So you don’t like your kid’s peers?

So you're not too keen on your teenager's friends and their influence on him. Well, let's talk
about that today on Tips on Teens. My name is Kent Toussaint. I'm a licensed marriage and family
therapist, and I specialize in helping kids, teens, and families live happier lives. I lead
two organizations, the group Private Practice Teen Therapy Center, and the nonprofit 501c3
organization, Child and Teen Counseling, both here in Woodland Hills, California. And every
Wednesday at noon, I jump into your Facebook feed live and answer your parenting questions.
And let's jump into today's question. The other day, my son's computer screen was on and I saw
his friends were cyberbullying a kid as well as making racial slurs. Though my son was not the
one making the comments, it bothered me that the group he was associating with was. I confronted
my son and told him he was no longer allowed to have contact with those so -called friends. Now
he's super angry and feels I betrayed him by looking at his

computer. What should a parent do if they don't like the peer group their teenager is associating
with? How involved should the parent be? And at what point is a parent not respecting a teen's
right to choose their friends? Thank you so much for your question. It's a very complicated,
nuanced question which is gonna be different for every family, of course. But let's talk about
the first thing of the cyberbullying. And it may have very well been cyberbullying. And if it
was cyberbullying, I think you need to contact the school and make sure this kid is being protected
and safe. However, there is a culture among teenage boys online where there are no rules. There's
nothing out of bounds. The insults just fly. And the more rude the insult, the more deep the cut
is, better it was. And everyone laughs and has a great time. Now, I'm not condoning this. I'm
just stating that this is commonplace for teen boys. Now, this is not a new thing with the internet.
It's been going on forever. Any guy

who's ever been in a locker room has experienced this in one way or another. However, the difference
is, when we were all kids in the locker room, if you went too far, if you insulted someone's mother
too much or said a racial slur too far or something like that, well, you're probably gonna get
socked in the face. But online, there's no fear of getting socked in the face. So, and with stand
-up comedy and roasting, we call it roasting, is being more prevalent in our culture. It's not
who can go deeper, who can do the more, the insult that is really inappropriate. The more inappropriate,
the better. Again, I'm not condoning it, but it's there and it's always been there. And it could
be that this kid, it was just his turn, and next time it's gonna be your son's turn, next time it's
gonna be your friend's turn, and they all have a great time with it. And so before you jump into
accusing your son and these kids of cyberbullying, make sure it was cyberbullying and not just
their way of having

fun. Again, I'm not condoning it, just saying that it was. So now you may be saying, but I don't
want my kid doing that. I want my kid to respect, you know, and not use inappropriate racial slurs
and this and that. Okay, and I understand that, but you can't legislate that. It's hard to legislate
how your kids talk with their friends. You can't really mandate that because you can't monitor
them all the time. It's like if you say you can't hang out with those friends, it's hard to legislate
that. It's hard to set that boundary because they're either gonna do it anyway behind your back,
or you have to shut down every device they have, and that's not realistic either. And they may
say, well, if you shut out those friends, those are my friends, I have no other friends, and then
it's a whole other issue. So again, if this was a non -quarantine time, I would say you should
invite these guys over to your house, get to know them, because you may start seeing them as more
three -dimensional people.

And if you start having a relation with them, they have a relation with you, you need to build
more trust, and maybe you have some of that influence on them, and then your son respects that
influence. It's complicated. It's not easy. None of this is. But also with online, the computer,
is it, are you invading his privacy by looking at his screen? It depends on the boundaries you
set when you gave him the computer. When you give your child, or a teenager, a phone, a tablet,
a computer, the rules have to be pretty clear pretty early on. Otherwise, you're gonna be in
a situation of, well, is it a violation of his privacy, is it not? And when you give that computer
or that phone, is it, do you guys set the table that, hey, I have access to all your passwords?
Or you can only be on your screens in a public area, like the living room or the kitchen or the dining
room. You can't be in your room on your computer or your phone. These are some boundaries that
some families have. Is that right for

your family? I don't know. It's really up to you. But these are, the more you guys understand
what the boundaries are for your family, then it's more clear where the privacy is. And your
kid should have some privacy. For example, if your kid's on the phone, do you mandate that you're
on the other line? Conferenced in so you can listen to the phone call? Probably not. So should
you be involved in all his texts? I don't know. The difference is, with a phone call or FaceTime,
you say words, and as long as no one's recording, those words are gone. But as soon as you send
a text, that text is there forever until someone deletes it. And still, it's kind of, the phone
companies can find it, supposedly. I don't know. So it's important that you teach your children
and your kids safe phone texting etiquette because once they send things out, they send this
funny meme, they think it's really funny, and then, oh, wow, that's really inappropriate and
it hurt a lot of people's feelings. Or it's taken

out of context. Those things really need to be talked about with your kids. Again, that's a whole
other video. But I just wanna make sure I touch on that. Thank you for your question. If you have
a question you'd like me to answer or you'd like me to go in more detail with anything we talked
about today, you can email us at tipsonteens at teentherapycenter .com or direct messages
right here on Facebook or Instagram. We love your questions. Again, my name is Kent Toussaint
with Teen Therapy Center and Child and Teen Counseling. And I'll see you guys next Wednesday.
Bye -bye. Oh, by the way, happy St. Patrick's Day.