Instant Messaging is truly an amazing tool. My seventh grade son uses it to chat with his lifelong buddy who now lives on Cape Cod while my sixth grade daughter uses it to stay in touch with her older cousin who lives many miles away. Also both of my children IM friends and counselors from their summer camps whom they rarely see during the school year. These are some of the reasons why I allow my children to use this telecommunications tool. However with the privilege of using it came many conversations between us about how this tool is to be used and not used. There are many reasons why children are attracted to instant messaging and many more ways that it can create problems for them, their peers and their parents.

If you ask any child, tween or teen why he or she uses IM you'll hear universal responses such as "It's fun!" "It's cool!" "It's easy!" "There is ALWAYS someone to talk to."

Children want so very much to be liked and to feel part of a group. When they hear the ping or beep of an instant message it engenders the feeling that someone wants to talk to them. When they want to be social there is always someone else out there to talk to. This lure is like a drug. It is quite common for children to be IM-ing several people at once or to have more than one IM account.

If you observe or read the log of a typical IM "conversation" you'll find it very rapid with clipped sentences and creative abbreviations replacing words or even whole phrases. Instead of laughter there is "lol" (laugh out loud). "cul8r" serves for see you later. 'POS' says parent over shoulder. Most adults would have a difficult time following the conversation and speed of IM. However that is not why most parents have learned to dislike instant messaging.

Instant messaging like most forms of telecommunication via the internet contains a significant degree of anonymity. In fact, a child can even be completely anonymous to the person at the other end by creating an unrecognizable screen name. This disconnect from "normal" social interactions is very powerful. Children report that it is usually easier to say difficult or personal things via IM, chat, or email than to say them in person. That is one of the reasons that children will frequently say things online they don't mean or wouldn't say in person. Sometimes children say very hurtful things online when they can't be seen. Some do it simply because they can. Hitting the 'enter' or 'return' key and sending a message happens in a fraction of a second as if to punctuate a thought. There is usually no careful reading like looking over a sentence constructed by hand on paper. The letter, or even email, is typically not reread or edited. The often blistering pace of communication via IM simply makes it uncommon to review what is written. And once out of sight, out of mind. Children don't see the response of the reader at the other end. If a ten-year old girl says something hurtful to another child in real life she will likely see that hurt written all over the face and body language of the recipient and perhaps those who witness it. Hopefully the responses of others around her will be to attempt some positive social justice. Even if no admonishment follows, the bully knows she has stepped over the boundaries of propriety. Not so in IM. The sender doesn't see the hurt and no one can come to the aid of the wounded recipient. There are far fewer of the social mores that would say to the bully "this is wrong".

Thirteen year old boys have told me that it is much easier to IM or chat with a girl they like than talking to her in person. Sixteen year old girls and boys have told me that it is easier to break up with a boyfriend or girlfriend via IM or chat than in person. Some actually stated that they prefer to use IM or chat to avoid the type of day to day confrontation that occurs in real life. Is this healthy? What are the long term effects of this avoidance on the communication skills or emotional development of teenagers?

Sometimes a hurt is caused via IM completely by accident and the sender is not even aware that he or she has caused pain. On the playground one child can call another a "jerk"; where body language, facial expression, tone of voice and eye contact will all clearly denote that the comment is meant as a joke, perhaps even affectionally delivered. An online recipient sees only the words. No smiley face or other emoticon can possibly supplant all the other important cues of human communication. That is why IM messages are so easily misinterpreted or misread. As fun as it is, IM is actually a very poor form of communication. I have seen misinterpretation of IM messages many times in my own children's IM experiences and heard from many parents who report similar experiences with their own children.

By their very nature, children are trying on different personalities as they mature. They try out different words, body language, and behavior nearly as often as they change their clothes! This is a normal and appropriate part of growing up. But when this normal aspect of growing up is tested out online, the problems I've described with IM and chatting can be exacerbated. Children who would never be seen as bullies on the playground bully online. Children who would never make a sexually inappropriate comment in a group of their peers may do so online.

Please don't misunderstand the intent of this article. Instant messaging is not evil. Nor are the intentions and behavior of every child who uses it. It is merely a technological communication tool. But the tool has flaws and an allure that together make children, tweens and teens the heaviest users and misusers.

In the last year one of the greatest misuses of IM, as well as chat and email, among children and teenagers has been identity theft and impersonation. Unfortunately many children share their passwords with friends. That friend may in turn share the password with another friend. At some point in the chain of friends someone finds it funny to log on as the first child, effectively stealing his or her identity. The perpetrator then IMs, chats, or sends out terribly embarrassing or hurtful messages in the name of that first child. Sometimes these messages are sexually explicit or vulgar. Sometimes they are threatening. These identity thieves come from good homes, poor homes, wealthy homes and homes with loving parents. However, one statistic that bears mentioning is that children from homes with internal strife such as divorce, alcoholism or depression are at much greater risk of exhibiting risky behavior on the internet just as they are in real life.

Similar to identity theft is identity impersonation. In the case of identity impersonation the perpetrator artfully chooses a screen, IM or chat name very similar to the child they want to hurt. For example, suppose one child's screen name is 'COOLdude139'. The perpetrator might create a screen name 'C00Ldude139' substituting zeros for the letter O, or 'COOLdude1139' adding another '1' or even 'COOLdudel39' substituting the letter 'l' for the number '1'. In web browsers the "o", "0", "i", "l" and "1" are most easily confused because they look so similar. I advise children to create accounts that don't use these letters and numbers and thereby reduce their risk of being targeted so easily.

Parents need to reinforce that children should never ever give their passwords out to anyone, including their friends. In my conversations with children and teenagers I try to equate their passwords with access to their bank accounts. Intuitively they understand that they should never give bank account access to anyone. They need to apply this same intuitive response to their telecommunications accounts. Equally important is their choice of both passwords and screen/IM names. Some years ago I had a student whose favorite television show was the "X Files". Everyone in his class knew this since he talked about it all the time. It took other students just a few weeks to figure out that the password to his email account was Mulder, the main character. The online thieves trashed his email and sent out embarrassing and hurtful emails while impersonating him.

Please remember that IM, or chat, or email are not bad tools. In some ways the tools open up a world of wonderful possibilities while, as I've mentioned, in other ways they enable children to make poor choices much too easily. Put quite bluntly, IM, Email and chatting should not be given 'carte blanche' to any child before sixth grade without very limited and strict guidelines for its use. Even sixth and seventh graders should have very closely monitored use of these tools. My daughter knows that I must know and approve the addition of every name in her IM buddy list. She knows that it is not acceptable to add a "friend of a friend" to her buddy list. She also knows that her time on IM is limited and that she must be nearby when using this tool. There is no internet access behind the closed door of her room, nor in my son's for that matter. Children in third, fourth or fifth grade should not have their own IM or email accounts. Children are trying so hard to learn how to navigate their 'real life' social worlds. Doing that navigating online is that much harder, and the attendant mistakes are that much easier to make.

I can say with complete confidence that parents will protect their children most effectively by keeping the internet out of their child's bedroom and putting it in a public area of their home, by setting very strict guidelines for using it, and by restricting IM, email and chatting. It is that simple. Not to mention that there will be fewer interuptions when your child is on the computer doing homework! We need to teach them to use these powerful tools responsibly and ethically. We teach our children telephone manners, social skills when attending a gathering, how to shake hands, and how important it is to make eye contact. Yet most of us never apply those same considerations to social interactions online. Adults need to wake up. The internet and telecommunications has long ago replaced the telephone as the social tool of choice in the lives of our children. The speed and sophistication with which these tools are developing demand that we have the same conversations about ethics, values, manners and behavior with our children and their use of these tools.