Last Thursday, Dr. Alok Banga, Medical Director of Sierra Vista Hospital, delivered a presentation about Mentalization Based Thereapy (MBT) to therapists and counselors, at Sierra Vista Hospital in Sacramento. His explanation of mentalization as “a form of imaginative mental activity about others or oneself,” is instructive for the modern parent challenged with engaging hearts and minds of youth in a world where we are all continually distracted with devices and apps. In short, it is cultivating the capacity to share naked thoughts with another person. It is an intimacy enabled by trust.

At the beginning of the year, United Health Care issued a feature about a Pew report survey finding that parents across socio-economic boundaries rank bullying as the number one concern for their children.

Cross Roads Church Next Generation Pastor, Dan Britton, has invited me to speak to parents of teens at the South Placer Teen Center about the challenge of parenting tech-savvy teens.

...Role clarification is a beautiful thing, and is easily obscured by misplaced desires to be in control of the successes in your child’s sports and school life. Unchecked, the devices beckon us to let it all hang out – all of the mistakes you witnessed your child’s coach make, and the unfair decisions about who to play and when. In the heat of the moment, broadcasting your dismay is a natural impulse. After all if your child’s sports experience is being sullied by someone who doesn’t care about the children like you do, or who is simply not qualified to coach, why sit by and say nothing? ...

The most challenging “banana moment” for the modern parent is when to issue your child a smart phone. It is a rite of passage that carries with it privileges, responsibilities and dangers tantamount to handing over the keys to the car. And it happens typically around middle school or upper grammar school grades. One of the reasons why it is so challenging to parent youth with mobile devices is that they are empowered by the feeling of no limits to communication, and they will naturally be resistant to parental oversight – especially when shame-inspired content transpires (i.e., sexting, bullying, gossip). And it is easy to keep secrets because cyber connectivity is so clandestine.

It's Christmas time and the number one request will be "can I get a smart phone”? At very early ages, kids desire to have their own device and they will tell their parents "everyone has one” and they will say it like they are dying inside. For many parents this is a very persistent and compelling request. And it is very important that you have a very clear idea in your own mind of when and how you want to see your child learn how to become a responsible user of her own smart phone. If your no is simply “resistance” your child will respond as if you are trying to control him. Your aim, is to say “No” with the authority that is genuine and reflects your confidence to provide direction on how and when your child will gain access to their own smart phone. For some families, it may be upon entering middle school, others high school and still other families may choose not to budget for smart phone services.

Grooming children for the social network is a tremendous challenge for the modern parent, largely because mobile connectivity introduces a power crisis that previous generations have not experienced. In many ways we are traveling unchartered territory of the heart and mind when it comes to the choices we make as parents with regard to access and regulated use of technology. Truly whoever has the device must learn how to think like the quarterback.

...So the concern from the parent’s point of view, is not trying to keep track of all the possible apps your child may want to use, but to maintain an open dialogue about their interests and build trust about what apps they are allowed to use, when and why. Social media is a very compelling experience, and in their pursuit to seek personal identity and sense of belonging, children at earlier ages can come to believe that in order to be a real person, to be visible, they must have an on-line presence.

Featuring his new book, Hurt 2.0: Inside the World of Today's Teenagers, Clark addressed the social, cultural and biological dynamics of growing up in today’s world and offers insights for parents whose own development experience cannot compare.

The most important thing parents can teach children in order to groom them for cyber-safe use of texting and social media is that they already have power and it must be defended. It is like the teacher saying, “You already have an ‘A’. Your assignment is to defend it.” The seminal question for the modern teen is, how much personal power will you surrender to the bully, the drug or the device?