Last May, the Mutual of Omaha ‘aha moment’ tour kicked off in Sacramento where I met Joyce “Skip” Rochette, of El Dorado Hills, a mother of five children and grandmother five times over as well. She offered a very important insight about the impact parents have in our cyber-powered world.

“We always talk about how much we love our children,” she said. “And of course we love them. The bigger question is what do you ‘like’ about your child?”

Skipp encourages parents to consider how much they reinforce the good character displayed by our children. “Let your children know how much you like it when they do something kind, honorable compassionate or considerate,” she said. Some examples she offered include:

Picking up clothes and toys without being asked
Allowing a younger brother or sister to go first
Telling the truth even though it meant having a consequence

Skipp’s advice really hits at the heart of the crisis for children in their networked environments.

Cyber parenting is a paradox. On the one hand, the technology of smart wireless devices and apps has disrupted home life and family relationships. The power of one-to-many communications seduces us away from face-to-face interaction. And it is easy for children to believe that parents have less authority because WWW connectivity affords access to unlimited “knowledge” and people.

No doubt technology is definitely a game changer for parenting and family life.

On the other hand, the fundamentals of cyber parenting have less to do with technology and more to do with hearts and minds. So let us consider that there are three realms of security in our modern world.

The advent of the mobile phone, along with the Internet is makes it easier for tweens and teens to keep secrets and abuse drugs and alcohol; it creates a perfect storm for the modern drug addict to look like your child. In June 2011, the Center for Addition and Substance Abuse at Columbia University declared youth substance abuse the number one public health problem for America. And by the same token, prevention and recovery measures represent an opportunity to bond with your child about recognizing their issues and their inherent value as a person, as well as their capacity to ultimately be in charge of their own life.

I serve as the Co-Chair for a youth substance abuse prevention organization called the Coalition For Placer Youth, founded in 2008. CPY collects data from youth via anonymous surveys regarding their attitudes and behavior regarding alcohol and drugs. One of the most significant findings with Placer County youth is that parents are not having meaningful conversations with tweens and teens to reinforce the norms for what is legal and safe, and there is a correlation between use and abuse of alcohol.

Parents are largely silent and fearful about substance abuse and addiction. And for the most part, children are making good decisions every day. But as long as parents are silent about the norms for what is legal and safe, adolescents are left with tremendous anxiety as they witness substance abuse and other youth issues not addressed, and they are at risk for other mental health issues, among them anxiety, insomnia and depression.

The moral of the story, Anderson writes, is learn to “resist the feed”.

Anderson’s call to “resist the feed” inspires this edition of Banana Moments to feature stories and perspectives about what it means to be a digital citizen, and the value of individual resiliency in a free society.

If we define citizenship as the quality of an individual’s response to membership in a community, then digital citizenship in a free society must incorporate the value of individual liberty and the capacity to “stand alone” at times.

So when does being “connected” to the network actually bully the individual to give up independent thought? When the intimidation is so intense that there is only one option: “go along in order to get along”.

Eventually independent thought isn’t perceived as an option.

Kim Fredrickson, M.S., is a marriage and family therapist in Roseville, California who teaches self-compassion as a fundamental way to reinforce our capacity to relate to others because she has found that cyber-powered lifestyles can leave us critical of ourselves and disconnected to God.

In a recent interview, Kim shared some of the main features of her new book, Building a Compassionate Relationship With Yourself, which is a must read for the modern parent.

Convergence of technology would certainly guarantee that whoever has the mobile device holds the world in the palm of their hand. And we have seen that wireless mobile devices are produced in a variety of forms, shapes and sizes for all ages as we have seen iPods, notebooks, iPads and smart phones deliver an endless supply of apps that allow communication and photo sharing.

My next book, A Google World in the Garden of Eden: Five Family-Safe Strategies for Texting and Social Media, will be released this fall. It addresses the fundamental ways in which parents can govern their homes to engage children as learning executives who make good decisions on and off line.

Blind spots are the stuff about our children’s lives that we cannot experience or know unless we are open to receiving data about our children from sources other than our own children and our own beliefs and expectations about them.

There always have been blind spots in parenting.

However, the advent of the Internet and the mobile phone transformed the dynamics for communications with societal implications that leveled hierarchies at work and home; the model for formal authority that was once tied to social structure (position) carries less significance than it did for previous generations. Titles like “president”, “teacher” or “parent” carry less authority. In a flat world, where hierarchies are traded for networks, authority is more related than ascribed.

No LOL.

New research shows that safe teen driving is about training for competency and state driving laws are structured differently. New drivers 18 years or older are not required to receive the training and provisional licensing, and they are less safe that younger teens with learner’s permits.

Dr. Kelly Browning is the Executive Director of Impact Teen Drivers, a Sacramento non-profit dedicated to promoting a safe teen driving culture through awareness and education. “Turning 18 years old is not a magic number,” Browning said. “Parents need to understand that they are the ones ultimately who determine what is right for their child. And each child may be different.”

SB231 is the result of relentless lobbying by Lisa Berry, founder of B.R.A.V.E. Society peer abuse prevention non-profit in Carmichael, California. Berry is a mother who lost her teenage son four years ago to cyberbullying in his school community that, according to Berry, completely dismantled his life around a rumor that he was gay; her son was completely isolated as the cyber-powered rumors invaded every nook and cranny of his adolescent life convincing him that there was no hope.

Her son Michael shot himself in the boys’ bathroom at school, after repeated attempts to secure help from school administration went unheeded.