Facebook Status and Your Teen: Know What they Mean

Is your teen acting withdrawn?  Secretive? Shutting down their screen as you walk by? Losing weight? Gaining weight? Changing friends?  Recent boyfriend break-up? Depressed?

Especially at the holidays, teenagers can feel blue just like some adults.  Know how your kids are feeling.

What are their Facebook status saying?

“Forgive me.”
“When will this end?”
“I hate my life”

RED FLAGS and parenting.  Know them!

Facebook is the social hangout of the internet for all ages, but it is particularly true of teenagers.

Teenagers often are much more open about what they are thinking and feeling in this cyber environment than most older adults. Since teens experience many emotional ups and downs, it can be easy to dismiss most of their dramatic postings as nothing more than normal teenage drama. However, there have been too many instances in recent years when parents had wished they’d paid more attention to what their teenager had posted as their ‘current status’.

Here a few status updates parents should watch for and investigate further.

1. I can’t take it anymore. Although, this could mean anything from homework overload to sibling irritation, it could also be a cry for help from a teen who is truly overwhelmed with life in someway. It is not a status update that you want to ignore. Parents should take the initiative and find out what prompted this entry.
2. Text me. This may seem innocent enough, but, for some parents, it may be a signal that their teen may be trying to keep something hidden that needs to be in the open. Privacy and protection are always a fine line to walk with teenagers. Parents, however, should never hesitate to ask about the reason behind such a post.
3. Really loaded right now. If your teen is high enough to make this post on Facebook without thinking about the fact that their parents might see it, there is drug or alcohol abuse going on. Ignoring these types of problems does not make them go away.
4. Depressing song lyrics. Song lyrics are popular posts from teens. It may be what they’re listening to at the moment or a song that is running through their head. If the lyrics of the songs are continually negative and depressing, this could be an indication of the teen’s emotional state, as well.
5. No one understands. This is a common feeling during teenage years, but it is also one that can develop into a true depressive state. Seeing this posted as your teen’s Facebook status should raise enough concern for their parents to pursue the reasons behind the posting.
6. I hate my life. Again, this is not an unusual statement to come from a teen at different points in their adolescence, however, posting it as your Facebook status is similar to shouting it from the rooftops. It is always better to treat these statements seriously, than to ignore them as a simple impulse statement.
7. Forgive me, Mom & Dad. This kind of post would be one that should require immediate connection with your child. If it doesn’t mention what they are asking forgiveness for, it may be a subtle plea for you to stop them from doing something terrible. Take this very seriously!
8. You’re all going to die. In light of the terrible things we have seen happen in our schools, a teen who posts something like this should not be ignored. “I was just joking” is not an acceptable explanation for this type of post. A teen who posts such a statement publicly should expect inquiry from, not only his parents, but school and law enforcement as well.
9. I wish I were dead. Never assume these statements are words only. Any type of suicidal expression like this should be taken very seriously. Many parents have had the misfortune of finding out that even a verbal statement can be an indication of suicidal thoughts. A public posting of that thought should be taken just as seriously.
10. I hate my school. The key word in this status update is ‘my’. It doesn’t say ‘I hate school’, it is more specific than that. It would behoove the parents to find out what it is, about the child’s school, that made them post this statement, and what can be done to improve the situation.

Facebook status updates reach a lot of people, a parent of a teenager should definitely be one of those people who pays attention to what their child is broadcasting into cyberspace. It may be their way of trying to find out if anyone is really paying attention, and if anyone really cares.

Source: My ISP Finder

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Internet Safety and Teens

Teens will explore the Internet.
 
The ready availability of virtually anything and the generally unrestricted access the Internet provides is an irresistible draw to any teenager looking to explore. As a parent, you need to do what you can to keep them safe. Clever teens will get around nearly any form of parental control placed on the computer. It’s better in the long run, and much easier in the short term, to teach your teens to use the Internet safely.

1: Virus Protection.
The Internet is full of threats. Viruses show up all over the place, from e-mail attachments to embedded in downloads to fake programs. It’s essential that any computer your teen uses have adequate virus protection installed and kept up to date. It won’t stop a virus from being willfully — if accidentally — installed, but it will help eliminate most threats.
2: Safety Add-Ons. 
There are a number of utilities that can help make browsing technically safer. Spybot: Search & Destroy has an excellent immunization feature that blocks known danger pages from ever loading. Adblock+ is an add-on for most browsers that removes advertisements, including those embedded with malicious code. A good firewall can also help keep threats out.
3: Safe Browsing Habits.
Even the most sophisticated protection in the world won’t stop dedicated human error. It’s best to educate your teens on some safe browsing habits. Some good lessons include “if the virus scanner stops the download, don’t download it again,” “don’t download e-mail attachments from anyone you don’t know,” “learn to recognize advertisements pretending to be legitimate content,” and more.
4: Withholding Information.
The most dangerous thing a teen can do online is give out sensitive information to someone willing to misuse it. Teach them never to give out sensitive information. This information includes passwords, full real names, social security numbers, phone numbers, credit card numbers, usernames and other identity information. Anyone who has a legitimate reason to need some of that information can get it in other ways. No one will ever ask for it through e-mail unless they’re trying to steal it.
5: Complex Passwords.
Bad passwords are easy to guess, easy to brute force break and easy to steal. Good passwords are harder to remember, and people tend to write them down or set them to input automatically, which can be just as dangerous. Teach your teens to use good passwords and remember them. It doesn’t have to be a messy combination of letters, numbers and symbols. A good password might simply be a long phrase with capitalized words, a number and some punctuation. Such a password is easy to remember and hard to guess.
Accidents will happen. Everyone steps outside their boundaries at some point in their life. With some education and some safe browsing habits, your teen will learn firsthand after a major virus, and not identity theft or something more dangerous.

Special contributor: Paul Taylor

Author Bio:
Paul and his wife Julie both spend quite a bit of time coming up with ideas, blogging, and researching all things related to childcare. They take care of all the necessary information related to “babysittingjobs.com/”. He personally thinks his blog will help finding information on all things related to a babysitter.

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Terrible Things Teens Say Online About their Parents

Brace yourself parents!


Is this a time to say, "It's not my kid?"

Though venting their displeasure regarding parental rules and restrictions is nothing new for tweens and teens, the current generation isn’t limited to bashing their parents to one friend at a time over the telephone; now, they can air their grievances in one of the world’s most public forums: Twitter.

Here are ten of the terrible things tweens have been saying for generations, but now say with a hashtag to emphasize their point.

1. “It’s Not Fair!” – The battle cry of older kids for decades can now be shouted from the rooftops; it’s less than one hundred and forty characters, and allows plenty of room for creative hashtagging.
2. Physical Insults – Kids often speak without thinking in the heat of indignation; once upon a time, the hurtful insults about their parents’ physical appearances were limited to a few sets of ears. Now, anyone with access to a Twitter feed can see exactly what a tween finds disagreeable about their parents’ appearance.
3. “It’s My Life!” – Often used in tandem with the old faithful “it’s not fair,” kids that are just starting to assert their independence love to claim that they are, in fact, the masters of their own lives. Also like “it’s not fair,” “it’s my life” is short enough to leave room for heavy-hitting hashtags.
4. Airing Sensitive and Private Information – Kids that are angry or hurt will lash out in any way possible; often, this means sharing personal and potentially humiliating information. Before the days of social networking, the scope was limited to those that could physically hear a tween’s angry shouts.
5. “I Hate My Parents!” – Few phrases strike a parent to the heart like “I hate you.” Unfortunately, most kids will utter those dreaded words at some point, and today’s kids can also drive the point home with an angry tweet.
6. “You’re Not Even My Real Mom!” – When disputes erupt in blended families, an angry tween’s go-to response is “you’re not even my real parent!” When these statements find their way to social networking sites, it can create even more distance in an already shaky relationship.
7. “My Parents Are So Stupid!” – Mark Twain famously said, “When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished by how much he’d learned in seven years.” This age-old sentiment has been on the lips of kids for decades; now it’s on their Twitter feeds as well.
8. Using Foul Language to Drive the Point Home – Rebellious kids will often resort to profanity in an attempt to underscore their frustration and to elicit a response from parents. When they do so in a forum as public as Twitter, the humiliation a parent feels in this situation is increased exponentially.
9. “My Parents are Too Old to Understand!” – The young always feel that their parents are out of touch with modern ways of thinking; this sentiment is both tweeted and the belief in it exhibited by a tween thinking that their parents are too out of touch to operate Twitter in order to find their comments.
10. Name Calling – When kids resort to publicly calling their parents rude or profane names, it’s both a bid for acceptance from their peers and a way of exhibiting how “adult” they are. Twitter offers tweens not only a venue for airing their thoughts, but a platform for their peers to encourage their poor behavior.

Source:  Find A Babysitter

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