Navigating the world of social media with a tween

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1

Hi! My oldest is 10 and I've been dreading the day she starts getting into social media. We are experiencing it for the first time with Instagram. I consider myself to be pretty low tech. I have an IPod Touch that my husband bought me for my birthday, but I don't use it much. My daughter likes it because many of her friends from school have one. Last week, her best friend asked me if I have Instagram on my IPod. I said yes, and the girls got very excited. The next thing I know, my daughter is taking tons of photos and sending them to her best friend, Within half a day, she suddenly has 10 friends on Instagram! They are all kids from our school, but some are 7th graders that I've never heard of.

Yikes! I'm getting very anxious about this. I've been checking periodically to make sure the content is appropriate and last night she got mad at me for checking up on her. My husband and I sat her down and told her we are always going to check up on her social media now and in the future whether she likes it or not. We were planning to get her an IPod Touch of her own for Christmas, but now I'm nervous about it. But, I figure she'll just continue to use mine anyway.

If we do get her one, I'm thinking of drawing up a contract with her stating the rules and consequences. I'm going to have on there that her father and I will block anyone we think is being inappropriate.

Is there anything else I should be aware with the IPod Touch?

I wish I could keep my kids little forever!

2

Ok, here's the way I see it.

Every child has to learn their way around (or not) many many different social situations. For example.

Knowing how to sit and listen in class is a social skill.

Knowing how to behave with peers during lunch at school is a different social situation.

Knowing what's acceptable behavior at HOME is yet ANOTHER different social situation.

As is church, dance, riding bikes with kids in the neighborhood, extended family dinners, grocer shopping....and so on.

Electronic social media is just ONE MORE THING ON THE LIST.

So, I think, if a child has not had many social issues in all those OTHER areas, it's not likely they'll have issues with social media either. That is to say, if the child has self respect, common sense, and good modeling with regards to social media, it should be fine.

But as with every other social situation, there may be bumps in the road and learning opportunities and I DO believe when it's NEW to a child it should be monitored closely (as closely as a parent might monitor any other social situation when it's new to the child). So how you monitor is up to you, of course, based on what you already know about your child's social tendencies.

Anyway, my kids are 20, 18, and 15, and everything I know about social media has come from THEM, sigh, not the other way around.

So at first it was kind of a "you have been smart and trustworthy and made good decisions in every other way, so you can HAVE this. However because I need you to be safe and KEEP making smart choices, I'll be keeping a close eye on it for awhile". I mean not word for word, but that was the general feeling we had about it at first. I haven't had a single problem with any of them.

And yes, I, too, wish they could stay little forever!

(Ok maybe not forEVER but a little more time then you get!)

HTH!

:)

3

My older two wanted Facebooks when they were 12 which made for a very easy life lesson. No one has to be who they say they are online. Make sure who you are friending is who you think you are friending. Of course the first question is how could anyone lie about who they are online? The obvious answer, how old did you say you were on Facebook?

They knew that Facebook didn't question their age, they knew they were 12, said they were 13 and no one questioned it.

That was enough for them to be able to critically look at any friend request, even requests from friends.

I am not big on rules and contracts. In my experience it teaches your children not to think and thinking is something they should be doing online. What I mean is say you have a rule you can only friend kids in your class? What happens if someone in high school wants to prank her class by creating a profile using one of her classmate's names? So far as she knows she is friending a classmate, she is not breaking your rules, she does not bring it to you.....does that make sense?

By putting the control in my children's hands they felt they must come to me with questions. It kept me closer in the loop. These two are 22 and 24 now, no one hurt them, no one stalked them, no one friended them they did not know. The only drawback I found with this method of control was them hovering over my shoulder going how do you know that person is who you think they are mom? Do as I say parenting is so much easier than do as I do but do as I do seems to have better results when you must take your eyes off of them.

My 13 year old doesn't want a Facebook, ever, he would rather spend his time learning programming. :p My 11 year old will want one and I plan on the same lessons.

4

I'm not sure where you intended your question to lead---if you just meant the social aspects of it, or if you wanted tips about actually navigating thru the traps they can fall into that aren't social ones.

But, since you have the ipod yourself, I'm assuming you know you can go online with it via wi-fi. That's how she is able to instagram. Right? Ok... she is also going to be able to download apps (unless you set it up with a password that she must come to you to put in whenever she wants to download from iTunes). But, even with that password in place, the games she can play sometimes offer "in game purchases" that do not require you to input a password. You need to go to the general settings, and set the "in-app purchases" to dis-allowed. Otherwise, your iTunes account balance is going to skyrocket without your daughter even realizing she is buying stuff. Many, many people (adults included) have been "victim" of this, simply b/c it isn't always clear when you are making an "in app purchase" when playing games. If you already know about this, then carry on...

5

I'm glad you and DH said that you were going to check up, no matter what. I'd be finding some router software or other monitoring software to keep tabs on the kids online. If you do get a wireless device, you don't have to allow it to be connected. I would take all cell phones, iPods, etc. at night and charge them in your room. I personally prefer computers in main living areas for young kids.

We discussed with the sks early on that there are dark places in the internet, people who aren't who they claim to be and how nothing ever really gets deleted. So that picture you sent to your boyfriend in 8th grade may haunt you for years and years to come. Be responsible. Be aware. There are a lot of articles about online safety for kids. Read a few. Talk to your kids. We had an incident when an older girl showed SD and her friends (under 13) an inappropriate chat room and another time SS figured out a way around the filters to find some...interesting material. We discussed each incident with each child and explained why we didn't want them on those sites. It's not just one conversation, it's many. It's not just "don't" but "why do you want...?" and "so who's that...?" and "can you show me the picture that made you laugh?" There's more than one way to keep tabs on a kid. We knew we had to educate the kid because there was nothing stopping him/her at a friend's house or with their mom.

My SD once went to meet a friend of a friend that she only knew on FB. She was 17, she met him in a public place, she had us give her a ride to/from the venue. I was actually pretty pleased that she listened to a few of the things we said.

If you don't think she's responsible enough for the Touch version, get her a different one.

6

Your title talks about a "tween". She's 10 - she's not a tween and she doesn't need to get off into social media yet. Just say no!

7

My daughter has an Ipod touch. She uses it to draw and is now getting into animation. You should be awarwe that if she is able to get a wi-fi connection, she will be able to go online. She will be able to text her friends. She will also be able to use her Ipod like a web camera. My daughter sometimes talks with her best friend this way. The best way to approach this is not saying "you can have this but we are setting limits". Tell her that you want to give her this gift but you want her to use it responsibly. Personally, I think she is the perfect age. I check my daughter's Ipod. I also check my older kids' facebook pages. I will make them sign on so I can block someone if necessary. They know this and at first balked about it but soon realized that I am doing it for a very good reason. I have also checked their email to make sure things are appropriate. They really don't like that but I only skim and look for inappropriate attachments mostly. They do use social media and other tools responsibly and so far we have not had problems.