Tips for Social Networking Students

Sandy Schachter, guidance counselor at Crofton Middle School has advice for parents to help youngsters safely navigate social networking.

“Parents really need to teach and model appropriate online behavior,” Schachter said. Teach kids to:

• guard their passwords and change them often
• only "friend" people they have actually met in person
• keep their language clean
• only post things they would say to a person’s face
• not talk about others

Lisa Eliot, a mother of three who has held various parent volunteer positions and is Facebook friends with many teens, echoed Schachter’s advice and added a few more tips for parents. Parents should:

• have their own Facebook account
• know their child’s passwords and login as them to check their pages
• become Facebook friends with their children and make sure they have access to their child’s wall

Eliot will delete a friend from her account if they block her from writing on their wall.

“Trust is a two way street,” she said. Many teens request her as a Facebook friend because they want access to the team sports pictures she posts online.