Rachel Dretzin, the producer and director for a Frontline special entitled, Growing Up Online, agrees that kids pose the greatest threat to each other online. Her documentary shows how children can lead other “cyber lives” by adopting online identities and sometimes risky behavior. Other children can fall prey to cyber bullies.
“I personally think kids might not be mature enough to handle it (the Internet). When is it too much for them? … There is a heartbreaking story in the film of a thirteen-year-old kid who killed himself after being bullied online for months,” says Dretzin.
A few days after I interviewed Dretzin by phone, I read that seven teens had killed themselves in Britain after conversing about suicide and getting memorial profile pages on Bebo, a UK social networking site.
I watched Dretzin’s amazing Frontline documentary and it shed light on so many things. First, the Internet, MySpace, Facebook, Webkinz and Club Penguin aren’t the enemies. Social networking, blogging, and chatrooms will not go away and children will want to explore. It’s easier to talk to a computer than to others face to face. On a blog, children can post their favorite music, videos, and books and reach out to others or talk about personal problems or issues that they might not do otherwise. In some ways it can provide a creative and cathartic outlet. But when children are too young for this, they can be swayed, especially by the bullies who become much more aggressive online. A pretty girl might giggle and walk away from a shy boy who says hi—and likely not be mean to him face to face. Online, that same pretty girl may behave in ugly ways—even taunt and tease and say horrible things. Kids can post lies about each other—or even post things pretending to be someone else to start rumors. In the world of junior high, this is big stuff—and stuff that parents will have little to no knowledge that their children might be dealing with.
So, how do we help our kids navigate this brave, new world? Dretzin, also a mom of three, outlined what she has learned from her research and from her personal life:
1. Don’t put computers in your children’s rooms.
2. It’s okay to read your children’s email and blogs and chats until they are older. “At thirteen, a child doesn’t need privacy yet. This isn’t a diary,” Dretzin says. She adds that she lets her children know that she plans to read their emails and will continue to do so until they are fifteen years old—when she feels they’ll be old enough to make mature choices.
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