At the bottom of this piece is an article that all of you who have children heading toward an awareness of social networking – or those who are involved with this already – might need to read. The article is from Yahoo and is not written by a Waldorf educator or from a particularly alternative or questioning of media point of view. Indeed, the article is about Teens and Social Networking – notice how very young these teens are and that for us, as Waldorf educators, the term "teen" is questionable with children as young as 13. This article is not about 16 and 17 year olds.

 

Please read this. And please discuss it with your spouse/partner and any friend or relative who might think that communicating with your child via Facebook might be a good thing. Over the years I have met too many parents who were caught on the backhand with new developments in technology and did not foresee how their children would get caught up in the newest game or trend. My sons were young teens 5 to 7 years ago and only that short time ago things like Facebook simply weren't an issue. How lucky I was. But for those of you with children entering their teens, already in their teens and younger, this is a huge issue, one to think through carefully and clearly.

 

I wish you all the mindfulness, clarity and heart-centered wisdom that you need to be able to come to the right decisions for your families when considering where to draw the boundaries with social media.