It Takes a Virtual Village: The Blogging Mom Phenomenon Podcast
Jackie Papandrew's son had morphed into an alien.
Gone was the cute little boy who used to call her Mommy. In his place was a sullen teenager who called her "Dude." Almost overnight, he changed from a talkative child into a young man who communicated with his family primarily by text message. He used to beg his mother to read to him-now he refused to budge from his video games. Once, he would happily introduce her to his friends. Now, he pretended not to recognize her when she picked him up from school.
The change left Jackie bewildered and heartbroken.
In decades past, she might have talked about it with her friends over drinks, or sought advice from an aunt or an older sister. She might have found comfort in her relationships with friends, family, and neighbors.
Instead, she wrote about her experience and posted it on BlogHer, a network of blogging women. Soon, dozens of other women responded with comments offering support and sharing stories about their own teens.
One of the people who responded to her story was Lisa Stone, BlogHer's co-founder. "I staged an interpretive reading of this post for my son, age eleven," she said, hoping that by laughing with him now, she might avoid seeing him go through a similar transformation later.
YUNFENG CHANG, HOUSTON, TX 11/03/07
The "if you cannot beat them- join them" still rules! What is the most effective way to send across information and values to teens from their parents. Let's face it, knowing what their teens are getting from MySpace is one fact finding aspect, being able to provide information to them is another. I am more interested in having some influence on teens through posting or answering their questions. The more credited information has been provided the less misinformation. Misinformation is worse than no information.
Read more comments