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Ria: Hi! This is Practical Mommy for mymommymanual.com and we are visiting with Vanessa Van Petten who is the author of “You're Grounded!” as well as the founder of Radical Parenting a website about parenting from the teens perspective. And we are talking today about a really important topic and that is relationships in for Gen Y and Gen Z that really encapsulates both online and off line relationships. So how does that work.
Vanessa Van Petten: I think the biggest thing for parents is sort of articulate their kids is that there is a difference in online or offline relationships and I always like to explain to kids and parents as well. As cotton candy so when your kid was little they went to corner and they were so excited to get cotton candy they were like please mom please can I have one they eat it and it’s like so yummy in first and after a while it sort of gets like chemical sugary taste in your mouth and you are hungry like 20 minutes later for real food and your hands get really sticky.
So I sort of liking this to online relationships where kids, probably webcams or any of those social networks online, are chatting on IM and they are like so excited and they are like oh please mom please let me have one and they are so excited when they get it, all this great in there and have so many friends and they get on and it sort of leaves this weird feeling because they get a weird message from someone or someone post a picture they don’t really like or they get defended and they have all these sort of weird feelings and then it leaves their hands sort of sticky because sometimes they get in trouble or something else gets in trouble and then about 20 minutes later or little while they sort of want that real food, that real friend connection.
The problem is that a lot of the time kids don’t realize they want that real connection until it’s too late so it is important for parents to have this discussion and say it’s okay you would have cotton candy friends as long as you realize they are cotton candy friends you would have to realize that those surface interactions online, you know what they eat for breakfast or their favorite Harry Porter character is, aren’t really knowing our friends, so showing them your real friendships and having them cultivate four or five or two friends they can communicate with online and offline it’s really important for them, so when they are feeling down they have someone to turn to.
Ria: Absolutely and what you are saying is modeling is still the best way to do that.
Vanessa Van Petten: Absolutely modeling and vocalizing your own struggle with it, I think that a lot of parents themselves are like I get sucked into face book chat having called my friend in months [voice overlap] and say how do you deal with it is that way you don’t feel alone with it and do not like sharing.
Ria: Exactly that’s real, that’s something as grown ups we face as well so.
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