Instagram/Snapchat & teenagers

I mean the website I signed up for in 2005 was called The Facebook, dammit!

But…but…but…Timex! Not MY kid!

This is absolutely true, and something I had to teach him when he got his laptop for school and read, page by page by page, the contract he had to digitally sign for the thing. The thing with kids is that you have to reinforce these lessons many times, so your point is well taken.

-xtien

No, I was just making a reference to The Social Network movie and being deliberately dumb.

-xtien

Awww, that’s disappointing. I was hoping it was a total un-hip dad kind of thing. And I was wondering if it was said like The Ohio State University.

The world is a just little more gray now. :(

Ha! That always drives me up the freaking wall.

-xtien

P.S. Don’t worry, Kevin. I do it sometimes just to bug him. He dutifully rolls his eyes.

I don’t blame you for be reluctant. This makes stupid kid stuff permanent and it opens the door to excitement and potentially bullying. Out of sight and out of mind also makes it easy for kids to do dumb things. I know. I did that because our computer was put in the basement, and that was the days of modems and no cell phones.

My nephews are on tablets on accounts their parents set-up or consoles. I don’t know what my sisters are going to do once they start asking for accounts they control and actual phones.

Yeah, in practice, just stopping them from using social media isn’t likely to work. Kids will find a way to do stuff they are forbidden to do.

So, like drinking, it’s probably best for you to just offer some guidance to them, so that they can be less dumb about it.

IMO the kid(s) should always be on notice that parents can check any account at any time. I don’t like this naturally, because I want my kid to have some privacy, but I have to do it because I want him also to be safe. Both now, and in the future (based on the permanent idiocy axiom).

So when he first got a phone it was a “phone”…just an iPod Touch I think. So he could access Internet via wifi only. And when he showed he was responsible for that for a year or so, he could graduate to an actual phone. But only with the stipulation that we have access to it at all times.

This may seem draconian, indeed, his mother used tracking software on him when he went on a far away field trip at the end of middle school, but I think it’s our responsibility to monitor so he learns safety and discretion.

-xtien

I am gonna try (and probably fail) to swing far, far away from anything that might be interpreted as telling someone else how to parent, especially since that’s a job I recognize I am so uniquely disqualified for and disinterested in that I’d do anything to avoid ever getting close to it . . .

. . . but I will say that when I was a bright, tech-savvy young man, things like that lead to a sort of technical arms race between my dad and I as I sought the freedom to do as I pleased outside of his attempts to monitor me, and he grew increasingly more driven to keep the monitoring going as it became clear I was trying to sleep under its radar.


Addendum: I absolutely did some dumb-as-fuck things on the internet. Only about half of them actually came back to bite me!

Secondary addendum: the arms race wasn’t very much fun for either of us, in retrospect, and created a lot of tension that wasn’t much fun, either.


I dunno if I’d go so far as to say that all kids everywhere are inevitably going to go off the reservation and do something dumb the second they escape your glance just because they finally can, though virtually all parenting advice I’ve ever heard seems to imply as much. But you should also go into this with the awareness that eventually, if there’s something your kid really wants to do, he’s probably going to find a way to do it when that want-desire exceeds the “don’t be shitty to my awesome dad”-desire you’ve no doubt instilled in him.

So, again, I’d return to that idea of preparing kids with how-to’s and sage guidance and your many years of collected, genuine wisdom, rather than necessarily relying purely on strict rules and limitations (this is a general you; I don’t at all get the impression you view it that way personally, man). At least then, when they haul off and break the rules, they might have a pretty good idea why they’re in place and are better prepared to navigate the uncharted waters beyond what is allowed.

I’ll say it. They’re kids. Pretty much every kid is going to do or say something they’re rather not have permanently stored on the internet. It doesn’t even have to be that nefarious even. It’s one of the reasons I don’t think it’s great we have employers scrubbing Social Media as a means to determine employability for these entry level positions straight out of high school or college.

When it came to my little sister, who is actually almost 10 years younger than I am, I simply told my parents. I am going to tell you things based on what I did, and I am not going to go into details about it.

No. 1 don’t put her computer in the basement like you did for us. You can’t see or hear what she is doing.

You’ve already done well. He knows you’re concerned. It sounds like he’s asking fairly politely. He’s a good kid!

There are grade 2 kids in my daughter’s school with cell phones and texting and apps.

It’s not worth the animosity. My .02 is to let it go.

Oh I agree with you. I think kids have to test their folks, and they have to exert a desire for independence, which involves seeing how far they can go and testing the boundaries, like velociraptors testing the fence for weaknesses. That’s the nature of raising kids. You want them to grow into independent people, and that involves some rebellion.

I also believe–both as a parent and from when I was a teacher–that kids really do need boundaries, and by “need” I mean that deep down they want them. They want to know where the line is and what is expected of them. In this way they are much like dogs, because dogs need boundaries to know where they stand in the pack. They feel safer that way. They will, of course, always test the lines and then you have to pull them back. This is natural.

So your point about preparing kids with how-to’s and sage guidance is spot on. However, your point about the “arms race” scares the heck out of me, because he’d win that arms race hands down. I’m okay on the computer, but I am not intuitive like he is on it. If he wants to do something, he can. He just respects the somewhat fictional idea that I have real authority over him because he loves me, and because I treat him with respect. But even as a teacher you know deep down that it’s a tenuous social contract at best.

-xtien

Thank you, Scott. I think you’re probably right. The genie is leaving the bottle one way or another, so we might as well honor the fact that he’s asking rather than doing. I’m just trying to be prepared for setting the ground rules.

-xtien

I’m not sure why you haven’t @‘d me yet for my insights.

If he wants an account on Horsefacebook I will.

-xtien

omfgdaaaaamn

Well, they all bite.

Words can hurt, Xtien.

Just wait until Smaug finds out all the pics you’ve put up of him on social media. They care about their privacy a great deal, you know.

-xtien

I’m a long way away from this, but one thing that sticks with me was somebody on QT3 (I forget who) who talked about using parental controls on their router to limit their kids screen time. They used a minimally secret password on the router admin controls, and basically said: “If you can disable this yourself, then your savvy enough to use the internet however you want. If you can’t or don’t want to bother, then don’t.”

I dont know this this applies directly, but I think this is a good general principle. Set some boundaries, understand that they’ll probably be tested or broken, and understand what the failure cases are.

A hard rule of “If I pay for it, I can look at your phone whenever I want” is probably a good one, but one that may be hard to reinforce. You also have to be savvy enough with those apps to poke around. As noted recently on another thread, kids often have 2 insta accounts: their public one that they post innocuous stuff to (food, vacation pics, etc), and the private one that they only allow access to for their close friend group for spicy memes and party pics, etc. This is actually a really smart practice by kids! They understand the difference between public and private personas, which is important today, but be sure that you understand the difference between these personas.