I was standing in line at the Costco Customer Service counter the other day, waiting to get something sorted out with my membership for the fourth time, (that’s another story), and found myself reading their magazine, The Costco Connection.
Inside, there was a question: Is it OK to read your kids’ social media posts?
Well, here’s something I can pass the time with!
Along the side of the page, they’d gathered a variety of parents’ comments from all across Canada. Some say, “Well, yeah!, I pay for their phone”, and “Children are not entitled to privacy!” (say what??), others say, “my parents didn’t do that to me, they trusted me and I never gave them a reason not to”, and “Nope. Read them and they rebel and they create an account you can’t see. Then what?”
Out of all of the responses they listed only two said, no, don’t read your kids’ social media posts. Two. Two parents were documented as respecting their children’s online presence, and understanding that their kids’ (tweens or teens) online presence warranted some space.
That’s really a loaded question, Costco. So many variables.
What if I allow my tween and teen to be on Instagram and Snapchat but I follow them? Is that invading their privacy? What if I forbid them to have a Snapchat account but they do it anyway under a name I won’t recognize? (great question, Travis Faherty, Costco Magazine reader!) Then how will I find them? How will I know what they’re doing? How will I teach them how to behave online?
Bingo! There it is, the most important thing for parents to know about their kids and social media! Teach your kids how to do something properly, don’t forbid them to do it at all.
Remember when our kids were learning to walk? Oh, we put up gates, alarms on the front and back doors, we plugged up all the electrical outlets, we blocked the stairs, we constantly chased them around, picking them up when they toppled over. Remember the time when they fell down the front steps because you were busy locking the front door and they busted up their lip? Oh right, that might’ve only been me. But you know you did something like that.
It was hard. It was hard letting them walk across the room, letting them walk up the slide ramp at the park, letting them climb the treacherous stairs alone, allowing them to cross the street for the first time without holding your hand. But you did it. You let them do it.
Why?
Because you taught them how to do it!
Teach your kids how to be present online. You know they’re going to do it whether you say they can or not.
A friend of my daughter’s isn’t allowed to have an Instagram or Snapchat account so she lives vicariously through my daughter’s accounts. She’s still there, in fully edited, totally filtered Instagram colour, and Snapchat spontaneity. And guess what? Her parents don’t know.
So who’s teaching her how to be present online? My daughter??
It’s like the equivalent of a parent saying, No, you are not allowed to learn to drive, and then the child takes their friend’s car and drives, because that’s the only way they’ll get to drive.
Do we seriously want a whole set of kids driving around without their license? Hell, no.
But what if they do it and we don’t know about it?
Face it, kids will say and do things that we have absolutely no idea about. They’ll drop the f-bomb – oh yes, they will, don’t believe anything different – they’ll do and say some things they probably shouldn’t, they’ll take selfies that maybe aren’t appropriate, and pictures that capture them in situations that we would rather not see, and they’ll connect with people that we wouldn’t normally allow them to talk to on the street.
But people, we did the same thing! We just didn’t document it.
You know you dropped the f-bomb at least once before you were an adult, even if it was just to hear what it sounded like passing your lips. You know you did things you did not want your parents to know about, you found yourself in situations that you know you shouldn’t have been in, and on occasion you found yourself talking to someone you likely shouldn’t have.
What did our parents do about it? Well, if they found out, then we got it. But how did they prepare us for these types of situations?
We were told how to behave and we were taught good manners. We were taught not to talk to strangers. We were given permission to go to places, and sometimes we weren’t given permission to go to places. Did some of us go anyway? Some of us did. Some of us didn’t.
The behavior is the same, the way they talk about it and document it is what’s changed. And that’s what we should spend time teaching them.
Throughout the months of September through June they spend more time with their friends, peers, and teachers than they do with us. And then add on top of that sports teams, clubs, part-time jobs, and they spend even less time with us.
I sometimes appreciate following my kids on Instagram and Snapchat because it allows me to see what they’re up to, what’s new in their world. And they let me. I’m not overbearing, I don’t comment on their posts in a way that would embarrass them; that’s the equivalent of me barging into the living room when they’re hanging out and offering my oh so ancient 45-year-old opinion to a bunch of 16-year-olds – they don’t want to hear it. Nor should they.
Social media is a new form of communicating, like it or not. Social media is here to stay.
So teach your kids how to be present online. Forget about whether or not you should read every single one of their posts – believe me, you ain’t got time for that! – and instead empower them to control their online identity.
There will come a time when they go away to university or college and you will not be around to control what they do. Then what? Just like that time when they wanted to walk to school for the first time; it was hard, but you taught them all they needed to know, and then you let them go forth and be successful. You didn’t follow them, hiding behind trees and parked cars as they went. Did you? Did you??
As parents, it is our responsibility to teach them appropriate behavior, not always police it, and not always control it. Because there will come a time when we can no longer do that. But at that time we can take comfort in knowing that we taught them the right way to be present online.
the new high school hallway 