 Timothy D. Hillman, Ph.D. Understanding parents’ needs to be involved with their children’s lives, Tim Hillman starts at ground zero with parents and says, “Let’s talk realistically about the Internet.” Tim begins by describing the paradoxes of the Internet, its positives and negatives—and “working it from moment one.” He goes on to talk a little about My Space, the social networking website that receives more traffic than any other web site. When kids set up their My Space website, their goal is to get as many friends as possible and usually their My Space site looks exactly like their bedroom-littered with posters, photos, audio streams, video streams, an intimate portrait of themselves. Tim advises parents to say to their children, “If you go to My Space, I am part of Your Space.” In essence, the rules and the game have changed, the lessons haven’t. Tim asks parents to fill in three cards. Card One: “Why are you here? What do you hope to gain? What’s the purpose?” Card Two: “What did I do as a child that would have scared my parents?” Card Three: “What scares you about the information on the net? What are your kids doing that scares you?” The rest of Dr. Hillman’s session centers around discussion of the answers on those three cards. He believes that everything a parent does counts, particularly conveying to children, “What you do matters.” He talks about how kids view the Internet and how adults view the Internet. The workshop’s goal is to help a group of parents working together to come to a common understanding of helping children understand safe and reasonable Internet rules and boundaries. An accomplished improvisational actor and teacher, technology writer and thinker, Tim also knows how to communicate with children, adolescents and teenagers. He follows essentially the same format with students that he does with their parents, saying, “It’s their deal, they define it, they have the answers.” To them, he says, “Be You, Not Virtual You.” The questions on the three student cards are: Card 1: Share something you love about the Internet. Share something you hate about the Internet. Card 2: What have you seen someone do on the Internet that scared you? What you have done on the Internet that scared you? Card 3: At what age do you think children should have unrestricted, unlimited access to the web? With students he discusses the quandary of their MySpace boundaries. Tim asks them to consider questions such as: “How much information are you willing to give?” “How much of your physical self do you want someone to see?” “If you don’t get visual clues, if you don’t see someone, how do you know what’s OK and not?” “How can you determine emotional boundaries when you see no reaction to what you are writing?” He asks students to understand they are unsafe once one of their boundaries is shattered. He asks them where are they going, whom are they consulting in establishing their boundaries. He helps them understand that they must address their boundaries and the danger they can put themselves in. He asks them, “How do you think you should behave?” Dr. Hillman’s life is currently quite busy. He is an Implementation Specialist with InResonance of Northampton, Massachusetts (www.InResonance.com) for whom he travels all over the country. When he began working with InResonance in the summer of 2007, he and they agreed it was a natural that Tim continue, at a separate fee, his My Space, Your Space, Whose Space programs when and if time permitted and should a school be interested. Tanya Bickley, Tim’s longtime personal appearance agent, makes the arrangements for Dr. Hillman’s parent and student workshops. Tim continues on an informal basis his work with the Center for Sports Parenting in Kingston, Rhode Island. An alumnus of the St. Mark’s School, Tim graduated from Bates College with a major in Theatre and Rhetoric and has a Ph.D. from LaSalle University. He is the author of Amazon’s No. 1 best seller on boarding schools, Behind the Walls: A Parents’ Guide to Boarding Schools. Recently Dr. Hillman was Assistant Dean of Students at the Prout School in Wakefield, Rhode Island, where he was also chairman of the Computer Science Department. From 1991-2001 he taught theatre at the St. Andrews-Sewanee School and was director of technology there. An accomplished actor, he was director of Theatre for six years at the Buckley School in Los Angeles, and his introduction to independent school teaching came as Director of Student Productions and Social Functions at Philips Academy (Andover). For years, Tim had a weekly column, “The Centrist,” in the web magazine www.MacCentral.com. |
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