Parenting by Social Media - Is this our future?

It's not enough that today's tweens/teenagers are preoccupied with obsessively updating their friends via texts, Facebook and Twitter but now they are literally trying to parent us parents by forcing us to change our decisions via social media. 

This weekend's New York Times chronicles one Queens, New York teenager's efforts to overturn her parent's recent punishment for what she deemed "an honest late-night mistake."  How? She formed a Facebook fan page group "1,000 to get Tess ungrounded."  

So what was her honest late-night mistake. She was caught drinking at a party and missing her 11:30 curfew by an hour. Did I mention she is only fifteen? And for this offense, she was grounded for 5 weeks that included no parties or  sleepovers.

Is that we, Web 2.0 parents are in for going forward? Anytime, we yell at our kids, make them do their homework, banish them to practice the piano, take away their electronic toys or ground them, they are going to put it up on Facebook or tweet about it??

While I admire her chutzpah and ingenuity, I think it is somewhat disrespectful to her parents to have done this. Did she really think they were going to change their mind? 

She is lucky that her parents gave her access to the computer during the five week grounding so she could even create the fan page. I know I would have included taking away her computer access as part of her punishment. 

Fortunately,  I have a few more years before my six year old daughter discovers Facebook or Twitter so I have time to brainwash her that homework is good, internet is bad. Yeah, right!

This is an original nycmomsblog post. 

Linda G. is a single mom (by choice) of a six year old daughter. She is the founder/editor of www.newyorkcitysinglemom.com, which she started after being laid off from a Tarp bank in December 2008. 

She is working on a book about her adoption experience adopting as a single Japanese/African American woman, while she seeks her next career.