Do You Know Where Your Kids Are?

When school starts this fall, one thing that school staff are not looking forward to is the drama caused by social media.

“We haven’t had major problems with it here,” said Sandy Schachter, guidance counselor at Crofton Middle School, “but it does interfere with students’ ability to learn if they’re worried about what’s being said online.”

“We see students who are up at 1, 2, or 3 a.m. on Facebook,” she said. Now that students can log into Facebook through their cell phones, it’s harder to control access. Eighth grade girls in particular are like sponges and quickly become addicted, she said.

“Words can be powerful tools and they can be very hurtful,” Schachter said. “Words like ‘slut’ or ‘whore’ get used a lot in type, but I don’t think the kids would say it to someone’s face,” she said.

Once it’s online, word gets around, people are treated differently, and it can destroy someone’s self-esteem, Schachter said. We have had situations where children say they hate coming to school because of what’s being said about them online, she said.

“The key is to expose it,” and “put out the fire,” Schachter said. We talk to the students about breaking the code of silence that can lead to depression and other mental health issues, she said.

The school teaches students that being a “snitch” stands for “Someone Needs your Involvement To help them Choose a different pathway to Happiness.”

If something inappropriate is posted online, make a copy of it, print it, and give it to your parents, Schachter said. When you sign up for an email account or with an internet provider, you agree to certain terms. Making threats or saying certain inappropriate things can be the grounds to close someone’s account.

If you send an internet or email provider a copy of the inappropriate material, the provider can take steps to shut the account from which it originated. The child posting the malicious statements is often under their parent’s account, so the parent of that child might lose internet access. It can be a “mighty motivator” for behavior changes if parents know that their child’s behavior is endangering their internet access, Schachter said.

Studies show that students in middle school do better with a small group of really good friends, Schachter said. But Facebook opens them up to many, many more people than they can handle.

Debbie Schmidt of Crofton and her daughter Michaela, who will be in eighth grade this fall, purged Michaela’s Facebook friend list when it reached about 1,000. Kids accept people as friends that they don’t even know that well, Debbie said. “I don’t think kids realize how serious the Internet is and how people can hurt you,” she said.

For a while Debbie was checking Michaela’s wall daily, but she has not checked it as much since the friend purge. The daily checks do make a difference. I don’t post certain comments because I know my Mom will make me delete them, Michaela said.

Kids develop “chameleon personalities” where they change what they say online based on what they think the person they’re talking to wants to hear,” Schachter said. Then they’re called liars, she said. It’s a vicious cycle.

Kids need to realize that who they are communicating with may not be the person they say they are. Multiple people may be passing around the phone or computer and posting under a friend’s identity.

Michaela Schmidt recounted an incident in which one girl wanted to know what others at Crofton Middle thought of her, so she created a new Facebook profile using another female student’s identity. She even copied the other girl’s photo. Then she started asking questions about herself to see what types of responses she got.

Friends soon realized they were dealing with an imposter. The situation was resolved when the imposter apologized and took down the page.

“The bottom line is that kids will find away around any safeguard you put up,” Eliot said. They can create a new Gmail account and create a profile that you don’t know about, she cautioned.

Children need to be taught how to use social media appropriately, Schachter said. It doesn’t come by instinct, she said.