I first read about Laura’s conversation with her young son, T-man, on her blog, Riddle From The Middle. As soon as I did, I wanted more parents to hear her story. She re-wrote for us. Here it is.
At the risk of sounding incredibly old, it’s a brand new world out there. Okay, we’re not flying around in cars or anything, but if you’d told me ten years ago that I’d be carrying a computer in my back pocket or wearing one on my wrist I’d have said you were nuts. Sometimes the technology changes so quickly that it feels like another universe from the one we grew up in, but that’s the deal with parenting. You climb on board this roller coaster and it’s not like you can just hop out when the going gets tough, so you learn and adapt.
We have an 11-year-old son, and I thought we were pretty tech savvy in our house. Our kids don’t have phones. We’d set restrictions on all of their other devices, banned texting, and only authorized e-mail with certain relatives. They also know I do weekly tech checks on apps, internet history, and Netflix.
I really believed we were doing everything we could, right up until the night I was tucking my son into bed and he asked what masturbation meant. Now he’s growing up and it’s an age-appropriate question, but the way he asked about it seemed…off. That’s when I learned that despite our best efforts to lock down devices and monitor activities, he’d still wandered into a Minecraft chat room where the discussion took a questionable turn.
All you need is a user ID to enter a chat room where four users interact in real time. According to my son, there was a “14-year-old guy” in the room asking another user personal questions about puberty and having The Talk and whether he masturbated, and this guy kept on prying even though the other user never answered.
My stomach clenched. This required a serious heart-to-heart.
We talked about internet safety — how being safe means much more than not giving out your name and address. It means protecting yourself in a million different ways.
I told him about child molesters, and why a Minecraft chat room is a perfect hunting ground for them. How one seemingly harmless answer to a personal question can snowball into a relationship that sneaks up on you, and before you know what’s happened it seems perfectly normal to be talking about your sex life with a stranger. So then when they suggest meeting up somewhere you think it’s a great idea…you’ve been talking online for months so you’re friends, right?
Bless him, there was real surprise in my son’s eyes when I pointed out that the “14-year-old guy” in that chat room might actually be a 45-year-old man from South Carolina or a neighbor down the street who’s pretending to be a stranger. That anybody on the internet can be anyone or anything they want to be.
We’re more vigilant now about monitoring his devices, but the reality is that parents have it rough. The internet grows so rapidly that changes I make today might still leave loopholes for my son tomorrow. Technology can be a powerful tool, but we have to stay alert if we want to keep our children safe while they use it.
About Laura:
Life can get hectic with two kids and two furry dogs underfoot, but writing RiddlefromtheMiddle.com brings some fun to every day. Family, music, photography, writing…I’m grateful to have so many things in life that bring me joy. ~ Laura