Your Turn
Guest Column
Paul
Hughes
Gambling on technological prevention

My interest was piqued when I read your recent special section on a purported teen gambling problem which has gone unchecked.

According to your stories, there is no doubt that teen gambling is a problem, albeit a masqueraded affliction that bears a different face than that of more common criminal teen addictions like drugs, drinking and other afflictions of modern living in the 21st century.

Teens are besieged with negative influences, as were all of us at their tender age.

In your recent articles, I couldn’t help but notice the numerous references to what can be done after the problem has taken its toll.

One of the quotes in a story aptly stated that teen gambling is "a problem that flies below the radar screen of parents and officials."

That alone underscores a more important issue: how to enforce a form of preventive parenting. How can parents identify the signs of addiction and negative, predatory influences and deal with them effectively before, not after, they become problems in proportions of full-scale diseases?

Most experienced parents would agree that taking corrective action before the problem occurs is the ideal solution. But how?

The lead article on gambling provided a list of signs to identify a problem. Though the list was helpful, the hints were only useful after the fact.

As many parents of teens know, it is far more constructive to address a teen with specific instances than to hint and make allegations without back-up. Launching into an accusatory mode after they’re already deep into the dark side of something can only alienate the teen and could worsen the situation.

So, what options do responsible parents have? There are a number of readily available technological solutions to assist parents. The corporate world has been using these solutions for years in monitoring the activities of its employees.

Advanced technology can also, with the stroke of a keyboard and click of a mouse, allow parents to discretely monitor online activities. Trust must be instilled between parent and child, and I am, in no way, suggesting a Big Brother approach to parenting. Rather, I think it’s timely to take advantage of technology that’s available to keep forewarned parents forearmed.

If a parent knows what’s going on with his or her teen, either via security systems or online monitoring systems, they can use the information to keep dialogue on the subject ongoing and prevent anything from an encounter with a pedophile to a seemingly harmless obsession with nuclear physics.

Having the knowledge as a parent opens the door for a dialogue about motivations and intentions. Yet few people realize this discreet technology exists.

Previously, the best defense for parents were programs like Net Nanny and Cyber Sitter. While helpful, these programs primarily blocked access to objectionable sites. If you don’t know where they’re going, how can you attempt to solve a potential addiction.

Technology is wonderful. Let’s use it to network our family values toward the prevention of problems rather than picking our kids up off the floor after they’ve been knocked down by various predatory influences. Parents have enough mending to do with everyday teen issues like acne and broken hearts. Addiction doesn’t need to top or even be on the list.

I’m not foolish enough to think that any one proposal is fail-safe. Nothing takes the place of one-on-one interaction between parent and child. I just don’t see the point in not using what we’ve got to fight an addictive demon early on.

Paul Hughes is a resident of Tinton Falls