The Same Rules Apply

One Friday night, I arrived home from dinner with friends. My daughter was spending the weekend with her dad – alternate weekends off being the major perk of being a divorced mom. It was pretty late but I fired up my computer to catch up on some emails before going to bed. An IM instantly popped up on my screen: “Hi Mom. It’s me, Ruby.”

I immediately snapped into mom –mode:“ It’s 11:30! What are you still doing up?”

“Hanging out...in bed”


‘Where’s Dad?”


“Downstairs in the living room.”


I immediately texted her father: “Hey. It’s 11:30pm. Do you know where your daughter is?”
My ex, who has a wicked sense of humor, texts back: “I’m at a bar. Let me call home and find out.”
As it turns out, he was watching the game on TV and had no idea that his daughter was still awake texting her friends and watching TV shows she’d downloaded from iTunes.


This little incident got me thinking. I grew up, as we probably all did, with a slew of rules:
• you’re not going out dressed like that!
• be home by 11pm or you’ll be grounded
• I want to meet (insert boy’s name here) before you go out with him
• don’t talk to strangers


So, why do we assume that these tried and true rules are any different online? Why, when the medium is digital, do we suddenly lose our parenting instincts? When you think about it, the rules are pretty much the same:


• “you’re not going out dressed like that” becomes “don’t post inappropriate pictures of yourself online”


• “be home by 11pm or you’ll be grounded” becomes “no online access after 11pm.”


With wireless access, this is a particularly hard rule to enforce so I now make sure that when my daughter goes to bed, her computer doesn’t go with her. Friends of mine turn their wireless connection off at 10pm.


• “I want to meet (insert boy’s name here) before you go out with him” becomes “I want to know who your online friends are.”


I often ask my daughter to identify her online buddies as many of them have unrecognizable user names.


• “Don’t talk to strangers” becomes “ignore and delete messages from people you don’t know.”


My daughter knows that if these messages persist she should tell her dad or me.


So, the principle is simple: the same rules apply on and offline. This basic insight has made parenting my own digital native so much easier. And best of all, I’ve learned to trust my (mostly good) parenting instincts even in a medium that’s often foreign to me.