Finally Heard

Author Kelly Yang had a very hard year. She was shocked both by the horrible things her children's peers said to them on social media and by the equally awful things they said in response.
"As a parent, there's no more terrifying feeling than lying there awake, wondering what is going on with your kid. Not knowing whether your child is suffering silently. Whether what they're seeing online is taking another invisible stab at their self-esteem. Not knowing how to help."
Yang tried the traditional recommendations: setting screen times, taking devices away at night, downloading monitoring apps (only to discover that her kids started using their neighbor's Wi-Fi). Nothing seemed to work until she began really talking to them. Her hard won knowledge lies at the heart of her Finally Heard.
When Lina's mother's bath bomb business is being undercut by businesses with slick social media presences she decides to fight fire with fire. Her video goes viral.
"'Our whole lives can change! With just a phone! Can you imagine?' Mom cries. 'We don't have to be left behind'"
Lina's mom has read that to grow her business she'll have to post all the time. Suddenly she's constantly busy posting videos, filling orders, and replying to online comments.
Lina feels that if she had a cell phone she'd have it made in the shade. But when her mother gives her one it's a whole different story. She becomes jealous of her classmates' bigger homes and fancier vacations. Her self image, which is shaky already due to an awkward early puberty, really takes a hit when she's bombarded with information on how to cure her problems. She becomes enmeshed in class online and offline drama.
Yang believes that parents can help their children achieve a healthy online presence. "I hope Lina's story serves as a jumping point to start talking to kids about digital health before they get a phone. I hope it inspires, enrages…and ultimately leaves us with hope. I'm not going to lie. I still lie awake sometimes. But I'm hopeful that by having these important conversations, all our kids will be better prepared for the digital world."
Finally Heard would be a great read for parent-child book clubs.
On a purrrsonal note, when my kids were in middle school I had that experience of lying awake. The emerging social media world with its perils and pitfalls for kids seemed truly terrifying. I think most of us were desperately searching for ways to protect our children.
But it's not only kids. Adults can be equally venomous, behaving in ways they would probably not offline. In my school board days I woke up the morning after a meeting I'd chaired to discover a nasty post about me and how I ran the meeting. That didn't bother me all that much. The comments on my opinion pieces in the local paper had inured me to all that. What bothered me was that my fellow board members were assuring me that they'd get her. When the superintendent asked me what I wanted them to do I said absolutely nothing. Fighting would have distracted everyone from the sensitive and controversial issues we were having to deal with.
A great big shout out goes out to all the people who are working diligently to discover and enlighten people about the perils, including the not so obvious one, of social media.
Jules Hathaway