Virtual parenting was never easy, but the ease with which laptops travel to bedrooms, basements and even bathrooms makes it especially challenging for adults to monitor children’s cyber antics. As laptops proliferate in their children’s everyday lives, parents are wrestling with how best to regulate their use.
“I have to make a conscious effort to exert control,” said Sally Cordovano of Rowayton, whose three teenage daughters share a laptop and have occasional use of their father’s.
“The rule is laptops aren’t allowed upstairs in the bedrooms,” she said. Downstairs, she makes a point of walking by frequently. “They never know when I’m going to look over their shoulder,” she said.
No one knows for sure how many teenagers have laptops. But certainly the number is growing, especially as many independent schools require laptops, said Douglas Lyons, director of the Connecticut Association of Independent Schools in Mystic. The 2006 Parents and Teens Survey by Pew Internet and American Life Project found that 25 percent of 935 teenagers interviewed had laptops.
Source: New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/20/nyregion/nyregionspecial2/20laptopsct.html?_r=2&ref=nyregionspecial2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
As the variety of means teens have to connect to the Internet increases (laptops, cellphones, iPhones, etc.), parents should be even more purposeful in making sure that boundaries are clearly in place for how their kids are permitted to use devices, including when and where they are allowed to be online.
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