Any other parents sick of managing this crap? You really have to stay on top of it but man is it a PITA.
Kids and social media
- Thread starter Formerly Rockymtnole
- Start date
Past a certain age I really don't think it's possible to screen everything.
And then girls in their school start sending them stuff.
Just wait.
One of my favorite jokes my Dad said to me:
Dad: have any naked pictures of your gf?
Me: what!?!? NO!
Dad: wanna buy some
I laughed
Yeah, it's a pain. We insist on having access to all of it right now. As they get older they'll get more privacy. I already just give lip service about porn to the boy. Mostly I want him to worry enough about being caught that his mom never sees it. Lord knows I'll never be able to keep him from it.
My kids are 25 and 27. Doubt there's much I can do to affect their use of social media.
We're the same. To me it's important that she knows that we're monitoring everything. We've told her our job isn't to spy and to play "gotcha!". Our job is to parent, and that includes making sure that what she's seeing, saying, and doing is appropriate for her age (14yo). We'll periodically take her phone from her, while she's watching, and go through it. We have text alerts that send us copies of texts she sends or receives that include words from a list we set up. She got caught deleting a text thread once, and we let her know if she did it again, she'd lose the phone, so it hasn't been a problem. It's a matter of setting expectations, along with associated penalties, and being consistent with the enforcement.
No telling what kind of viruses the kids will get on the PC, tablets, smart phone... makes me sick just thinking about it.
My kids are 14, 13, & 10. The hottest thing right now for them are "youtubers". As in typical American fashion my son already told me one of them makes millions of dollars with their youtube channel. Great. I think all he is setting to tell me is he wants to be a youtuber when he grows up.....
As adults, who never had these smart phones when we were kids, I believe we are pretty much addicted to them.
Imagine having them from the age of a teenager.
Imagine having them from the age of a teenager.
Below is the site for the app we used...free. Allows you to control a lot of the kids phone usage.
http://ourpact.com/
http://ourpact.com/
There's a bunch of them, but the one we use is MMGuardian. It has two apps - one for the parents' phone, one for the kid's phone.
It's funny - on the Google Play store, the kid's app has a really low rating. All the bad ratings are from kids saying how much they hate their parents monitoring them and "invading their privacy". If that many kids are peeved by it, it must be working.
The app does include an option to force kids to use the app's own search engine, rather than google, which I imagine is pretty restrictive. We haven't gone that far.
I struggle with this greatly... as a divorced father who lives 3 hours away I have little to no say in what their mother lets them do with their phones. They have a rich grandmother that just bought them iPhone 8Ss.
I have twins that are 13 and thus far my son is just oblivious to the world outside sports and his xbox but my daughter is already way too far into the problem areas. IMO, they don't have any business having SnapChat accounts (Mom lets them) but we have made it clear that my new wife and myself have to be included in her friends.
Technology has certainly, in the very least, lapped this guy and its approaching being out of sight. So hard to keep up with everything they do.
I tried to get the app where you had to get a password to download any new app to their phone... ex nixed that. So frustrating to have such a terrible relationship with an ex that even the simplest of parenting issues can't be discussed.
I have twins that are 13 and thus far my son is just oblivious to the world outside sports and his xbox but my daughter is already way too far into the problem areas. IMO, they don't have any business having SnapChat accounts (Mom lets them) but we have made it clear that my new wife and myself have to be included in her friends.
Technology has certainly, in the very least, lapped this guy and its approaching being out of sight. So hard to keep up with everything they do.
I tried to get the app where you had to get a password to download any new app to their phone... ex nixed that. So frustrating to have such a terrible relationship with an ex that even the simplest of parenting issues can't be discussed.
I told my son he can watch porn as long as it is produced by women
I remember when your kids were just little munchkins running around during game watching parties. They grow up fast!
I'm am very sorry to hear this.
I know you probably already know this but you can only do what you can do...you hope and pray for the rest. It'll be ok.
tight wad didn't stump for the X? lol
pay attention to phrases like "finsta" that would be a fake instagram acct where the kids do their damage without prying parental eyes. similar for other social media services.
I've seen this a lot with the daughter's friends. Most of them have two instagram accounts - one for their close friends and family, and one that's almost like a "burner" account, where they go and post all the other crap.
My daughter is 14. I don’t want to read that crap. I do want to know when a potential problem arises.
Any parents out there using spy app? I need a recommendation. I saw somewhere on this thread that a parent had spy app searching for keywords. I need that. Just figuring out the keywords would bum me out.
Any parents out there using spy app? I need a recommendation. I saw somewhere on this thread that a parent had spy app searching for keywords. I need that. Just figuring out the keywords would bum me out.
Most of the parental monitoring apps have text monitoring. And yes, setting up the search list does feel incredibly creepy.
There are a ton of choices and different features - it's a matter of picking the best one for what you need, and not necessarily paying for a bunch of features you won't use. Here's a cople of places to start:
https://www.pcmag.com/roundup/342731/the-best-parental-control-apps-for-your-phone
https://www.tomsguide.com/us/best-parental-control-apps,review-2258.html
I'm a little different than most. My kids are currently 21 year old and 18 year old daughter, and 14 year old son.
This may be surprising considering that I admittedly can come off pretty sanctimonious about parenting and stuff...but we've been pretty hands off on this stuff. I'm not saying it's the right approach for every family or every kid.
My philosophy was always that we wouldn't be looking over their shoulder unless there was a problem. We had about two times, when our older one was about 13, where we had to dive into her texts as she was exhibiting some issues around anxiety/depression/eating disorder type stuff. Nothing super serious, but enough to dig in enough to see what was contributing. Boys of course.
Other than that...I've pretty much left well enough alone. For several reasons..
1) When my first daughter started texting, we thought we were going to be those parents that read through every single text. Quickly found out that that wasn't how I was interested in spending my time. We know some parents of teens who spend hours every night reading through their teens social media/texts, and I just wasn't very interested in that simply on a personal time basis
2) When we initially started reviewing texts etc...realized that for the most part I was seeing stuff I found a little disappointing, or that bothered me, but ultimately objectively didn't warrant any action. The only result was to to depress me. Everyone knows for example that 14 year olds curse. But it's no fun to read that kind of language, or crass jokes, or ultimately harmless rebellions. If I read that my kid tried a drag off a cigarette to try it, or did something dumb in class to get yelled at by a teacher...those are things that are a normal part of growing up. It's a losing battle if you're going to try to come down like a ton of bricks on things that you should know are normal, or if your kids feel like they're living in Guantanamo. I mean, if one of my kids said they didn't eat any lunch because the school pizza sucks, my wife would be all over them threatening them with how important is was to take in nutrition during the day. Kids got to be kids to some extent, and if you're not going to act, then you're just walking around with this knowledge of minor disappointments I'd rather not have.
3) I always wanted the ability to swoop down on their social media or texting if and when something warranted it. I'd rather they not feel like they have to have super secret burner accounts, text in code, etc, because they knew they couldn't text "My science teacher has a fat butt" without me getting on their case. I'd rather not compel them to having to maintain a totally secret existence because they couldn't get out from under my prying eyes any other way, and that I wouldn't be able to access if I had to.
4) My kids started out good. Well behaved, good grades, good personalities and dispositions, obedient, reasonably responsible. I wanted the social contract to be that as long as they maintained that, they would have some modicum of trust from us, with the understanding if they didn't keep in line, we could make it all go away in an instant. They had a lot to lose in that sense. You can take away objects, or ground them, but by the time they're teenagers, a little freedom is by far the most valuable commodity, and they did what they needed to protect it.
5) I felt reasonably confident, considering that they didn't exhibit problems already, that we would be able to deduce fairly quickly if something BIG was going on. This is admittedly probably naive, but still, I felt like I'd have a pretty good idea if one of my kids was being massively bullied or something all of a sudden. That would be much more difficult, if not impossible, if you were dealing with kids that already had some issues with fighting, impulse control, anxiety or depression, etc. So I was just lucky there.
6) I did NOT feel reasonably confident that no matter WHAT I did, I was going to be able to prevent bad behavior or bad things happening. Kids are always going to be more resourceful if you can't generally trust them. If you're monitoring 6 social media accounts, they'll find a 7th. I just never saw much benefit in the kids who I grew up with that lived under an iron fist with 9pm curfews and having to call their mom every hour on the hour, prohibited from watching PG movies, etc. Once they got out from under their parents thumbs, or snuck out from under it, they had to use their own judgement and ended up no better off than anyone else. It just seemed like being a social media hawk would create a potential decade of spying, fighting, disappointment, hiding, and damaged relationships, likely to no benefit.
7) We had a good, stable family environment already. I didn't work long hours, we had dinner together every night, we got along very well with our kids, etc. I might have felt differently if I was traveling all the time, or splitting my kids with an ex, or anything else that was keeping me from having extended daily face to face with them.
So far, with the two girls being adults now, I wouldn't change a thing about the way I did it. I'm happy with the way they turned out, no major crises, and I'm glad I don't know every boy they ever kissed or time they snuck a drink at a slumber party.
But I still have a 14 year old boy. Right now he's under basically the same social contract. We'll see how it goes. In a couple years I could absolutely be on here wringing my hands about how he got two different girls pregnant and was addicted to crocodil and I wish I would have known. We'll see. I've got no problem with the way anyone else chooses to do things...you just got to do the best you can as you see it, and I think about 75% is just hoping for the damn best no matter what you do.
This may be surprising considering that I admittedly can come off pretty sanctimonious about parenting and stuff...but we've been pretty hands off on this stuff. I'm not saying it's the right approach for every family or every kid.
My philosophy was always that we wouldn't be looking over their shoulder unless there was a problem. We had about two times, when our older one was about 13, where we had to dive into her texts as she was exhibiting some issues around anxiety/depression/eating disorder type stuff. Nothing super serious, but enough to dig in enough to see what was contributing. Boys of course.
Other than that...I've pretty much left well enough alone. For several reasons..
1) When my first daughter started texting, we thought we were going to be those parents that read through every single text. Quickly found out that that wasn't how I was interested in spending my time. We know some parents of teens who spend hours every night reading through their teens social media/texts, and I just wasn't very interested in that simply on a personal time basis
2) When we initially started reviewing texts etc...realized that for the most part I was seeing stuff I found a little disappointing, or that bothered me, but ultimately objectively didn't warrant any action. The only result was to to depress me. Everyone knows for example that 14 year olds curse. But it's no fun to read that kind of language, or crass jokes, or ultimately harmless rebellions. If I read that my kid tried a drag off a cigarette to try it, or did something dumb in class to get yelled at by a teacher...those are things that are a normal part of growing up. It's a losing battle if you're going to try to come down like a ton of bricks on things that you should know are normal, or if your kids feel like they're living in Guantanamo. I mean, if one of my kids said they didn't eat any lunch because the school pizza sucks, my wife would be all over them threatening them with how important is was to take in nutrition during the day. Kids got to be kids to some extent, and if you're not going to act, then you're just walking around with this knowledge of minor disappointments I'd rather not have.
3) I always wanted the ability to swoop down on their social media or texting if and when something warranted it. I'd rather they not feel like they have to have super secret burner accounts, text in code, etc, because they knew they couldn't text "My science teacher has a fat butt" without me getting on their case. I'd rather not compel them to having to maintain a totally secret existence because they couldn't get out from under my prying eyes any other way, and that I wouldn't be able to access if I had to.
4) My kids started out good. Well behaved, good grades, good personalities and dispositions, obedient, reasonably responsible. I wanted the social contract to be that as long as they maintained that, they would have some modicum of trust from us, with the understanding if they didn't keep in line, we could make it all go away in an instant. They had a lot to lose in that sense. You can take away objects, or ground them, but by the time they're teenagers, a little freedom is by far the most valuable commodity, and they did what they needed to protect it.
5) I felt reasonably confident, considering that they didn't exhibit problems already, that we would be able to deduce fairly quickly if something BIG was going on. This is admittedly probably naive, but still, I felt like I'd have a pretty good idea if one of my kids was being massively bullied or something all of a sudden. That would be much more difficult, if not impossible, if you were dealing with kids that already had some issues with fighting, impulse control, anxiety or depression, etc. So I was just lucky there.
6) I did NOT feel reasonably confident that no matter WHAT I did, I was going to be able to prevent bad behavior or bad things happening. Kids are always going to be more resourceful if you can't generally trust them. If you're monitoring 6 social media accounts, they'll find a 7th. I just never saw much benefit in the kids who I grew up with that lived under an iron fist with 9pm curfews and having to call their mom every hour on the hour, prohibited from watching PG movies, etc. Once they got out from under their parents thumbs, or snuck out from under it, they had to use their own judgement and ended up no better off than anyone else. It just seemed like being a social media hawk would create a potential decade of spying, fighting, disappointment, hiding, and damaged relationships, likely to no benefit.
7) We had a good, stable family environment already. I didn't work long hours, we had dinner together every night, we got along very well with our kids, etc. I might have felt differently if I was traveling all the time, or splitting my kids with an ex, or anything else that was keeping me from having extended daily face to face with them.
So far, with the two girls being adults now, I wouldn't change a thing about the way I did it. I'm happy with the way they turned out, no major crises, and I'm glad I don't know every boy they ever kissed or time they snuck a drink at a slumber party.
But I still have a 14 year old boy. Right now he's under basically the same social contract. We'll see how it goes. In a couple years I could absolutely be on here wringing my hands about how he got two different girls pregnant and was addicted to crocodil and I wish I would have known. We'll see. I've got no problem with the way anyone else chooses to do things...you just got to do the best you can as you see it, and I think about 75% is just hoping for the damn best no matter what you do.
My kids are too young, but I pretty much agree with everything Lou said. I'm not blind to the dangers of social media. But I don't think hacking my kids' accounts is a viable solution. Kids are going to do things we as parents would rather they not do. I did, you did, everybody did. Why some parents feel the need to deny their kids the opportunity to make the mistakes they did as kids, I have no idea.
For me, I'm not hacking her accounts. I'm placing limitations and controls around the benefits that I give her (a $1k smartphone). She can either accept them, or not get the phone. But there's certainly nothing sneaky about it. And it's the modern-day equivalent of the same stuff I'm sure our parents did - going through our drawers and jeans pockets, reading notes, etc.
"Why some parents feel the need to deny their kids the opportunity to make the mistakes they did as kids, I have no idea."
It's because the consequences can be FAR greater than the repercussions we had to deal with as children. If I did something stupid in high school, maybe I caught crap from my parents, teachers, my friends, and anyone else at school that heard about it. If the daughter does something stupid, there's now the chance that it gets memorialized online for eternity, and a greater chance that it gets shared around the school online in a matter of minutes. And I'm not denying her the opportunity to make mistakes - she makes plenty. Instead, I'm identifying opportunities to educate and correct earlier in the process, rather than only after it's too late to do anything about it.
Because it is their job to try and prevent them from making mistakes and bad choices. Sometimes those mistakes and poor choices have serious consequences.
That's a good point too. There's that as well. Most people think about this as social media/texts as a vehicle to find out what their kids are doing or if they're doing anything bad, but there's the literal social media behavior itself to think about as well...what kind of personal information you share, racist jokes, bullying, etc. That's well worth addressing through monitoring or at least discussion. I've had those discussions with my kids, especially around bullying and harassment, but never really monitored for that in particular, but that's definitely a worthy concern.
And it's something that it's not really unrealistic to expect some positive results...it's mostly ignorance or carelessness. It's probably going to be impossible to keep your kid from smooching at a party, but you should be able to make them understand why they can't be say, typing angry outbursts that can be interpreted as a threat or something.
I agree with that, but think it has more to do with how you communicate and less to do with trying to catch them when they're not looking.
Agreed. Whatever approach you take really depends on your situation or your particular kids...the same thing might not even work for two kids in the same family. But whether you monitor like a hawk, or take a more arm's length approach, the goal is the same...prevent them from serious mistakes and bad choices. For my kids, and my personality, creating a kind of social contract where they were allowed a certain freedom of communication and movement in exchange for not screwing up was my way of encouraging them to make smart decisions and choices from a relatively young age.
I definitely acknowledge that it probably means that they "get away with" a lot more small-scale rebellions, even things I wouldn't be real pleased to know about, and that's a trade-off. My gamble is that their thinking is along the lines of "Hmm, I can probably have this beer, and get away with it. But if I get wasted and come home drunk, I will have f---ed up a very, very good thing. So I'm going to preserve my ability to have a couple drinks without getting caught in perpetuity, by making the smart choice to not go on a major bender."
We'll see if that even makes sense to take that approach for my son...obviously it won't if the kid doesn't have the a very strong ability to make good decisions in the first place, which plenty of people don't develop at a young age. I might have to change it all up.
But everyone should have the same goal. There should be a method to the madness not just "kids gonna do what they gonna do."
I think this is important. You're right - I don't think it's about nitpicking every single thing and harping on her about it. If I did that, she'd quickly tune all of it out. Instead, it's about seeing when there are actual important things that come up through her interactions that warrant discussion.
I've never had a text that she sent out get caught in the text filter, but I've had some come through that her friends sent that were bad enough that I needed to talk to her about it and reinforce what she already knew - that this isn't how people are supposed to talk to each other: not just cursing, but nasty, nasty language about what they were going to do to some boy, to themselves, etc.
And the only thing questionable that she's ever posted on Instagram was her complete class schedule, which I used as an opportunity to warn her about making too much personal information available online - showing her that now everyone knows where she's going to be every hour of each day Monday through Friday. She understood the risk and took it down pretty quickly. However, I have seen things posted by other kids in her school that were racist/nazi-related - in that case I talked to her about how she could be seen negatively through her association (even if only online) with that person, and how that could hurt her. I also followed up with her school on that one, because that's a pretty big problem, IMO.
But no, I'm not looking to prevent mistakes. I think that it's VERY important that she get herself into some trouble, so that she can learn to get herself out of trouble. It's something that I'm very appreciative that my parents allowed me to do (even if it was unknowingly). I got myself into a lot of different predicaments, but it taught me how to handle different situations and rely on myself to get out of it. I want her to have those same skills, but I also don't want her to one day be denied college acceptance or a job because there's some bad stuff online that she posted, thinking it was funny, and no one ever told her it was wrong to do. I also don't want her texting nude pics to some boy because he said he loved her and no one would ever see them, only to share them with every kid in the school district, making her so embarrassed and depressed that she self-harms.
The communication part should be the whole reason. If you're just using these tools to bust your kid and discipline them, then I think you're missing the whole point of it. All you're doing is raising kids who learn to be sneakier to get away with things. But if you're using it as a means to have more meaningful discussions, then you're raising kids who make mistakes, but learn from them as you share additional information and perspective.
All good thoughts. A lot of how you do it forces you to really know your own self and what you can do as a parent. If you have the mentality to do what you describe, I don't see why that's not a good plan. That would be very difficult in our house. My wife just would NOT be able to hold back. Not even being angry per se, but just feeling the need to correct everything. I am not joking, if my wife saw a picture on social media of one of my kids outside without a jacket on a day that was 45 degrees out, she's going to say something about it. She can't help it...that's her nature. Not nagging for the sake of nagging, but very protective and concerned. She has a hard time with proportionality, with the best intentions. But it would be unbearable if I was a kid...it's not always easy as a husband, lol.
I'm not the same exactly...I can "kids will be kids" it pretty well, and treat things fairly objectively. But I also know that some of that stuff would wound me more than would be good. I can take an objective point of just saying "this is normal kids stuff, I'm not going to overreact". But I'm not sure that I could do that without it also taking a toll on me internally and on my trust/opinion of my kids. While my wife could just never do it right, I know I COULD do it, and I absolutely WILL do it if I have to, but I don't think it would come without some consequences to my peace of mind and my relationship with my kids. If I had a little more mental fortitude, or if I could make my emotional internal judgment in line with my objective judgement, it would be easier. I'm that classic "of course all kids are going to do that", but then still stricken when it's MY kid.
Kudos for having that character to keep that even keel.
It's a dominant personality trait of mine - the ability to remain completely objective, even when it's something that should be personal and emotional. I'm not sure it's even a positive a lot of the time. It was a positive when I had to "make the call" on my dad's end of life decisions. It's been a positive when it comes to addressing topics with the kid that could be considered "sensitive"** or "embarrassing". It's definitely helped to make me good at my job. On the other hand, it's been a negative in a lot of interpersonal situations where sympathy/empathy or some show of emotion would be more appreciated than purely objective analysis and decision-making.
**Funny story... I was driving in the car with the daughter when she was maybe 3 or 4 years old. We were talking about my dad (this was years before he passed away), but we got on the subject of him being older and dying one day. I looked in the rear view mirror and saw the wheels turning in her head, when she asked if she was going to die. I responded that sure, she was going to die one day, as everyone does. Her eyes welled up as she proclaimed "But I don't want to die!!". It was there in the car that my daughter had to confront her own mortality. I assured her that it was going to be many years before she died - "Look how old Grandpa is!" - but that didn't stop her from letting her mother know "Daddy said I'm going to die!" when we got home. The wife was...displeased.
How Tech Experts Monitor Their Teens on Social Media
How can parents keep up with smartphones? Tech executives take various approaches to managing their children’s social-media use
https://www.wsj.com/articles/is-your-child-social-media-savvy-1516111365
How can parents keep up with smartphones? Tech executives take various approaches to managing their children’s social-media use
https://www.wsj.com/articles/is-your-child-social-media-savvy-1516111365
