In a gigantic departure from yesterday's silliness, I come bearing a serious question: "How do you, as a Christian parent, choose to monitor your child's cell phone and internet activities?"
I only ask because I have an 11 year old son who has earned himself an iPod Touch by doing electives work at school, and has already announced that he cannot wait 'til he's old enough for Facebook, and his father and I are well aware that we're in uncharted waters here. Chilly uncharted waters.
I've spent the last several months watching the interactions between parents and children on Facebook, and asking questions about cell phone privileges to a number of friends. I was hoping there'd be a discernible pattern of wisdom, but so far, parents are all over the map in their coverage of what their kids are saying and doing online, and posting/downloading to their phones.
I've seen everything from teens posting partially nude photos, nasty music and obscenities that their parents don't ever seem to notice, to the opposite end of the spectrum, where one parent openly stalks their child's every online move--friending all the child's friends; inserting themself into every single conversation; engaging in chatting more appropriate to a teenager than a middle-aged parent. Both extremes make me cringe. Both extremes will probably end badly for those families.
We need a better plan, and we'd love some input from Christian families who have walked this road. Since Facebook and Twitter are a few years away for Connor (preferably when he's 30...), we're currently concentrating on the best roadmap for appropriate, God-pleasing cell phone use.
If you're working through this, or you've found a good way to train a young cell phone user, please consider answering these questions:
1. Do you have a written contract, or code of conduct, for your child's cell phone behavior, so they know exactly what is expected of them? What are the consequences of a departure from the established rules?
2. Do you monitor their messages, calls and downloads? If so, how often?
3. Do you restrict whom they may interact with, via texting?
4. Have you ever had to block an individual from contacting your child? If it was another child, did you notify their parents about WHY you felt you needed to do this?
5. Do you have any sort of monitoring app installed on their phone? If so, what is it?
6. Is your child required to check with you before downloading apps or music?
That's all for now. (Unless I think of more--which is entirely possible!) Wow, this is a lot more complicated than when I was a teen and our only choice for calling someone was to use the rotary dial in the livingroom with Mom sitting 10 feet away, pretending not to listen!
