Social media & kids with LDs

Navigating social media networks can be tricky at the best of times, but it can be downright scary for teens with LDs.  Here's a bit of wisdom from the Smart Kids with LDs website on social media for kids with LDs.

Rhonda & the Bridgeway team

Rethinking Social Media For Your Child with LD

As parents, we’ve become acutely aware of the downside of social media. Even if we’re not technologically savvy, we see the horror stories of cyberbullying, sexting, and pedophiles preying on innocent adolescents. In fact, much of the early research into social media has focused on the scary aspects that have made us all a lot smarter, and presumably better equipped to manage our children’s online behaviors.

However, don’t be too quick to throw out the baby with the bathwater. Writing in The New York Times, Dr. Perri Klass recently reminded us that social media is neither negative nor positive—it’s how it’s used that matters. In Seeing Social Media More as A Portal Than as A Pitfall, Klass suggests that social media and the Internet are simply different environments in which children today are coming of age:

Our children are using social media to accomplish the eternal goals of adolescent development, which include socializing with peers, investigating the world, trying on identities and establishing independence.

In 2011, the American Academy of Pediatrics Council on Communications and Media issued a clinical report, “The Impact of Social Media on Children, Adolescents and Families.” It began by emphasizing the benefits of social media for children and adolescents, including enhanced communication skills and opportunities for social connections.

“A large part of this generation’s social and emotional development is occurring while on the Internet and on cellphones,” the report noted.

Our job as parents is to help them manage all this wisely, to understand—and avoid—some of the special dangers and consequences of making mistakes in these media. (We can expect the same kind of gratitude that we get for all of our guidance: mixed, of course, with an extra helping of contempt if our technical skills are not up to theirs.)

“Rather than taking a one-size-fits-all harm model, one of the questions parents need to ask is, ‘How is this going to interact with my child’s personality?’ ” said Clay Shirky, who teaches about social media at New York University. “Digital media is an amplifier. It tends to make extroverts more extroverted and introverts more introverted.”

And both parents and researchers need to be sure they understand the subtleties of the ways teenagers interpret social media.

At a 2011 symposium on the Internet and society, two researchers presented information on how teenagers understand negative talk on the Internet. What adults interpret as bullying is often read by teenagers as “drama,” a related but distinct phenomenon.

By understanding how teenagers think about harsh rhetoric, the researchers suggested, we may find ways to help them defend themselves against the real dangers of online aggression.

The problems of cyberbullying and Internet overuse are serious, and the risks of making mistakes online are very real. But even those who treat adolescents with these problems are now committed to the idea that there are other important perspectives for researchers—or parents, or teachers—looking at the brave new universe in which adolescence is taking place.

Social media, said Dr. Rich, “are the new landscape, the new environment in which kids are sorting through the process of becoming autonomous adults—the same things that have been going on since the earth cooled.”

Safety Zone

For children with LD and ADHD, who may have challenges when it comes to making and keeping friends, social media may be a way of connecting with others, exploring concerns in a safe and anonymous zone, and practicing friend-making skills.