feel like we are waiting aaaaaages for some people to wake up and meanwhile the digital divide widens more.
So yes, I should not have gone off on one quite so much with that article which as you both rightly say, IS a step in the right direction.
(Maybe I need a holiday?)
Although I can't claim to be a slack mum, if I had children I am sure I would be! The idea that a blog means having the discipline to write daily depresses me.. we are back to the argument about play/work in terms of literacy. For me (as a very new blogger) the power of blogging is that it is a space to push boundaries and play- that doesn't seem to sit well with a daily chore. Sounds like a good way to turn kids off literacy via digital media to me.. a bit like those OAPs in Weymouth or wherever who have taken to wearing hoodies to make them uncool..
Hello Mary Plain and Hello Chris.
Thanks for joining in. I have now put a post here (http://blogtrax.blogsome.com/2005/07/29/paths-through-the-net/) on Blogtrax my metablog, saying more on all of this.
But the summary is that I have decided I have been very luckty in my online experiences and have been pretty much protected from any online nasty stuff partly because of the priveleged paths I have trodden - i.e. academic bloggers etc etc and have judged the whole Internet from my own experience. Those without such cultural capital take different paths through which may or may not be so 'cosy'.
I definitely agree with MaryPlain that blogs do allow you to play and I still love the power of this kind of text too.
And yes Chris, I agree some schools are SO strict; I have seen student teachers' lessons ruined more than once because of unreasonable blocks on certain sites.
Hi Dr Joolz,
having read the aforementioned article, I have to say that I absolutely agree with you. My son who is 12 and is just about to satrt high school was required to sign something very similar before being allowed to use the internet at his new school and he was highly unimpressed.
He has access to the internet at home and I trust him, consequently when he has come across something unsuitable he has told me and we have had a discussion about it.
Web blogs are like diaries and I believe it is up tp the individual whether or not they are private (whatever the age), although I would ask my son not to use his real name etc.
Goodness gracious - this posting has been even more popular than your 'shall I shan't I' resign at the gym!
I agree with you - and also would be more concerned about any parent standing at the back of a youth club disco than the behaviour of their children!
By the way, at the end of your youth club discos, what was the snogging slow dance song? For me it was "I can feel it coming in the air tonight"!
Enough said.
Bye for now
Gosh this is pretty much a fab response. I guess that we bloggers are likely to have the views expressed here; I am obvisly preaching to the converted I suppose. It is really great o know there are so many slack Mums out there - although this is not relly true is it/ We are enlihtenned and we are teaching kids to be responsible by giving them responsibility.
Hurrah for us!!
And about the snoogging song - I am afraid it was often Donny or Michael Jackson - 'Ben' rings a bell I think. Or even 'Bridge over troubled water!!' I guess the best was 'Angie'.
(Shame 'Ben' was about a pet rat'. No wonder Jacko ended up warped.
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