Kids of all ages are stumbling about in the social media world, making mistakes in etiquette and behavior that range from akward and embarassing to career-limiting and downright dangerous. The problem, as CNN’s Katie McLaughlin so rightly points out, is that kids are not receiving guidance in basic social skills.

McLaughlin’s piece centers around Faye Rogaski, a college teacher who was appalled at the attire and attitude of some of her students:

“students who showed up with bare midriffs and never contributed to discussions during…classes were surprised when they weren’t picked for coveted internships and jobs. They would also e-mail the public relations executive without so much as a greeting but with demands such as ‘I need a reference,’ or ‘I need a letter of recommendation’.”

Rogaski started socialsklz:-), to teach kids of all ages the social skills she felt they weren’t getting. Classes cover e-mail etiquette, how to behave in an interview, and for younger children, how to order their own food at a restaurant. (While I’m not sure about the field trip to Dunkin’ Donuts, I imagine the kids loved it.)

A college-aged job seeker who thinks that all relationships are casual and friendly would naturally be inclined to use emoticons and text abbreviations in a thesis paper or a letter to a recruiter. This is not a misunderstanding of social media, which is after all just a set of tools, but a misunderstanding of how to communicate with people in professional situations.

The situation is different for much younger kids. I’ve been asked to present to the local elementary school and middle school on the topic of appropriate social network use. The more I think about this the more it keeps coming back to social skills and parental obligation. We don’t tell children how to behave in a casino or a bar, or how to have sex. There is little positive that social networking can offer younger children either.

Instead of figuring out how to get their kids on social networks, parents should be guiding them to more age appropriate activities, (I wrote about this idea here) and instilling in them the social skills and common sense necessary to protect themselves in a complex and sometimes scary and predatory world. Once that foundation is in place, kids can go tweet and friend freely, because they are going to any way.

I hope socialsklz:-) is wildly successful. Rogaski seems to understand better than nearly anyone else, that a foundation in social fundamentals is much more useful than one in how to do a retweet.