This should be the online mantra for our kids

The FCC recently published guidelines for social networking safety for tweens and teens.  There are some really good tips in here that every parent should read.  We all know that we have to teach our kids to look both ways before crossing the street.  That's a no-brainer.  What is less clear is how to guide them through this new terrain - the world of social networking.

The first concept you must get across to your kids is that there are two types of communication available to them today.  There is the one-to-one model, which, of course, includes calling someone on the phone (whether it is a cell phone or land line), an email message, a text message or an instant message.  These are all somewhat controllable messages, in that your child writes a message intended specifically for that recipient.  

Then there is "one-to-many communication."  This is a venue that not too long ago was relegated to writing articles for newspapers, editorials, being interviewed on television or radio etc.  Today, our kids have many more options available to them.  Hello Internet.

Today, our kids are writing blogs, conversing on their facebook wall, taking photos of themselves with their cell phones and posting those photos on their facebook pages.  All of these actions fall into the category of "one to many communications."  The implications are far reaching unless you educate your child about where all these postings actually end up.

In the case of Facebook, anything posted on your wall ends up on all your friend's walls.  That gives them the ability to copy and paste whatever your child wrote and share it with anyone THEY happen to be friends with. Those people may not even know your child.  And of course, if they choose to share with THEIR friends, then the information your son or daughter posted on their own wall, thinking they were just talking to their buddies, ends up on the wall of someone in California.  And your child hasn't even been to California.  The same goes for the photos they are posting.  Girls in particular seem to have taken to photographing themselves and their friends at a rapid and furious pace.  All that is fine, unless it ends up in the wrong hands.  The way you prevent that is by monitoring the privacy settings your child has on their facebook account. Settings should be on the most restrictive they offer.

The way around this is to educate your children about the two types of communication available to them and the situations where it makes sense to post on their wall and when it doesn't.  You also need to sit down with them and review their privacy settings.

And finally, I think the most important lesson to get across to them is that once they post something, whether it is on a blog or on Facebook, it is forever there (even if they delete it, because that posting may have already been shared down the pipeline by others who saw it on their wall).  So when they let loose and swear up a storm about something -- there is a permanent record of that.  And although it might be difficult for them to envision someday having to interview for a job, those seemingly innocuous posts may come back to haunt them.

When we were growing up, we had the privilege of living in a time where we could change our persona and circle of friends fluidly as we matured. Who were were yesterday dissolved into only the memories of those who may have known us back then.  There were no permanent records. Today, that has all changed, thanks to social networking.  Our kids will still go through their own evolution, but now it will be recorded for posterity forever.  Good or bad.  As a parent, please help your child make sure their legacy is good.

Does anyone have any ideas on how to get some of these concepts across to our teens and tweens, who, of course, will tell us they know everything???