As Milwaukee-area students prepare to head back to school next month, author Devorah Heitner suggests that now is the time to do a technology check-in with kids to set boundaries and kick bad habits.
Heitner is the author of the book Growing Up in Public. She consults with school districts across the U.S. on technology and how to regulate it in children's lives.
She says the start of a new school year is a great time to review your family's rules on cell phone and social media usage. It's also a great time to discuss boundaries, time limits and what to do if something goes wrong for your child when using social media.
Not sure where to start? Here are Heitner's four takeaways for this start of the school year check in:
1. Ask for permission to post "first day of school" photos
Heitner says anyone who uses social media should understand asking for consent to post photos or details of others online. And parents can be the closest and most effective model of that.
While it's tempting to snap a first day of school photo and post it online, Heitner recommends asking a child if that's OK first (and understanding if they say "no.")
"We need to be thinking about the risk, especially in an AI-world with facial recognition," she says. "Especially in situations where they may not be OK with it. We absolutely have to respect that."
She also adds that posting a child's grade, school and extracurricular activities online can give away important information about your child's location and schedule.
"You may want to think about just sharing that photo in the family," Heitner says. "Maybe you do take the cute picture with the backpack, but maybe you only send it by text to the grandparents. Maybe it's not something you post in a public way."
2. Help them follow school's guidelines on cell phone use
While Milwaukee Public Schools have had a phone ban on the books since 2010, districts like Muskego leave it up to teachers, while Racine and West Bend only allow phones in common areas like the cafeteria.
It's important for students and parents to know what the rules are and support each other in following them. Heitner says that means not texting or calling a child during school hours for non emergencies.
But Wisconsin’s patchwork of rules on cell phones appears to be going out of style.
A report from the Wisconsin Policy Forum earlier this year showed that at least 19 states have banned phones outright during class time. Sixteen more states are considering it, including Wisconsin.
3. Understand the impact social media has on their mental health
Heitner doesn't have a hard-and-fast rule on how old a child should be to have a cell phone or a social media account, but your family might.
Social media can impact children differently, so she says it's important to have regular check ins with young users in your family.
"For some kids, social media is a place where their identities are affirmed, where their social connections are celebrated and where they find really great information and they have a really good time," Heitner says.
While some children's' experiences with social media are truly neutral, there's also a dark side. Young people can access content that encourages self harm or mutilation of animals. They can also connect with people looking to harm them.
"For some kids, (social media is) mostly negative," Heitner says. "There's more harm than good because maybe their algorithm is focused on something really harmful or they've gone down a road of connecting with people that are really unhealthy or toxic."
4. Discuss tracking your child's location
The final takeaway from Heitner is to think through the implications of tracking a child's location with apps like Life 360 or the "Find My iPhone" function on Apple devices.
She argues that it's crucial that a child know their location is being tracked if a parent is going to be keeping tabs on them. Doing so without a child's knowledge could destroy trust in the relationship.
It's also good to discuss when a parent will track their location. Maybe parents will track a student for the first few days of school while they're walking home, or for the first few months after they get a driver's license.
But Heitner reminds parents to not follow their child's location constantly. And don't let it replace good, old-fashioned parenting.
"It's very important that we think about 'is this going to cause more or less anxiety in the short and long run?'" she says. "Teach kids what to do in the situation that you're planning for ... What are the skills and self-advocacy I need to equip my (child) with so that I feel safer letting them do things like go to the library after school, play on the playground after school or walk home independently?"
Katherine Kokal is the education reporter at 89.7 WUWM - Milwaukee's NPR. Have a question about schools or an education story idea? You can reach her at kokal@uwm.edu
