KIDS THESE DAYS:

The pace of change is quickening. Nothing new, except that as it does, it brings many more challenges and opportunities to our doorsteps.

One of the challenges of parents in the Electronic Age is the wide variety of temptations and distractions their kids face.

Not too many years ago, the only significant electronic temptation kids faced was television. And in a lot of homes, that problem was easily solved by removing the power cord from the boob tube.

Today, however, kids have computers, cell phones and other gadgets that not only take them way beyond any place that they visited through television, they don’t need parental approval to go there.

Today, entire cities are programmed for wireless Web access. Today, public libraries have computers with online capabilities.

It is for these and other reasons that parents today need all the help they can get — even parents who consider themselves involved in the lives of their children.

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about Teleparent, an electronic marvel that allows teachers to communicate by telephone directly with parents about what is happening to their child in the classroom, good and bad.

According to Dan Diehl, the co-principal at Costa Mesa High School, Teleparent is a success on several levels.

“Teachers feel empowered, for one, because it knocks down language barriers,” said Diehl, “And it can communicate with both parents who have legal rights to a child but are living apart. Both parents can get the phone calls.”

Diehl told me that Teleparent was brought to the district through the assistant principal at TeWinkle Middle School, who had experience with it when she was at the Santa Ana Unified School District.

The range of Teleparent calls can be very positive to very negative.

On the positive side, parents can get a recorded call stating that their child was behaving well and contributing in class.

On the negative side, the call may tell parents that the child was unruly (my word) or that the child came to class unprepared.

My son got an “unprepared” call a couple of weeks ago. When I played the call for him, he told me that it was because he did not have his textbook with him.

Not the end of the world, but I’ll bet he remembers his books from now on.

“The folks at Teleparent gave us an important caution when we started out,” said Diehl. “They advised us initially to place primarily positive calls.”

That advice turned out to be good.

My first Teleparent call advised me that my son was behaving well and contributing in class.

When I played it for him, he lit up and said, “Cool!”

From that first call, my impression of the program has been positive.

I don’t know whether it would be as supportive had the initial call reported that he had just been caught listening to his MP3 player in class, but I doubt it.

A negative call would probably have had me ranting about intrusion and nit-picking. But compliment my kid? Cool indeed!

The argument that this is somehow another creep toward the “Big Brother” predictions of George Orwell’s “1984” are not supported by the facts.

The fact is that Teleparent is an efficient, effective use of technology to help parents in an age that is unlike any before it.

Teleparent is fabulous. Three cheers for the Newport-Mesa Unified School District for buying it.

A reminder to all local fundraisers supporting schools, sports programs or kids in any way to get your information to me this week.

These will be reported in next week’s column. E-mail your fundraiser information to me at smi161@aol.com.

STEVE SMITH is a Costa Mesa resident and a freelance writer. Send story ideas to dailypilot@latimes.com.