Social media can be a dangerous place, but how do we, as parents, keep our kids off these apps when everyone else (including us) is on them constantly?
It’s hard to keep kids off social media during this school year when they’re out of our sight for hours a day and spend most of their time with peers who are using the apps. In some ways, it may be even harder in the summer, when they’re free all day, and the same apps are their primary connection to those same friends.
As an added complication, many areas are experiencing record temperatures, in some cases soaring high enough to keep kids indoors for their safety.
That leaves parents in a difficult place. We want them to maintain connections with peers and to do fun things, and we know that learning how to be safe online is an important skill. At the same time, we know that there are so many dangers associated with the internet.
Internet Safety
More than any generation so far, our kids are going to live significant portions of their lives through technology. They’ll use the Internet to research school projects, check out colleges, and fill out job applications.
As they use it, though, they will encounter scams and fraudsters, phishing schemes, and inappropriate, potentially even illegal, content.
They may encounter body negativity that increases the risk of eating disorders or get sucked into corners of the internet, intent on radicalizing another generation to damaging causes. They could encounter adults who have bad intentions.
Even moderate and cautious social media use can disrupt kids’ sleep cycles, increase negative feelings about themselves, and cause them to expend much energy comparing their realities to other people’s public-facing masks. (These are risks for adult use, too!)
The risk assessment portions of a child’s brain are not yet fully developed, so it falls to the adult to monitor, assess, and act on these risks on behalf of their young kids.
Age-Appropriate Choices
Most social media sites have rules limiting how young users can be. Facebook, for instance, does not allow children under age 13 and even has a form to fill out to report an underage user. TikTok has a similar rule and offers an alternative app version for kids under 13.
Bipartisan legislation has even been proposed that would require social media sites to take extra steps to ensure that kids under age 13 can’t sidestep these rules. For now, it’s usually as easy as entering a false birth year, and according to the BBC, one study found that around a third of kids are doing so.
Altogether, this suggests that the first step for a parent is to keep kids off social media entirely until they’re old enough to be ready.
American Psychological Association chief science officer Mitchell Prinstein says this starts with delaying smartphone access. According to Yahoo News, he recommends that parents collaborate so that friend groups are given similar rules for when they can graduate from “dumb phones.” This limits peer pressure and helps keep everyone on the same page.
Discussing Boundaries
Parents set the rules, but conversations with kids help them understand why they are in place and will help keep them safer. Parents should discuss with their kids what dangers they can encounter on social media and what limits are being placed to protect them.
These can include giving parents passwords and access to all apps and media, keeping parents as ‘friends’ or contacts on social media to allow monitoring of posts and activity, and requiring parental approval for online friends and follows.
The top priority is keeping the conversation open and continuing to be a safe place for your kids. If they sneak around the boundaries and rules you set and encounter something scary or dangerous, you want to be sure that they feel safe coming to you, admitting their mistake, and seeking help.
Summer Limits
So, what about the summer, when your kids may have limited contact with some of their school friends and desperately need something to do?
First, find other ways to keep the lines of communication open. Invite your kids to exchange phone numbers with their friends and call to chat. If possible, set up play dates, enroll your kids in some of the same activities with their friends, and plan time for them to spend together.
Then, limit screen time. It’s great to message their friends in the morning or discuss how their day went, but not so hot to spend two months doomscrolling. Set limits and enforce them.
Most importantly, make sure your kids have other things to do, whether helping around the house, engaging in arts and crafts projects, joining a class or 4H group, or taking on a summer job. Boredom is a great tool of innovation, and kids need unstructured time, but too much of it can send them scurrying back to the almighty screen, and its promises of a string of speedy dopamine burst.
Take Heart
You aren’t alone. It’s a tech world, and parents everywhere are frantically seeking solutions to their kids’ media and social media addictions.
Keep talking to your kids about safety and boundaries, and keep the conversation open, and we’ll all get through this together.
The post Screenless Time: Prying Your Kids Off Social Media This Summer appeared first at Screenless Time: Prying Your Kids Off Social Media This Summer