‘Too fast, too soon’ : becoming a teenager too early

More evidence emerges of children’s (unhealthy?) engagement with digital. Research released today from charities Family Lives and Drinkaware shows that 87% of parents think children are experiencing ‘teenage’ issues before their teens. We know from our recent research for The Bailey Review on behalf of Credos that parents are very worried that their children are exposed to media content that is too old for them, but feel helpless to stop it.

We have long been aware that children are lying about their age online so that they can gain access to social networking sites. In my 3 year ethnographic research with 10-14 year olds I reported in 2009 the issue of children signing up to social networking sites as young as 10, often claiming that they were 16 as this was the age they thought they had to be to sign up. My research showed that children were exposed to unsuitable advertising such as gambling sites and ads for weight loss, simply because they had claimed they were older. Today’s Family Lives and Drinkaware research shows worryingly that more than a quarter (28%) of 10-12 year olds see and read alcohol-related posts on social networking sites, over a third (37%) of 13-15 year olds see photos of their friends drunk on social networking sites and 12% of 10-12 year olds and 25% of 13-15 year olds say they have seen sexually explicit images on the internet.

I have long argued that parents are not aware of what their children are doing online, and that as in all aspects of parenting children need boundaries and their digital time should be discussed and limited. Early adolescents (10-14 year olds) will always push boundaries, try the unknown, experiment, as David Squire and I showed in our recent paper for the Children’s Media Conference. Most children are sensible, have friends who support them and parents who listen to them. For example the Family Lives and Drinkaware research indicates that three-quarters (73%) of 10-17 year olds would choose to speak to their parents first about issues they are encountering. Most children benefit from the friendship and support they receive through their social networking encounters with friends. It is those children who are isolated, find difficulty in making friends, lack parental engagement (for example through parental issues with mental health, alcohol or drugs) that are most vulnerable both off-line and online.

A happy medium needs to be sought. Children should not be discouraged from using digital media, but they need clear rules. To empower parents both Family Lives and Drinkaware have great advice on their websites, and have produced a Top Tips list. This includes advice on technology, alcohol, and parenting. On technology they advise parents to:

 Familiarise yourself with how computer and mobile technology works. Don’t worry if your child knows more about technology than you – be honest and spend time together looking at online security and privacy functions.

 Keep the computer in a room used by all the family, monitor how much time your child spends on the computer and encourage them to openly talk about what they’re looking at online.

In my last post I wrote about internet service provider Talk Talk which now offers a network-level security service Home Safe and in particular Child Safe which enables parents to restrict sites as well as time children can access the internet. Children can gain from their engagement with digital, but they also need protection.