Modern Warfare - Clandestine Communication: Part 2 (Op-scenes!)

Attention! If setting the Ob-scene scene did not get your attention, regardless of whether UR a parent or an INU (internet user but here pronounced IN YOU like it's become part of, if you use it enough...foreshadowing, spoiler alert for "UR what U-IS")...then the idea of going to war as in Modern Warfare, otherwise known here as "Op-scenes", should gain the rest of the crowd, whose heads may otherwise be in the icloud...need your full attention here, if only for a few minutes, to deliver an important message, as in a public service announcement, that you may not otherwise find on your own service. That you need not be an experienced or dedicated gamer to know, we are in a power struggle, trying to protect our children, if not ourselves, from a surge of information and attempts to preoccupy our attention, when it might be best directed otherwise. That is, we are, as parents, trying to be...

Surge Protectors: Nothing new, this. Parents being the insulation between what the larger society has to offer their kids for digestion, preoccupation, and what they believe is healthy. Both the kinds of stuff, plus amounts. As I mentioned to you yesterday, in reflections of my "Nana", she made me more acutely aware that the "kids of today" were experienced a surge of information at a rate heretofore not anticipated. And, of course, she also proved to be prescient, given this was just the beginning, the foot of the ascent. This would evolve to a point where it could easily pit parents against their children, a "Battle Royale", turning their own home into a war zone of sorts. Or, it could instead become a rallying point, where parents realize they need to, under any conditions, be present for their children, be the surge protectors, themselves be the practitioners of the 7 P's of special Ops training: "Plentiful Preventive (Parenting) Prevents P - - s Poor Performance". Instead of taking you through basic training which you undoubtedly already had as parents, I'll just touch on three dimensions of warfare that easily correspond, relate to, what we as parents need to think about when our son or daughter is too immersed, caught in the 'net'...those of:

Insertion/assertion - inserting ourselves when we may not be wanted, but needed, asserting not our rights as parents, but our strongest convictions (to each other first, for confidence, as you will meet with strong resistance);

Extraction: Rescuing your child when they get in over their heads, when they are almost literally drowning in the negativity of social media and such;

Desertion: What most children initially want from their parents ("just leave me alone!") but eventually find themselves crying out for help.

Attention! As in "Come to attention!" If the foregoing battle analogues are not enough to call you into action, I leave you with three questions, the contemplation of which should serve to get you battle ready, two of which should be somewhat familiar if you've been adulting for a while:

"It's 11 O'clock; do you know where your teenager is?" An old commercial in 'basic training', in gaining parents' awareness of where, when, what their children might be up to as they themselves gained independence, an attention getter in the form of a provocative question, one that did not necessarily take you to the next step, assuming you were already somewhat battle tested...

"How would you feel if you found 1,000 strangers in your daughter's bedroom?" Accompanied by a photo of a closed door, provoking the parent to at least consider not who/what she might be viewing on the computer screen, but who might, in turn, be viewing her, right in the safety of your own home...this, referring at the time to the type of online interactions that is now way out of date, with the advent of even more clandestine way for 'them' to come into our homes with stealth, unless we make it our preoccupation to see and hear...

"How can you hold guilt in reserve?" A related question, "How do you expect your child/teen to manage something that you, yourself, could not manage on your own, without adult guidance...?" The answers to which should serve you well and in turn, your youths, when you start feeling a false sense of guilt for inserting yourself, "invading their privacy" when, truth be told, they are instead experiencing an invasion, a surge...

Across the shores...and through our doors, those of our homes and even our child's bedroom, if we are not there for them...clandestine or not. Parents to the rescue, waging modern warfare.