Hey parents!
Do me a favor and read this. It's from the heart and many of you need this.
The lack of your presence on Instagram is hurting your teens.
As someone heavily invested in the lives of teenagers (it's odd that a day goes by that I'm not with a group of students in some capacity) I love social media.
I don't have to ask teens what movies or music or fashion or tv they're into. They happily share all of this on social media. I know their favorite foods, books, which classes they're taking, how much homework they have, who's 'Lit' and who's not lit (unlit? un-lit? de-lit? nonlit? uncool? square?) and I know things that I sometimes wish I didn't about their lives.
I also hate social media because it's a front row seat to a war being waged between the way things should be and the way they are. And I'm at the point where I want to delete my social media when I see teenagers trying to navigate this battle without a parental co-pilot. Because their hard wired need to fit in and please their friends and make a mark on the world and become an individual often leaves them making choices that are not wise.
They know their parents and grandparents are on Facebook so they're often not completely real on that platform.
**Time travel with me to The Mall (any mall) in the mid 80s. Now imagine your parents and grandparents and their friends hanging out there. Would you have modified your behavior or conversation?**
But fewer of you are on Instagram. Even fewer on Snapchat.
POP QUIZ. WHAT'S IT CALLED WHEN TEENS HAVE TWO OR MORE SOCIAL MEDIA ACCOUNTS? Because it's super common to have one that their family can see (pics taken with friends at a football game!) and one that only their friends can see (pics taken with friends that would cause parents to go on a cell phone smashing purge!).
Most teens I know make pretty good choices. But even if your teen isn't drinking alcohol shouldn't you know if the party they're at is filled with underage drinking? Even if your teen makes good choices while driving shouldn't you know if they're spending time with someone whose social media feed is filled with pictures and videos of them routinely doing things in cars that would make The Dukes of Hazzard nervous? And we all know how many predators are routinely arrested after having posed as a teenager online and befriended and then destroyed or ended the life of a teenager.
Do you know how much of your teen's life story is online? Any picture posted at a school event will tell anyone on the planet the name of their school. Which means if they can get to that physical address they can be standing right next to your child. And they can learn the names of your child and all of their friends. And what grade they're in. And where they work. When they have practice. When they leave the house in the morning. And if your child is posting things online that you don't know about A MONSTER COULD KNOW MORE THAN YOU DO ABOUT A SITUATION WHERE YOUR TEEN IS PARTICULARLY VULNERABLE.
But outside of the realm of monsters and physical dangers shouldn't you know what your teenagers are posting on social media? And what they're saying about friends posts? And what's being said by others about their posts?
A common thing I hear from parents is "I'm glad my teenage years aren't documented on the internet." I am too!
But shouldn't that realization make you more aware of the future repercussions of what our children are posting? What are future employers, dates, in-laws, or their own children going to think when a momentary lapse in judgement becomes a permanent memorial to bad judgement? (I had a recent conversation with a teenage girl who is completely embarrassed because she posted a picture she didn't mean to....but she feels like she can't take it down because IT'S GOTTEN MORE 'LIKES' THAN ANYTHING ELSE SHE'S POSTED. It breaks my heart to try to imagine her parenting her own someday children when they see this picture).
So what can you do?
- GET ON INSTAGRAM AND GET ON SNAPCHAT AND LEARN HOW TO USE THEM.
- Unsure how? MESSAGE ME and I can teach you.
- Want to see if your child has multiple accounts? MESSAGE ME and I can show you how to do that too.
- Want to have a conversation with your teen about ANY of this but don't know where to start? MESSAGE ME and I'll share some resources with you that will get you on the right track.
- Unsure about teen drinking? Porn use? Sexting? Inappropriate selfies? Smoking? How your teen might be using a proxy server to look at stuff that a parental controls should be keeping them from accessing? MESSAGE ME.
- Have a handle on this stuff with your teens? MESSAGE ME....BECAUSE I KNOW SOME OF YOU ARE PARENTING YOUR CHILDREN SUCCESSFULLY IN THIS AREA AND I NEED YOUR HELP AND WANT TO HEAR YOUR STORY.
I'm on staff at Fresh Start Fellowship, but my heart is help all teenagers, all parents, and all families. I don't care where you go to church. Starting in January I'm going to be hosting some parent meetings every month where we can talk about this stuff and MORE. It's not about recruiting you to join a church. It's not about selling you a book. Or books. It's not about telling you WHAT to do.
It's about us all sharing WHAT WE KNOW and helping each other make our families better!
