Parents, we have to. No matter how much they protest or complain about an invasion of privacy. Without this type of parental guidance, our children are roaming dangerously in cyberspace. I began to better understand the risks of this new playground while attending a social media conference here in Charlotte. I got the point about our kids but I realized that many of us Baby Boomers are just as naive about our online privacy.

Why, the social media experts asked, do we put our birthdays (with the actual year), religious views and other personal information on Facebook pages? Just because it was requested on a form? Why do our children think nothing of wanting to plaster their images all over MySpace? Because that’s what their friends do? Many of us parents do the same thing on Facebook.

Here’s the advice from the experts: Read and understand the Facebook and MySpace privacy settings and make sure you reserve some information, such as family photos, only for your identifiable friends. If not, it’s all free territory for anybody with an internet connection. Talk to your children, over and over, about using good judgment about what they say and do online because it never goes away. Monitor them during the turbulent high school years. A study this week showed that 70 percent of employers now do online searches on applicants, young and old.

My daughter grunted when I told her we would be having a family meeting to talk about sensible use of the internet. I’ll be looking more into privacy matters to help both of us. What about you?

As a start, check out www.mashable.com, an online guide to social media.

Related posts:

1. Monitoring Facebook and MySpace
2. How much privacy should teenagers have?
3. Say it loud: there is no privacy on the internet

This new study from the Kaiser Family Foundation tells us this: Average American youths between ages 8 and 18 spend virtually all their time, except for school, using a computer, smart phone, television or other electronic device. They constantly send text messages and talk on cell phones. They surf the internet while listening to music on their ipods. Even the authors of the study said they were stunned  by the dramatic increase in media use since similar research was done five years ago.

In the meantime, obesity is increasing among our young people because of their sedentary lifestyles, and eating habits. The Kaiser study found that a significant percentage of the heaviest media users had lower grades and behavioral problems, though the findings could not determine whether the media use causes those problems. 

Some experts say it’s time to stop debating whether this reliance on electronics is good or bad but to accept it as a part of the environment. Parents, what are we going to do? We aren’t powerless, though trying to help our children manage the use of all these devices is challenging and frustrating.

I’ve set up rules of etiquette for texting and cell phone use, and a limit on computer use for fun. My 15-year-old daughter seems to always be listening to her ipod. She complains that I’m a mean parent for not allowing her to send late-night text messages. It seems as if the cell phones and ipods and other electronics are somehow addicting and our children just lose themselves when they’re using them.

Parents, speak up. How are you maintaining some control in your home? Send along your tips and advice. We need to help each other.

Related posts:

1. Teaching cell phone etiquette
2. Are we raising confident, self-reliant children?

I know too many people who don’t do anything to recognize the legacy of the civil rights leader. Instead, it has become a shopping day, a day to sleep late, a day to clean up, or a day to run errands. Don’t waste the holiday, please. We must make sure our children not only understand the role of King and others in ending segregation and other injustices, we must teach them that they, too, must continue the fight for access to higher education and for economic parity.

It took supporters 15 years to win enough votes in Congress to create a national holiday; it was proposed eight days after King was killed in 1968. Three years after it went into effect in 1986, 44 states had adopted it as a state holiday, too. New Hampshire was the last state to adopt it.

While there are usually organized holiday events in most cities, we can figure out our own ways to celebrate. Volunteer today, and the rest of year. Talk to your children about their heritage and take them to an African-American-inspired museum. Go with them to the library and start a reading program of some of the great black authors – James Baldwin, Richard Wright and others. (Unfortunately, these books are not on many school reading lists.)

My daughter and I are going to a couple museums, one featuring African American artists and the other focusing on the South. Along the way, we’ll talk a lot. The King holiday ought to be more than the annual singing of “We Shall Overcome” or the playing of excerpts of King’s famous speeches.

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