Article About Social Networking

Frisco parents share social networking Website fears

(Created: Wednesday, April 8, 2009 9:33 PM CDT)
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Students are about two steps ahead of parents n whether it’s technology, drugs or social trends. At least that was the consensus of the professionals leading “A Time to Talk, What Every Parent Needs to Know”—a parenting seminar held at Liberty High School

April 1. The event was coordinated by Ross Reedy, sociology and world history teacher at Liberty (and an intern-educational administration), and Brenda Russell, FISD Director of Guidance and Counseling.

More than 200 parents attended the event which focused on MySpace, Facebook, teen suicide and depression signs, and substance abuse.

Officer Tony Rike, Frisco Police Department Resource Officer for Pioneer Middle School explained the differences between MySpace and Facebook, noting that in MySpace a user must designate the privacy control in order to block just anyone from reading the person’s social network page while Facebook is more private because the user is in charge of accepting a new Facebook friend. MySpace is more popular with young people while Facebook is used by older people. Rike stressed that parents should monitor their children’s computer use in order to know what they are saying and what others are saying to them on social network sites.

“You must know their passwords, keep the computer in a common area and know what they are putting on MySpace or Facebook,” Rike said.

Rike noted that law enforcement knows that child predators are looking at social pages constantly. He displayed a page of an actual teenage girl in the Dallas area (without revealing her name or showing her face) but noted how easy it would be for him, an adult, to read her page n look at her picture and the personal information she had listed on the web and then go to her school and find her.

Social networking and texting are more than trends, they are now part of most teen’s lives, he noted. He urged parents to invest in monitoring software and to keep dialogue open with their children. “The monitoring system (at my home) lets me see where they are going back and forth to and it also takes the pressure off of them.” He said. Rike noted that his children need only tell their friends that their parents look at their sites to control bad language and inappropriate pictures.

But teens can be cunning when it comes to keeping their lives secret from their parents. Rike urged parents to insist on meeting new friends and on getting to know the parents of those students. One way students get around their parent’s monitoring is by setting up a social network account at another friend’s house n which their parents do not see.

Teen depression and suicide continues to be something parents must talk about, said Patti Kubanet, Hope Rising coordinator for FISD. Kubanet works with students and counselors for grief counseling and trains the FISD trauma team.

Kubanet noted that statistics indicate that six percent of the nation’s teens are depressed. Suicide has increased 128 percent among children from 10-14 since 1980. Suicide is the second leading cause of death among college age students.

Kubanet passed out wallet cards with the warning signs of suicide, which are:

* Suicide notes

* Suicide threats or hints such as “I can’t go on,” “nothing matters anymore,” etc.

* Giving away prized possessions

* Depression or withdrawal from activities and family live.

* Suffering a major loss or life change

* Abusing drugs and/or alcohol

Kubanet urged parents to listen to their students and their student’s friends. Numbers for a variety of help lines are available through school counselors and FISD is client of the ChooseToCare anonymous tip line which any community member may use if they are worried about an FISD student’s behavior.

Drug and alcohol abuse is often a sign of depression and Amee Nash of the Green Oaks Health Care and Tommy Blakeman of Collin County Substance Abuse discussed and provided a display on signs and trends in drug abuse. In the Frisco, Plano area the most common drugs in use include: marijuana; pain killers (often stolen from medicine cabinets); and abuse of cough and cold medications. Mixtures involving drugs and cough medicines can cause hallucinations and death. Even marijuana is not the marijuana of yesteryear. A new trend is marijuana soaked in embalming fluid, which can be very dangerous, particularly to students who have a family history of some types of mental illness. Methamphetamine use is down in this area but still an area of concern.

Nash encouraged parents to insist on family time and to avoid leaving teens and children in unsupervised situations. Blakeman urged parents to visit http://www.netlingo.com for information about new drug names or phrases being used by teens.

Parents with concerns about their children may contact their school counselor for websites and local resources.

Email addresses for the speakers at the seminar are:

RikeT@friscoisd.org

KubanetP@friscoisd.org

Amee.Nash@hcahealthcare.com

Tblakeman@co.collin.tx.us