Henry Jenkins, in his blog article, Raising the digital generation: What parents need to know about digital media and learning, discusses the challenges that parents face in understanding and sharing technology with their children. According to Jenkins parents are given little, if any, advice in how to address these challenges, and as I thought about it I find that I agree with this, somewhat. He goes on to say that most advice is “just say no,” keep it out of the bedrooms, and that the more a parent restricts access the better a parent is. Why is this completely wrong?
Not all parents have a negative view of technology, and there is nothing wrong with being aware and cautious in our usage. I am not advocating that we completely restrict access either, because that would be completely counter-productive considering today’s society and our dependence on technology; but to say that keeping track of your kids is a bad thing? How do we help our kids understand what’s good and bad if we don’t know what they’re doing? I’m not advocating spying either, I’m just saying that there has to be a happy medium. There are legitimate concerns over why not to have computer in kids’ rooms. I don’t think that applies after a certain age, but I also don’t think a 10 year old should have unrestricted and unsupervised access to whatever they want either…there are too many predators out there, even in cyberspace. Jenkins mentions in his article that a good way for parents to be involved in what their kids are doing online is to be involved as well. I completely agree. While they can’t be involved in everything, they can at least know enough to know when to intervene. Another way is to completely open and willing to answer questions. If a child knows that “mom” or “dad” will answer any question they have without passing judgment they are much more willing to approach them for help. Parents are still parents and kids are still kids…which means kids are not equipped with complete understanding at birth, that’s why they have parents. To denigrate or belittle the role of a parent in the quest for unrestricted access is wrong. I’m not saying that’s what Jenkins is advocating, by any means, but sometimes I feel as if that is where we are heading with our insistence that there be no restrictions. Filters serve a purpose and it is the right of a parent to decide what those filters are. Personally, I believe that children should know why there are filters, they should understand that there is harmful stuff in the world, but they should not need to access it just because they can.
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