The Blog of P.U.R.E. and Sue Scheff

I’ve spent a lot of my life watching children — as a parent, and then working with parents of troubled teens. I’ve seen so many adolescents gravitate towards the wrong thing like moths to a flame. Even if they don’t dive into the fire, they almost can’t help but be drawn to it. It’s nothing new that teens put peers’ input above that of their parents. But what has changed? The input comes not just from classmates and neighbors, but from complete strangers who enter our children’s lives through their virtual world —  the Internet . When it comes to teenagers, it’s no surprise that social media is their virtual playground with  93 percent of teens checking YouTube weekly .  Why does this concern me? Over the last year, we’ve gotten just a rough idea of how much bad stuff kids can find on YouTube. Last May, researchers from a non-profit consumer group, the  Digital Citizens Alliance , searched YouTube for videos that came up after entering “ buy drugs without...

Your Child's Online Behavior Is a Reflection of Offline Parenting Raising children in a digital society can be challenging. Today kids are exposed to technology and are sometimes given their very own keypads in their first years of life. Generations earlier, the big talk was about the birds and the bees. Maybe parents would discuss this with us only a few times. A handful at the most -- sometimes not even that much in our adolescent years. Sex was (and is) a topic that many parents want to talk about as briefly as possible and then walk away. When it comes to the digital world, there is no walking away. The reality for today’s youth is that their online reputation will someday determine their college admission and very possibly their future employer. Every keystroke, post, and comment counts. Your child's online social skills are as critical as their offline people skills. Where do you begin? In tech terms -- by chatting . The tech talk is not a conve...