Time to Talk

About four years ago, I was flipping channels and ended up watching a documentary on cyber-bullying which has been one of the most haunting things I’ve ever seen on television. Like so much of what we read about in the news, it’s something I wish I could un-know, because the thought of something so awful happening to my kids literally keeps me up at night. But unlike so many things that happen to us and the people we love, like disease and accidents and misfortune, bullying is something that we, as parents, can absolutely do something about, if we’re informed. The same goes for teen dating abuse and domestic violence – these aren’t things we are powerless against, once we learn a little about them.

Which is why I gladly accepted the invitation to the “Its Time to Talk” Conference last Wednesday, sponsored by Liz Claiborne. Since I attended last year, I knew I’d hear a lot of demoralizing, heartbreaking stuff about dating abuse and domestic violence, which would cost me a few night’s sleep and probably give me more gray hairs that I can afford. But I also knew forewarned is forearmed. And hey, not only do I have myself and my own small-fries to think of, I have you, dear readers, to watch out for too. Now, I know most of you have young kids at home and it seems like you’re decades away from having to worry about this stuff, but the hard truth is, what we do now is important in equipping our kids to deal with these issues later on. If you wait to discuss digital ethics and what a healthy relationship is until you think your kid’s old enough, in the tween years, you’re already playing a dangerous game of catch-up. So here’s what you need to know right now:

Digital devices are powerful, and you need to prepare kids to use them:

The time to broach the fundamentals of digital stewardship is the first time you give your child a cell phone, or a computer, or any kind of electronic device, says Dede Bartlett, founding Chair of National Domestic Violence Hotline Advisory Board. In addition to explaining how you dial numbers and send texts, says Bartlett, you have to go over what the rules of engagement are going to be. The rules that you’ll enforce will depend on your family, but the important thing is that you have rules, that you discuss a strategy for using the devices, and that you do not just hand over something as powerful as a cell phone or a Facebook account without fully discussing first what the implications of use are and that what happens online COUNTS. We need to teach kids that there are people with feelings on the other end of those screen names and that they must treat people online just as we would in person. Bartlett recommends instituting a curfew where all devices are collected at 10pm and held until the next morning. Another expert I heard from advised that before giving permission for your kids to join social media like Facebook, you come to an agreement on how you’ll be able to check in with the page and make sure they’re staying safe and being safe to others. Bottom line: these devices are powerful tools but they can also be used as weapons and the onus is on us to make the distinction clear.

Don’t overlook the power of the bystander:

When it comes to bullying, we tend to think of there being two parties involved: the bully and the bullied. But in the majority of cases, bullying doesn’t happen if bystanders are mobilized, and this is as true in the cafeteria or at recess as on Facebook or on a chat board. Of course, we’ve all been young and we know its not easy to stand up for the kid who’s getting his butt kicked: most of us in the tween and teen years are just trying to get by without attracting too much attention, trying to stay under the radar so we don’t become targets ourselves. But not only it is critical for us to teach our kids to be advocates for others, its also not as hard as it used to be in many ways. And that’s because . . . .

There are easy ways to stamp out bullying, when it happens digitally

We have to understand that the kind of bullying which happens today is not the type we remember from our own childhoods. When we were kids, you got bullied at school or on the way home, or when you went out with your friends, but when you were home, you had a break. There was an escape, even if brief. Today, though, it’s a different story, says Bartlett: “Because of technology, bullying is 24/ 7,” she explains, “because of technology, it is instantaneous, because of technology, it is permanent, because of technology, it is anonymous. Today, there is no refuge. And this terrible specter of teen and tween suicides that we’ve seen should scare the hell out of every single parent in the US.”

OK, now that I’ve terrified you, let me hasten to add this: even though technology has helped to make bullying and dating abuse so pernicious, in some ways it has made it easier to stop, too. Because so much of it happens anonymously, that means it is not only easier to participate in it, its easier NOT TO. So we need to teach our kids that if they get an email which is intended to embarrass, ridicule or deride someone, that they have a responsibility to stop it in its tracks and that is as easy as hitting “delete” rather than “forward.” It seems like nothing at all, but it is everything, because if we help create a culture where shaming and embarrassing other people isn’t that cool or funny or interesting, many of the “pranks” and the “wouldn’t-it-be-funny-if"s just wouldn’t get started. That’s the first step.

Accept the reality that kids start dating young:

It may be difficult to accept the idea that a 13 year-old could be in am abusive relationship because it seems insane to imagine a 13 year-old in a dating relationship at all. When I think of my daughter having what I can only bring myself to describe as “relations” at the age of 12 or 13, the thought it so terrifying, it does seem easier just to choose denial. Unfortunately, this kind of willful oblivion has serious consequences for our kids. Melissa Kaufmann, training coordinator for the National Domestic Violence Hotline and National Teen Dating abuse hotline, says kids as young as 13 contact their hotline (they offer not only a phone line but a chat line, which she says really allows the younger teens to feel comfortable broaching the subject). Kaufmann also explained that when she started the helpline, she thought it would involve a lot of awareness-raising for the kids, sort of helping them to understand that abuse was something that could happen to them, but what she found was that the situations the helpline was getting calls about were just as dangerous and violent as what a 34 year old mother of two goes through with an abusive husband. So first thing is accepting what it means to be a 14 year-old today, and then, taking this experience seriously, because as Kaufmann explained, abusive relationships for people under 18 can prove even more difficult to tackle since teens under 18 don’t have the same access to services that an adult would, in terms of shelters and getting protective order issued. Really young kids are getting into really serious situations and we can’t help them unless we first bring ourselves to see what’s happening.

If you have young children at home, here are some things you can do now to help protect them from teen dating abuse, domestic violence and digital abuse:

· Really prove to them that they can talk to you about anything, and you’ll listen

· Teach them to respect others and themselves

· Model and discuss what a healthy relationships looks like

· Prepare them to enter the digital world and insist on transparency, so you have access without violating trust

There is tons more information on the subject, and if you want to learn more, go to Love is Not Abuse.

*I wrote this post after attending an informational media event on behalf of Liz Claiborne and Mom Central Consulting and received a gift bag and gift card as a thank you for taking the time to participate.

It's Time To Talk

Last Thursday I was thrilled to attend an amazing event on dating abuse and domestic violence, as part of Liz Claiborne's “Its Time To Talk Day.” I interviewed an incredibly diverse bunch of experts about teen dating abuse, domestic violence and cyber-bullying; a sort of crash course in subjects I knew very little about. After all, like most of you, I’m not a parent of a teenager (though Seconda has some distinct adolescent qualities).

In fact, now is the ideal time for parents like me to get educated about these issues.

Because to help protect kids from various kinds of abuse, you’ve got to talk to them early. As Dr.Jill Murray, psychotherapist in Southern California and author of three books on the subject, put it, “It is much easier to prevent this than to solve it”

So, what can you do to help prevent dating, digital and domestic abuse from happening to your kids? Here are the big-picture points, the things you’ll be working on for years, and can never start too early:

• Talk about and model healthy relationships

Everyone I spoke to highlighted the importance of this, no one more persuasively than Ann Burke, whose 23 year-old daughter Lindsay Burke was murdered in 2005 by her jealous ex-boyfriend. Burke is an educator and a founding member of MADE, (Moms and Dads for Education) to Stop Teen Dating Abuse, and she says that you shouldn’t assume your kids know what a healthy relationship is, just because you have a happy family. Our kids get so many negative, confusing, misleading messages about what love is from the media that it's crucial for you to talk to them about what behavior is acceptable between two people that care about each other. Teens are especially susceptible to dating abuse because when they experience love for the first time, says Ann Shoket, editor-in-chief of Seventeen, it is so overwhelming, so new, so unchartered, it can be hard to know what behavior is OK and what's not. So you need to tell them just that – and you can start early by talking about this in terms of friendship, giving them guidance about what it means to be a good friend.

Talking is important but it won't be effective if you don't practice what you preach. If you're in a relationship that allows for physical intimidation, violence, or emotional abuse, children will grow to understand that that's acceptable, and all the preaching and urging to "do as I say and not as I do" will prove ineffective. Leslie Morgan Steiner, author of NY Times bestseller Crazy Love, a memoir of her abusive marriage, gave me a startling statistic: over 50% of people who admit to abusing their spouses admit to abusing their children, too. If you're in a relationship where you are suffering from physical or verbal abuse, chances are, your children are, too.

• Help kids build self esteem

Kids who have a strong sense of self will be better protected against abusive relationships. But children aren’t born with esteem, says Murray, they get self esteem by doing something difficult and suceeding at it or by failing and figuring out how to succeed the next time. Helping kids build confidence is not the same as constantly affirming everything they do, she cautions – they’re not going to be self-assured because you tell them how much you love the way they blink. But you can celebrate their individuality, help them come to know who they are as a person, what they deserve, and that they can succeed at things even if they fail at first .

• Keep lines of communication open so kids know they can come to you

Abuse thrives in secrecy, said Steiner: whatever it is -- domestic violence, sexual abuse, cyber-bullying – if the victim doesn’t talk about it, they become more isolated, more alone, more desperate. If they tell people about what’s going on, its really opening the door to stop it. Steiner said that part of why she was able to get out of the marriage which almost killed her was that on the night that she decided to leave, she told everyone. She needed every last person in her network to know about what was going on to help pull her out of what had become a living nightmare. Keeping lines of communication open with your kids is not as easy as it sounds, and it means that you have to suspend your emotionality when they tell you about things that make you livid and disappointed and sad, but its crucial.

Abuse doesn't have to be physical, either. Emotional abuse-- insults, humiliation, having every part of your life controlled -- can be just as devastating. We should remember too that our children are susceptible to a form of abuse we never had to grapple with, and that's digital abuse. Because so many forms of social media are so new, we don't yet have systems in place to protect users from abuse, and we are only now starting to understand the important of teaching kids online ethics.

Shoket says that 38% of girls polled in Seventeen say they wish they could escape social media. That's more than a third. And it makes sense, because abuse is so easy and seemingly without consequence on the computer screen. I spoke to Jason Rzepka, VP of Public Affairs at MTV, who just launched a big campaign against digital abuse called A Thin Line, and he explained that many teens who are participating in what we'd consider abusive language and behavior online, view what they're doing as no more than a joke. Part of what makes digital abuse so pervasive, he says, is that people are also emboldened to say and do things on a computer screen that they'd never do in person, because it just doesn't seem real. Of course, the effect on the people targeted is real, not only real but relentless, because today we have our phones and computers and iTouches with us 24/7, day and night, so that there is really no escape.

So what can you do about digital abuse? The first step is to teach children online ethics: that social media is not a game, but has real consequence for real people. Respect and kindness are as important online as they are in person. Hitting delete when you get a humiliating message or compromising photo of someone is as easy as hitting forward. We have to go over the basics, because if we don't, no one will.

The second thing you will want to consider is setting limits on technology use for kids. Murray says it is a really good idea to set up a system where phones and computers are handed over to parents or taken out of the bedroom when its time for sleep. Most digital abuse, she asys, happens between the hours of 12 and 5am, when you won't be aware of what's going on.

What it boils down to is its a big, bad world out there. But you're not defenseless against it. And if you have children that are still young, and still open to hearing what you have to say, you're in a tremendously exciting position to prepare them for the challenges they might face. Talk to them. Teach them about respect and kindness and ethics; show them what a healthy, loving relationship looks like. And if you run out of wise words you can tell them that I spoke to Tim Gunn --yes, the "Make it work" superstar of Project Runway fame -- and he said:

"Respect yourself, respect those around you and be a good citizen of the world."

For more information, you can visit Love Is Not Abuse, MADE, A Thin Line, Dr. Murray's website.


*I received a $50 Juicy Couture gift card in conjunction with participating in Liz Claiborne’s “It’s Time To Talk” day.