Teens' sites: What to do?

You know parents' teen-blogging woes have gone mainstream when Dr. Joyce Brothers is offering social-networking advice in a newspaper near you. In Saturday's Seattle Post-Intelligencer, she was asked the question on millions of parents' minds these days: How can I get across to my teenage son/daughter that "the suggestive photos, dirty jokes, plenty of curse words, references to drugs and drinking, and even links to some porn sites" in his Web site are "in poor taste and reflect badly on him personally?" Her answer was more about restrictive rules (which a child *may* obey at home, where only some of his Internet use occurs, unfortunately) than about convincing him of the bad implications of activity Dr. Brothers herself says are "very normal for a young teen." Can't blame her for not really answering the question, though, since there probably aren't enough newspaper column-inches to answer it satisfactorily for all parents. But in this user-driven phase of the Web's development and at teens' stage of brain development, one thing is clear: helping teenagers to think about what they put online and to be alert in online communications is much more effective than mere rules. Teenage brains - especially the frontal-lobe part with its "executive functions" ("planning, impulse control and reasoning"), according to the US National Institute of Mental Health - are very much works in progress.