how did/would you handle it? how do you prepare/protect LOs for/from it?
my kids are still itty bitty but in five or ten years, who knows where social media will be so i'm honestly kind of worried.
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I haven't and my kids are too young. But, my 12 year old niece recently started using IG. I've been monitoring her account and saw some spam users bully her. To their credit, her friends really stepped up and told this person to get a life. I reported those comments and the user to IG numerous times. I even sent them an email with screenshots and got no replies.
When I saw this, I immediately called my niece and ask if her account was private. It wasn't, so I told her to make it private. I made sure she knew that person was a fake and horrible and not to believe them.
Obviously, I told my sister in law as well and sent her the same screenshots. My husband was ready to create an IG account to tell this fake user and his/her mean comments to stick it up their a$$. LOLI think that is probably the same extent I can protect my own kids. Except I would monitor internet usage better and would've made sure from the start their account is private and they know not to accept stranger friend requests.
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@regberadaisy: would you allow stuff like fb and insta and the like?
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@rosegold: I would. Because I expect myself to be pretty vigilant about monitoring their usage and teaching them about Internet safety.
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@regberadaisy: I think that's where I'm at right now. dh is very against all forms of social media!
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@rosegold: I still haven't figured out a solid approach to this. But I would say that totally banning it isn't the way to go. Making something totally off limits tends to make it more desirable to a teenager. And I think kids are going to find a way to do what they want to do. I would rather let them participate with my supervision, than have them do it behind my back and have no idea what's going on.
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@rosegold: I'm honestly not sure at which age I will allow this stuff! I mean FB and IG are typically used through smart phones, and I am fairly certain I will not pay for my child to have a smart phone at 12 years old. When I got my first phone, I was 15, it was a flip-phone and I paid for it completely myself. If my kid wants a smart phone, they can pay for it.
I also didn't use facebook until I was 18, and instagram wasn't created until I was an adult! Back when I was a kid, my mom's main worries were chat forums and instant messenger, so I wasn't allowed to have AIM either!! My mom was hyper vigilant about my use, and it mainly consisted of email. Since we had dial-up, I could only check email maybe once a day. It's just so crazy considering how much has changed.
I think what a lot of parents who do ban social media/internet use entirely don't realize is that kids are sneaky and will get around it. They'll create social media accounts at school, the library, with their friends' phones, etc. So I won't be doing that, because that closes the lines of communication. I will require he let me follow his account/be friends with him. Not to embarrass him, but to keep him in check.
I think it's going to be so hard and I'm not looking forward to it.
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My approach is to remain up to speed basically, knowing what the latest thing is and then setting limits and monitoring.
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@Mrs. Pen: yeah, but it's just a different tech age. Nowadays it's hard to get a phone that's *not* a smart phone! Most plans have data. It's the new norm.
I honestly believe when our kids are teens social media will be some form of holographic video chat.
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I use to blog a lot and I said something maybe out of line once and a person found that one blog post and spammed it and went to all my other blog post and spammed it also. To be honest I only had like 20 people that read my blog so it wasn’t a big deal. At first I thought wow this person is being mean to me… then I thought do I really care? I mean it’s a person I don’t know and the 20 people that read my blog know what he/she was saying was untrue. I ended up just blocking that person and moving on with my life.
That being said… from that experience I realized wow people are mean, but not only that, people are bolder behind a screen. So that’s something to think about.
I have read some pretty scary stories about cyberbullying so I can definitely understand your concerns. I definitely don’t know what the future brings with technology and socializing in the future but I don’t think there is any way you can predict or prevent right now. I think when the time comes you will have to make some quick choices on what to do to and just hope for the best.
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