Resources to help a 12 year old who just isn't getting digital citizenship

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have had this trouble too. The school gives him a Chromebook and nothing else to do and then acts shocked the tenth time he does something thoughtless and dumb (never mean or threatening). He doesn’t misuse screens at home so I feel powerless where the school won’t do what I know works (limiting screens; keeping him engaged in other things).

Can’t wait for summer. No real ideas, just commiseration.

As a teacher, I will tell you that most students do not do thoughtless and dumb things when presented with a Chromebook. Limiting screens at home is not having the effect you think it is having. If you raise a child in a home with only health foods, they will gorge on sugar the first time they encounter it. The child needs to learn judgment and impulse control.

Guess what? Many of the kids who eat a lot of junk food at home also gorge when they go to other people's homes or parties. They just get more junk food overall.

[Anonymous]

Here is what I am hearing.

Teachers: your child is misbehaving and not following directions.

Parents: they can’t help themselves. Why are you letting them use a computer?

Teachers: using a computer is part of the curriculum. Your child needs to follow directions.

Parents: at home we never have this problem

Teachers: home is not school. At school we follow directions and learn according to a curriculum.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have had this trouble too. The school gives him a Chromebook and nothing else to do and then acts shocked the tenth time he does something thoughtless and dumb (never mean or threatening). He doesn’t misuse screens at home so I feel powerless where the school won’t do what I know works (limiting screens; keeping him engaged in other things).

Can’t wait for summer. No real ideas, just commiseration.

As a teacher, I will tell you that most students do not do thoughtless and dumb things when presented with a Chromebook. Limiting screens at home is not having the effect you think it is having. If you raise a child in a home with only health foods, they will gorge on sugar the first time they encounter it. The child needs to learn judgment and impulse control.

When a kid can't stop talking in class, do you assume it is because the parent is not letting them talk enough at home?
When a kid talks back to a teacher, do you assume it's because their parents are too strict?
Both sugar and screentime are addictive, having more of these at home will not make a child less addicted. It may seem that way with elementary and MS kids, but by HS it starts to show.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Here is what I am hearing.

Teachers: your child is misbehaving and not following directions.

Parents: they can’t help themselves. Why are you letting them use a computer?

Teachers: using a computer is part of the curriculum. Your child needs to follow directions.

Parents: at home we never have this problem

Teachers: home is not school. At school we follow directions and learn according to a curriculum.

Missing: what's the difference in enforcement between home and school in the above conversation?

My kids didn't misuse computers at school, but their teachers monitored and enforced compliance just like we do with at home screen time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Here is what I am hearing.

Teachers: your child is misbehaving and not following directions.

Parents: they can’t help themselves. Why are you letting them use a computer?

Teachers: using a computer is part of the curriculum. Your child needs to follow directions.

Parents: at home we never have this problem

Teachers: home is not school. At school we follow directions and learn according to a curriculum.

I can sympathize with both sides. However, the US education system has a known tendency to worship at the altar of technology and then find out it didn't help (or worse, hurt) learning.

Kids are goofing off on Chromebooks like mad. My high schooler is telling me that during the school day he is seeing my elementary school nephew goofing off (during the school day, in a better school district 10 miles away). Hmmm.

In general when kids are bored, I try to take it up as a larger issue with the admin/curriculum developing authorities.

I also sometimes try to identify a more constructive thing a kid can do without disturbing anyone. Free reading and Duolingo come to mind.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here is what I am hearing.

Teachers: your child is misbehaving and not following directions.

Parents: they can’t help themselves. Why are you letting them use a computer?

Teachers: using a computer is part of the curriculum. Your child needs to follow directions.

Parents: at home we never have this problem

Teachers: home is not school. At school we follow directions and learn according to a curriculum.

I can sympathize with both sides. However, the US education system has a known tendency to worship at the altar of technology and then find out it didn't help (or worse, hurt) learning.

Kids are goofing off on Chromebooks like mad. My high schooler is telling me that during the school day he is seeing my elementary school nephew goofing off (during the school day, in a better school district 10 miles away). Hmmm.

In general when kids are bored, I try to take it up as a larger issue with the admin/curriculum developing authorities.

I also sometimes try to identify a more constructive thing a kid can do without disturbing anyone. Free reading and Duolingo come to mind.

It is also true that some kids are bored because they aren't doing the assigned work.

--fellow parent

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here is what I am hearing.

Teachers: your child is misbehaving and not following directions.

Parents: they can’t help themselves. Why are you letting them use a computer?

Teachers: using a computer is part of the curriculum. Your child needs to follow directions.

Parents: at home we never have this problem

Teachers: home is not school. At school we follow directions and learn according to a curriculum.

I can sympathize with both sides. However, the US education system has a known tendency to worship at the altar of technology and then find out it didn't help (or worse, hurt) learning.

Kids are goofing off on Chromebooks like mad. My high schooler is telling me that during the school day he is seeing my elementary school nephew goofing off (during the school day, in a better school district 10 miles away). Hmmm.

In general when kids are bored, I try to take it up as a larger issue with the admin/curriculum developing authorities.

I also sometimes try to identify a more constructive thing a kid can do without disturbing anyone. Free reading and Duolingo come to mind.

It is also true that some kids are bored because they aren't doing the assigned work.

--fellow parent

Which is easier to hide on a Chromebook than on paper.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Here is what I am hearing.

Teachers: your child is misbehaving and not following directions.

Parents: they can’t help themselves. Why are you letting them use a computer?

Teachers: using a computer is part of the curriculum. Your child needs to follow directions.

Parents: at home we never have this problem

Teachers: home is not school. At school we follow directions and learn according to a curriculum.

You’re right to a degree. If a teacher gave an alcoholic beer and the alcoholic didn’t follow the direction to have only one sip, we don’t blame the alcoholic. We blame the teacher who gave an addict a taste of the addictions.

The only direction my kid has ever ignored relates to tech. Framing his addiction/weakness/ADHD isn’t helpful.

If you do the same thing over and over expecting different results, then that’s just going to frustrate everyone. Maturity will help, but middle schools are too reliant on tech and just dismiss kids who can’t handle it as “disobedient.” It doesn’t solve the problem.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have had this trouble too. The school gives him a Chromebook and nothing else to do and then acts shocked the tenth time he does something thoughtless and dumb (never mean or threatening). He doesn’t misuse screens at home so I feel powerless where the school won’t do what I know works (limiting screens; keeping him engaged in other things).

Can’t wait for summer. No real ideas, just commiseration.

As a teacher, I will tell you that most students do not do thoughtless and dumb things when presented with a Chromebook. Limiting screens at home is not having the effect you think it is having. If you raise a child in a home with only health foods, they will gorge on sugar the first time they encounter it. The child needs to learn judgment and impulse control.

I doubt you are a real teacher or else you have a different view of what is “thoughtless and dumb.” Because my straight A middle school kid says just about everyone is goofing off on their chromebooks at some point in the day — playing games, looking up crap to buy at Sephora, etc. I seriously wish they didn’t have chromebooks or that they did a lot more on paper so teachers could say “leave your Chromebook in your backpack””, but that isn’t what is happening.

[Anonymous]

At 12, why would he know the consequences of relatively minor things to him? He does not understand the internet at 12 which is normal.

I teach middle school and kids get in way more trouble than this. All kids at the behest of the internet are at peril. Quite apart from these antics, many are exposed to a lot of dangerous sites, porn, pedophilia, violence, drugs,and snuff which can render real mental health consequences and exposure to predators. And you would not believe the crap they get up to on Google Docs or any shared app system. Your kid is still in the annoying but not dangerous category. **And I am still a proponent of technology and its use by children for many reasons- but not without guardrails. We teach digital literacy, but at 8th grade, and not all schools do this, regardless. It should begin in 2nd grade and added every year with specific objectives.

His use needs to be monitored- his phone, all his screens. At schools, they need a teacher remote visual interactive control of all computers kids are on ( rarely happens in K-12, although it does in college, go figure), and no phone use in school.

Meanwhile, information and consequences regarding internet usage need to be VERY EXPLICITLY relayed.
Even one picture sent or received could get a kid in very big legal / criminal trouble, and actually his or her parents as well.

Get on it.

[Anonymous]

There are no easy answers except that it's a travesty that schools are doing this to kids. Advocate to reduce screen use at your school, send him to a screen free school if that's an option, and be a squeaky wheel.

My experience is that it comes easily for some kids and for some kids it just sets them up to fail again and again.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:At 12, why would he know the consequences of relatively minor things to him? He does not understand the internet at 12 which is normal.

I teach middle school and kids get in way more trouble than this. All kids at the behest of the internet are at peril. Quite apart from these antics, many are exposed to a lot of dangerous sites, porn, pedophilia, violence, drugs,and snuff which can render real mental health consequences and exposure to predators. And you would not believe the crap they get up to on Google Docs or any shared app system. Your kid is still in the annoying but not dangerous category. **And I am still a proponent of technology and its use by children for many reasons- but not without guardrails. We teach digital literacy, but at 8th grade, and not all schools do this, regardless. It should begin in 2nd grade and added every year with specific objectives.

His use needs to be monitored- his phone, all his screens. At schools, they need a teacher remote visual interactive control of all computers kids are on ( rarely happens in K-12, although it does in college, go figure), and no phone use in school.

Meanwhile, information and consequences regarding internet usage need to be VERY EXPLICITLY relayed.
Even one picture sent or received could get a kid in very big legal / criminal trouble, and actually his or her parents as well.

Get on it.

FCPS had the bolded, at least at my kids' ES. And the teachers used it. And let the kids know.

They still should have been on the laptops a lot less often for their learning (at that age about 10% of the day on screens is considered best practice if there are screens at all and my kids were doing a LOT more than that), but at least the kids looking at pictures of rear ends had that shut down real fast.

[Anonymous]

My story is my kid has ADHD/ASD and his school computer was preventing him from accessing his education because he has zero screen impulse control and was always on youtube during school. And apparently teachers would see and not say anything, which makes me crazy because he's actually a fairly compliant kid and would have put his laptop away if that was the expectation.

I tried to get in his IEP that YouTube would be blocked on his school computer and the school fought SO HARD to keep it, which is insane to me. Their point was that watching YouTube videos was integral to so many classes. Which itself just seems so sad and pathetic for a good school district and a kid taking honors and AP classes.

My kids say that in school when kids are doing a laptop-based activity, most of the kids' screens are on YouTube or games or other sites and teachers say nothing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here is what I am hearing.

Teachers: your child is misbehaving and not following directions.

Parents: they can’t help themselves. Why are you letting them use a computer?

Teachers: using a computer is part of the curriculum. Your child needs to follow directions.

Parents: at home we never have this problem

Teachers: home is not school. At school we follow directions and learn according to a curriculum.

I can sympathize with both sides. However, the US education system has a known tendency to worship at the altar of technology and then find out it didn't help (or worse, hurt) learning.

Kids are goofing off on Chromebooks like mad. My high schooler is telling me that during the school day he is seeing my elementary school nephew goofing off (during the school day, in a better school district 10 miles away). Hmmm.

In general when kids are bored, I try to take it up as a larger issue with the admin/curriculum developing authorities.

I also sometimes try to identify a more constructive thing a kid can do without disturbing anyone. Free reading and Duolingo come to mind.

It is also true that some kids are bored because they aren't doing the assigned work.

--fellow parent

Which is easier to hide on a Chromebook than on paper.

PP. I have found that detracking was at the root of a lot of the issues. Unchallenged kids get up to mischief when given work that is below their capabilities. They also are mixed with kids who are openly disruptive, which is enabling. Chromebooks pour gasoline on the whole mess. It's not just Chromebooks either. Math ed tech programs and allowing phone use in class (for snapping pics and uploading assignments) are also issues.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have had this trouble too. The school gives him a Chromebook and nothing else to do and then acts shocked the tenth time he does something thoughtless and dumb (never mean or threatening). He doesn’t misuse screens at home so I feel powerless where the school won’t do what I know works (limiting screens; keeping him engaged in other things).

Can’t wait for summer. No real ideas, just commiseration.

As a teacher, I will tell you that most students do not do thoughtless and dumb things when presented with a Chromebook. Limiting screens at home is not having the effect you think it is having. If you raise a child in a home with only health foods, they will gorge on sugar the first time they encounter it. The child needs to learn judgment and impulse control.

I doubt you are a real teacher or else you have a different view of what is “thoughtless and dumb.” Because my straight A middle school kid says just about everyone is goofing off on their chromebooks at some point in the day — playing games, looking up crap to buy at Sephora, etc. I seriously wish they didn’t have chromebooks or that they did a lot more on paper so teachers could say “leave your Chromebook in your backpack””, but that isn’t what is happening.

I am a teacher and I can absolutely verify that kids get into trouble ALL THE TIME on their Chromebooks, phones, tablets. ALL THE TIME.

And here's a news flash- a teacher can actually get into serious trouble if a kid in her class is getting into trouble. If a kid accesses a sexual site, and shares that, the teacher can be charged. It's still the wild west with technology in school and there should be better control technology. As a teacher who teaches in the K-12 system as well as a professor of college classes, I have less control of my K-12 class in terms of responsibility than the college classes. In college, I can instantly see what every connected computer is doing with one click, and I have controls of all their screens. That is designed to help with research and instruction, not to babysit their behavior. In K-12, no such technology is installed, and I actually have to babysit their behavior- all day , ALL DAY, without that technology. If a teacher actually thinks kids in their class are largely being responsible, that teacher is delusional or technologically naive.