Parental involvement has been shown to have positive influences on a child’s academic and social development. As kids get older, they naturally want to gain independence and trust. When parents are controlling, kids may question if their parents trust them and parents might feel like they’re intruding. On the other hand, the job of a parent is to safe-guard in a reasonable and responsible way, leading both by example and by setting firm guidelines.
Set boundaries
Most adolescents and teens can’t imagine a world without Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites. As a parent, you may feel a responsibility to monitor your child’s social media use, and that makes sense.
However, it’s important to make a distinction between necessary monitoring, which you’re doing for your child’s safety, and simply impinging on their social life and interactions with their friends. Facebook for kids is a form of interaction – one that most children want limited to their peers as much as possible.
Here are 10 things that parents do on social media that might be embarrasing to their children:
1. Posting Too Much
With the advent of social media and the fact that kids are spending more time on the internet now more than ever, parents need to be extra sure to pay special attention to what their kids are getting into online. In the past, one of the biggest concerns you might have had as a parent dealt with the kind of kids that your child spends a lot of time with. Now, social media sites such as Facebook give kids an outlet that can reach quite literally the majority of the people that your child may know. This can be just fine if your children are trustworthy and responsible with what they share, but some children cross the line, whether it has something to do with sexting, cyberbullying, or making inappropriate comments.
Those of us who are in their thirties remember a time when the things that parents did and the things that kids did were totally separate. Parents went to work, had dinner parties with their friends, or went to movies or the theatre. Teens, on the other hand, hung out with friends at school, gossiped in the cafeteria, and went to raucous parties at each other’s places. The only time that parents were able to monitor teens was when they were at home in the evenings. Before the advent of cell phones, you couldn’t get in touch with anyone at a moment’s notice.
Now, the two worlds overlap all the time on Facebook, where parents as well as children have accounts. It’s easy to keep an eye on teens by logging in and taking a look at their latest posts, especially if the teen has agreed to be “friends” with his/her parents on Facebook. Although teens may not always want their parents to know what they’re up to, who they’re communicating with, and what exactly they’re saying, you still find many teens posting nasty comments about others when they know that their parents are sure to see them.
Do these kids just not realize that Facebook is not like a private diary? Or are they actually hoping to be noticed by engaging in behaviors that psychologists call a “cry for help”? A good example of a “cry for help” in real life, as opposed to the digital arena, is when a person swallows a large number of sleeping pills, but not enough to kill him/her, just enough to get him/her some attention from loved ones. The person doesn’t know what to do to make things better and hopes to shock others into paying attention. There are also more everyday “cries for help,” sometimes referred to as “acting out.” These take the form of throwing tantrums, locking the door to one’s room, or constantly engaging in risky behaviors to get the attention of parents.
Dads and moms can’t be everywhere at once. While we would all like to be able to meet all of our work, family, and social obligations while still being able to keep both eyes squarely on our kids at all times, life just doesn’t work that way. Still we need to be conscientious parents and we’d like to know what’s going on with our kids for those hours a day that their heads are burrowed into their phones, tablets, laptops, and computers. Digital parenting is one of the newest trends sweeping the nation and this is something which has been borne out of both curiosity and necessity.
What it is: Digital parenting gives parents the tools they need to monitor their kid’s virtual activities. It’s no secret that there are bad people out in the world. The virtual and literal anonymity of many corners of the online world have made it vital that your kids be kept an eye on.
Most adolescents and teens can’t imagine a world without Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites. As a parent, you may feel a responsibility to monitor your child’s social media use, and that makes sense.
However, it’s important to make a distinction between necessary monitoring, which you’re doing for your child’s safety, and simply impinging on their social life and interactions with their friends. Facebook for kids is a form of interaction – one that most children want limited to their peers as much as possible.
Here are 10 things that parents do on social media that might be embarrasing to their children:
Pheed is the latest in social media and is positioned to replace Facebook and Instagram in the near future. Why? Because it offers so much more sharing options than Facebook, Youtube and Instagram combined and some of its features will make your online parenting harder.
What is Pheed?
Pheed is a social media app that is available only on iPhones and online. Soon, it will also be available on Android phones, as well. If your child accesses Pheed using only their phone, any online parenting software that you use to track your child's social media usage will be useless. This could be a major draw for kids who have their own phones.
Each user gets what is called a "channel" which is much like Facebook's wall. Users can post their information for everyone to see, or they can close their channel. If a user closes their channel so that only certain people can see it, they have the option of charging other users to view the channel. This can be a highly attractive feature for younger users who may let the wrong users see their channels all in the name of making a profit.
Perhaps before asking the question "What types of technology are our children ready for?", we should ask ourselves "Are they ready for technology and social media at all?" With all the pressures that parents feel concerning social media and technology, sometimes they don't stop to consider that maybe technology is not a good idea at all at this time. With big business fueling advertising of the latest, greatest advances, we're being led to believe that life cannot continue normally without it. But the truth is, the human race has survived a very long time without tweets, statuses and apps.
Instagram is one of the newest forms of social media that is being utilized by millions all over the world. Using pictures to communicate thoughts, feelings and ideas, this appeals to the younger masses especially and many tweens and teens are flocking to this form of communication to express themselves. Uploading their pictures directly from the applications on their phones or tablets using frames and decorations makes it easy and fun to use to connect with friends and followers.
But Instagram isn't rated PG and there is no actual filter or censorship of what can be shared. There is a ton of content on there that many parents would deem pornographic or simply inappropriate, which is why Instagram monitoring is key. If you're concerned with what your kids are watching, what they're exposed to on the internet and the company that they keep, you should be just as concerned with what they are involved in on their social media applications, including Instagram.
Beth Gentrup at Norfolk Junior High in Nebraska is providing seventh-graders Social Network training wheels in the form of an elective course called "Becoming a Cyber Ninja." The course teaches about a wide variety of topics meant to protect online users and promote proper online behavior. This means addressing topics like cyberbullying, stalking, identity theft, and uses of personal information.
To hear your child tell it, she is the only middle-schooler on the planet without her own social networking account. While Facebook sets the minimum age at 13, there is no realistic way for them to screen out younger children who fudge their ages, and Twitter has no age restrictions in place. For parents in the digital age, it is growing increasingly harder to toe the hard line against no Twitter or Facebook for kids. How can you set reasonable rules regarding the popular sites?
Identify the Issues
What are your prime concerns about allowing your tween or teen online? Are you worried that oversharing of personal, identifiable information might attract the unwelcome attention of online predators? Maybe you are worried that your child could become the target of cyberbullying, or even succumb to peer pressure and join in tormenting a classmate online. Or perhaps you feel that your son or daughter's unblemished reputation could suffer by the posting of unwise photos or videos. All are valid concerns and should be addressed in frank discussions with your child starting early in grade school. Realize that you as the parent are the final arbiter on the issue of allowing access to these networks, and like it or not, your child must abide by your rules. If you have a reasonably mature and responsible child, consider allowing limited, monitored access to these accounts with the understanding that the first questionable post will cause them to be suspended indefinitely.
Learn to Navigate the Networks
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The world of parenting has evolved at a rapid pace in the recent past. Though the internet has been around for a few decades now, the access and content of this virtual world has changed drastically. Though we may not want to police our children to the point that they feel they are being virtually "jailed" we are right to set guidelines in this world as we would in the physical world. We don't hesitate to set boundaries about how far our children may roam on their own, and this same rule should apply to the internet.
Here are a few basic tenants to follow in digital parenting:
Children should allow parents assess to all of their internet passwords, which can include email. This is necessary in school, for parents must assess their children's homework through email and class websites. In addition to this, children should not have the freedom to own accounts that their parents cannot view. At some point in their adolescence a parent could revisit this idea, but it is certainly prudent to follow this guideline while a child is in their formative years.
Bullying and cyberbullying are two of the most serious issues you will face in raising your children. These behaviors pose an immediate threat to your child's safety and if they are not handled swiftly they can cause long-term psychological damage that can affect everything from their personal relationships to their performance in school. Fortunately, parents, educators, and counselors across America are responding to these behaviors with some new and innovative approaches.
Leading the way, the federal government created Stopbullying.gov. Essentially, this is a one-stop shop of tools and resources where parents and educators can search for information that they can use at home, at school, and within their own communities. This fantastic resource provides information on how to recognize bullying, how to respond when it is discovered, and how to prevent it from reoccurring in the future.
While resources such as this have been extremely helpful in providing communities with support and information, some states have decided to take their anti-bullying and anti-cyberbullying efforts even further. This past year, the State of Delaware began considering legislation that would make it mandatory for schools in the state to report bullying and cyberbullying.
As part of an on-going blog series that began three weeks ago, we have interviewed some internet safety experts, parenting experts and industry leaders and are pleased to present our findings. Our questions centered around 'digital parenting' and what people thought were the biggest issues regarding this subject.
Today we are featuring responses from our friend Tosin Williams, the founder of The Learning Period, an in-home tutoring service based in Los Angeles, CA.
uKnowKids: How has parenting changed with the introduction of so many digital devices?
This guest post is from Tina Kehoe, a stay-at-home mom of three wonderful kids and a frequent writer on digital parenting topics.
A little girl named Marie, who happens to be in eighth grade, recently received an anonymous text that reads “we are going to have sex next Friday after the dance. Or else." The little girl trembles in shock and fear as she ponders whether she should go to an authority figure or just live in fearful suspense, wondering if the sender is telling the truth. Another sixth grader in New York is plagued by the school bully, so he retaliates via text that “You and your sisters and mom better watch your backs. My dad has a gun."
This is a blog post from Cory Eridon at HubSpot about the newest Facebook feature Graph Search. We thought you all might enjoy! Stay tuned for how this will affect Facebook monitoring and our parental intelligence system.
Well folks, it's the moment we've all been waiting for. Facebook announced its big news today -- the stuff we've all been sitting at the edge of our seats for, the release we've been pontificating about (read what some of our ideas ... and your own were ... about Facebook's big reveal)! So ... what the heck is it?
Well, we were right! Kind of. It's a new search engine called Graph Search! As Facebook puts it, the new search engine, which is
Social media can be a scary thing for parents. More and more people are joining Facebook and Twitter every day; and many of those people who join these social networks are children and teenagers. Social media has taken the place of the "playground", in that predators no longer need to physically hang out with children to obtain access to them.
In Missouri, one school is taking the steps to inform parents about how to keep their kids safe with social media. Detective Ed Bailey of the Southwest Missouri Cyber Crimes Task Force recently attended parent/teacher conferences at Carl Junction High School to talk to parents about the importance of online safety for their children. Detective Bailey stated that the key is to get kids to understand how much of their personal information needs to be safeguarded at all costs. And since many kids generally operate in an "it will never happen to me" frame of mind, getting the message across is difficult.
Here is a guest post about Twitter from Chelsea, over at Diamonds, Dogtags and Diapers. Read on to see how she uses twitter for many aspects of her life, and visit her blog when you are done!
Digital Besties -- Tweeing as a professional, parent and friend
To tweet or not to tweet? Hashtags (#) have invaded our favorite television shows and even places where they don’t belong – like Facebook and text messages.
Parents know that there are certain things we have to teach our children to handle responsibly before we set them free. Most children progress from tricycle to training wheels to big kid bike under parental supervision. It’s only after they’ve learned to ride safely, wear a helmet, and obey the rules of the road that we set them free to ride around the neighborhood. Getting that first driver’s license is an important rite of passage for most teens, but few parents would hand over the car keys to a brand new driver and allow him or her to hit Route 66 for a cross-country road trip. New freedoms are first exercised within boundaries. Cars and bicycles are one thing, but what about teaching your child to navigate social media? Do you have Facebook training wheels?
Let’s just assume for the moment that your child is at least 13 and not one of the 7.5 million Facebook users under the age of 13. There are good reasons for your child to use Facebook and other forms of social media. Here’s the big one: in today’s world, this is how adults communicate. We teach our children how to answer the phone, eat with good table manners, and speak to adults politely. We need to teach them how to appropriately navigate social media as well. Facebook’s user controls don’t always make that easy, however. One out of five adult users don’t utilize Facebook’s privacy settings. Does your child? If you child was one of the one million minors who experienced abuse, threats, or harassment last year, would he or she know how to handle it? Would you know that it had happened?
This article was originally posted on November 23, 2012 by Serena Gordon of HealthDay Reporter
When kids have academic problems, report cards make that clear to parents. And if a kid skins a knee or breaks a bone, parents know what to do.
But detecting that a child is being bullied, and then knowing how to react, may not be so clear-cut.
Kids often are reluctant to tell their parents they're being bullied or cyberbullied, making it difficult to know that they're having trouble with other kids at school or online.
