lpnmajor Loc: Arkansas

One of my children expressed concerns that his son was using the internet too much and staying up late socializing on his phone. I suggested he take the phone, tablet or wh**ever away at bedtime. His response? "it's HIS phone". I was flabbergasted, to say the least. Who bought the phone, I asked. Who pays the cell phone bills? I tried to explain to him, that it was HIS phone, not the boys, it was HIS cellphone plan, not the boys, it was HIS home, not the boys - and it was HIS responsibility to set the rules and enforce them. I know for a fact that this was how HE was raised, so I failed to understand how he had forgotten those lessons.

It turns out, that availability and access has created false "rights" in some folks minds. here's the deal: Children do NOT have the right to have cellphones, or access to the internet - they just THINK they do. When parents do not educate their children on the difference between a "right" and a "want", these errors occur. Sure, kids will bug the piss out of their parents with "everybody has one dad!", but even if you give in to that, parents STILL have a "right" to set the rules.

Rights have responsibilities attached to them, ALL rights do and that's how you tell the difference. I'm sick to death of seeing story after story of children exploited through social media, all the "sexting", the kidnappings, murders and all the other evil stuff that happens - all because of unrestricted internet and cellphone access. "Well, I respect my child's privacy" is a damn cop out - and a load of crap. A child does NOT have a right to privacy, but the parents have an obligation to protect the child from it's own ignorance. How can a child be bullied online - if it is the parent who sees the posts FIRST?

The bottom line is, children do not set their own rights, nor should they be setting any rules and for damn sure, nobody else should be setting them for the parents. Parents have abrogated their RESPONSIBILITY for raising and protecting their own children, preferring to demand that websites and/or the Government do it. That's total cow doodoo.

Parents have the right, the authority and the obligation, to know exactly what their child is doing on the net - and setting and enforcing strict rules for it's use. Children have NO rights at all - except for the right to be protected from their own lack of judgment and discernment - provided by their parents. There are even apps that allow children to hide what they're doing. Where is the parental outrage? Where is the demand that this be stopped? Where were the parents BEFORE this happened?

Just because you CAN do something, does not mean you SHOULD - and parents need to be making those calls, not their kids, or some corporate doofus. One of my school districts banned phones during school hours. That was a smart move, as the kids were constantly on social media, instead of paying attention in class. The PARENTS complained about it - because their kids complained - and the school was forced to reverse that decision. Shame on those parents!

Children do NOT have a RIGHT to access social media, that is a privilege, the parameters of which are under the parents control. Children do NOT have a RIGHT to access the internet either, that is also under the parents control. When parents don't know the difference between a RIGHT and availability or access - the children suffer - and that is simply unacceptable.

Squiddiddler Loc: Phoenix

Your right on everything you say. Now if Parents would only listen.

L8erToots

Just as some children have invisible friends that they blame for doing bad deeds, some parents have an invisible authority they blame when they don't want to take on (the sometimes unpleasant) tasks of parenthood:
"They won't let us spank (or use any form of punishment on) our kids!" - the invisible CPS worker
"They are (or aren't) teaching our kids..." - the invisible school administrator
"They are allowing my child to be bullied"
"They are forcing my child to eat crap at school" - the invisible Michelle Obama
The list goes on and on.
I'm blown away by the endless cries of parents insisting that some invisible entity living in their homes named "They" is preventing them from being good parents. I have news for these parents - "They" can be found in the mirror.

PaulPisces Loc: San Francisco

I agree with you 100% lpn.

There's a reason kids under 18 cannot enter into legally binging contracts: they generally do not have the reasoning sk**ls to understand what they are doing. There are a lot of other decisions they do not have the life experience or sk**ls to make, and you have enumerated some of them.

Parents are the ones responsible, and until the kids are old enough it's the parents that need to be help accountable.

Kevyn

You are on the money for most of this but there is one big thing you are overlooking. Computers and devices are the way not just kids but the entire world now communicates. To isolate a child entirely from the use of these devices robs them of sk**ls that they are likely going to need to function in the business world and society in general. Young adults now almost universally have keyboard sk**ls limited to executive secretary's a couple decades ago. They have mastery of computer programs and applications that someone my age dosnt realize exist. Jobs ranging from the medical fields, communication, advertising, design fields, and running machinery require these sk**ls and a kid so going to be at a big loss if they aren't being exposed to any of it before their 18th birthday. That being said, limiting the use of the things to reasonable hours, monitoring the use to keep kids safe and teaching them to protect their privacy is very important. It is a difficult world in many new ways. For eternity youth have had conversations with each other that their parents weren't and probably shouldn't be privy to. Now all of that stupid talk is recorded for posterity on facebook, emails, text messages tweets and dozens of other places. One of the most important things to do is teach young people the ramifications of their foolishness and for that matter recognize it for ourselves.

lpnmajor Loc: Arkansas

:thumbup:

PaulPisces Loc: San Francisco

Overheard on a SF bus yesterday, mother talking to what I would guess is a 4 or 5-year old (for the life of me I cannot guess kids' ages!):

"Today is a reading day; tomorrow is a Nintendo day. But for every hour you play Nintendo today I will deduct an hour from the next Nintendo day. That means if you keep on playing you might not have any Nintendo time left tomorrow."

The kid immediately put down his Nintendo and started reading.
So he gets in his reading time and learns about authority, as well as negotiations and time management all at the same time!

lpnmajor Loc: Arkansas

Yep, but that's another subject. My oldest son teaches school, he's the IT teacher - and even he doesn't understand that there's no such thing as security in the ethernet. Once you hit "send", it's out there forever on some server somewhere and available for whoever knows how to find it and cares to look.

The technology advanced far faster than folks thought processes and there's no catching up now. It still amuses and outrages me, that sensitive Government stuff is still on a network - connected to networks off site - and they can't figure out how that stuff gets into Chinese or terrorists hands. These toys didn't come with a set of safety instructions.

Parents can hardly teach kids anything THEY don't know and they don't know plenty. Some "old school" learning would help.