Like many parents, Donna Nguyen is concerned about the dangers her children face on the Internet–unsolicited porn, identity theft and child predators, to name a few.
But policing their usage has been on the back burner in recent months, as the family works to solve a more immediate problem–the bickering between Rosa, 17, and Richard, 15, over who gets to use the Internet at home, and when.
Now, there’s an Internet schedule on the refrigerator: Rosa has her block of time–four hours in the afternoon–and Richard has his–the evening hours until he goes to bed.
Donna Nguyen hopes that will put an end to the squabbles. If not, she’s ready to take drastic action.
“They fight,” she said, “I take it away.”
For families such as the Nguyens, the arrival of the Internet at home has brought a whole new set of rules. And that’s just the beginning of the impact on family life: The Net is changing the way kids communicate with parents and each other, perhaps even altering the balance of power, with children often the most tech-savvy members of the household.
Today, the parent looking over a child’s shoulder at the computer may not be policing but rather getting a crash course in digital literacy.
“The kids go in and out of the Internet like I change the TV channels,” said Martin Agredano, who’s raising three boys, ages 6 to 17. He admits he’s still struggling with the Net and often turns to the boys for guidance.
Even in Silicon Valley, where so many parents work in tech, 67 percent of the children who go online consider themselves more savvy than their mothers, and 50 percent said they know more about technology than their fathers do.
“I’m learning from the kids,” said Dawn Newman, whose children, Monica, 14, and Mitchell, 12, are fearless when they sit at the computer. When it came time for Mom to learn how to burn a CD, she turned to Monica.
Though parents may puzzle over the finer points of MP3 file-swapping or the ins and outs of instant messaging, that doesn’t mean they have ceded control.
In Newman’s condominium, she has to know who the kids are e-mailing and instant messaging. E-mail accounts are subject to surprise inspections. And the amount of time for social use is restricted.
“The computer is a great form of discipline,” she said, winking at Monica, a freshman at Branham High School in San Jose. “Internet access is a privilege that can be withdrawn. There is not unlimited usage.”
A necessary tool
But, unlike a video-game console, a computer simply can’t be taken away, no matter how much havoc it creates.
Mitchell, a 6th-grader at the Harker School in San Jose, needs the Internet to do his homework.
“A lot of his assignments are Internet-only,” Dawn Newman said. “It’s like a requirement, really, that they have a computer in the home.”
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But there are also potential minefields.
Dawn and Monica Newman still dispute exactly what happened a couple of years ago when Monica shared her America Online password with a friend.
But suddenly, the amount of spam increased, and there was potential for others to log on in Monica’s name and assume her identity. Dawn Newman quickly canceled that account, and Monica was forced to abandon her screen name.
Despite the potential problems the Net brings home, parents overwhelmingly believe the positives far outweigh the negatives. Of those surveyed, 94 percent said the Internet will be important to their children’s success later in life.
Agredano agrees.
Agredano, who owns a party-supply rental company in San Jose, never longed for a computer when he was growing up. But these days, he said, no child should be without one.
“Now everything is about computers,” he said. “I wanted one so they could learn, so they wouldn’t be so far behind, like me.”
Agredano and his wife, Maria, a travel agent, have two sons, Marco, 6, and Nicolas, 8. They also are raising their nephew, Hector, 17.
“When Nicolas was in 2nd grade, and we didn’t have a computer, it was hard for him because he had a computer class, and they would give him exercises to learn and practice, and he couldn’t do it,” Agredano said.
The machine has been in the household for a little more than a year, and already the boys are “20 to 30 years more advanced than me,” Agredano said.
Students are designing Web pages in their English classes, filing homework from their laptops to the school server and using PowerPoint in gym class to show the proper technique for spiking a volleyball.
Young and talented
Even in the most-wired Silicon Valley homes, parents who have played significant roles in the tech industry find there’s still plenty to learn from their offspring.
For years, Bill Heil Jr. was an executive with Tandem Computers and a key figure in the company when it was acquired by Compaq Computer in 1997.
And yet, he is amazed at how quickly his son Patrick, 17, can manipulate the keyboard to play Grand Theft Auto on one of the nine networked PCs in their San Jose home. The heavy hardware load is not uncommon in the valley: The survey found two-thirds of all families with a home computer had multiple machines–and 30 percent had three or more.
Bill’s wife, Barbara, became an aficionado of instant messaging a few years ago when she discovered it was the best way to communicate with her son Bill, 21, away at an East Coast college.
Now, even if it’s only a few sentences, Mom, Dad, Patrick and sisters Katie, 16, Madeleine, 12, and Julia, 8, “talk” to Bill–and each other–via AOL’s IM program every day.
In fact, instant messaging has become such a prevalent method of communication for the Heil family that it has replaced yelling up and down the stairs.
“What’s really sick is, when it’s time for dinner, I have better luck IMing them to come and eat,” Barbara Heil said.
Kim and Steve Lafond of Campbell, Calif., have taught 10-year-old Korie the basic rules: Don’t give out passwords, don’t give out e-mail addresses and call Mom or Dad if she finds something on the Net that makes her uncomfortable. So far, that’s been enough.
“She’s pretty self-policing right now,” Steve Lafond said. “We’ve worked hard to instill in her what’s right and what’s wrong.”