Too much information (TMI)

Like other parents of teenagers, I sometimes wonder (worry?) about what my son's future will have him getting into. Like my peers, I try to steer him in the right direction but mostly I trust him to make his own decisions. This has worked well for our family so far, but when I hear what police officers in Delaware are saying, I find myself wondering if we've just been lucky up until now. Police and arson investigators believe there's a correlation between Internet use and some criminal behavior.

One assistant fire marshal noted that while it's true that teens of yesteryear also made explosives (I'm guilty here), they only came upon that knowledge through word-of-mouth. Today, kids just have to do a little online searching (they're great at that) and they'll have explicit directions at their fingertips in no time. I have no problems with having that information out there; it was available years ago, as well - it's just that we had to get it from the library or ask someone knowledgeable.

I think what's reprehensible is that once they construct these devices, some of these kids then video tape themselves and post their shenanigans on YouTube. In fact, it was doing just that that got two youths arrested in Delaware in January. They were lucky not to get hurt, but not everyone has been so fortunate, other kids have been injured and even died. Either way, I have to say I agree that this infatuation with explosives is probably on the rise in part because of the "glory" of getting hundreds of hits on YouTube. It's one thing to tape yourself blowing up a bomb in a field, or even taping yourself doing stupid (sometimes dangerous) stunts, but I find it disturbing that some other stuff gets posted too.

In the end, it usually gets summed up by saying parents have to know where their kids are, what they're doing, give them sound advice, yadda, yadda. But that only goes so far. All you have to do is search online and you'll see that immaturity often lasts way past adolescence - there are plenty of adults out there with some serious arrested development issues. Who do we blame then?