Social Media and Your Child’s Privacy & Safety
Be thoughtful before you post photos or videos of your children online. They may be embarrassing to your children one day, expose your family’s privacy in ways that might not be safe, and create a digital footprint for your children and your family that can never be erased.
In Montessori-inspired homes, parents want to carefully think through and establish House Rules regarding the use of digital devices and the media, games, and apps that they are comfortable allowing their children to use.
This is something that can be challenging if your children are older and you did not establish clear House Rules around digital media right from the start. However, those of you who have children in the upper elementary years and beyond probably already realize that setting these House Rules becomes increasingly important.
Before your children are born, it is best to talk with your parenting partner and come to a general consensus about the use of digital devices, media, and raising children at different age levels. You want to strike a balance between access to digital media and family life that supports your values from the beginning. When your children are very young, you are going to make the decisions. As they get older, your children will want to question, debate, and discuss why these rules are important and how your family makes choices.
We want to consider several different aspects of your children’s use of digital devices and the selection of media and games. It includes what devices are you comfortable allowing your children to have access to at a given age level, when can they use them, where can they use them, for how long per day can they use them, and what can they use them for? What messages and contacts are you comfortable with having your children exposed to?
We cannot emphasize enough the importance of establishing House Rules that really make sense and which ones you are willing to follow yourself to set a good example for your children. That doesn’t mean that the rules established for a child under six are the same rules that you would give to a child who is 15, or that you would follow as an adult. It just means that the House Rules need to be based on your family’s values, be fair, and be consistently followed. Also, House Rules need to recognize that time spent engaging with digital content can be positive, but we do not want it to interfere with the connections among family members and our ability to get work done. House Rules should help you keep relationships strong.
Here are some ideas for House Rules with older children.
- • As with any other life situation that might be dangerous or harmful to your child, prepare them to keep themselves safe by discussing internet safety rules.
- • For a variety of reasons it is best not to allow your children to have a TV or digital devices in their bedrooms. When allowed in their bedrooms, media can interfere with sleep, expose children to unwanted programs or games, become addictive, and pull children away from interacting with family members.
- • Most media is rated in terms of violence or other content that is inappropriate for children. Check into ratings when selecting digital content. Many digital devices and digital media stream services offer various forms of parental controls. Learn about them and use them to limit your children’s screen time and access to content that you would find concerning.
It’s important to set up media-free times for your family. These are times during the day when everyone stops interacting with their phones, tablets, or other digital devices, and just focuses on family, reading, games, or real-life experiences. Usually, they are times like mealtime, bedtime, and family outings. - • Children need to spend as much time every day reading, exercising or playing as they do on the screen.
- • Discuss with your children what might be the consequences of breaking the House Rules. For example, if children take their tablet to their bedrooms when it is time to sleep, they might have to leave it in a specific place outside the bedroom for a period of time.
- • Be sure that others who will be spending time with your children also know the House Rules, such as babysitters, grandparents, or friends.
- • Use media with your children. Know what they are watching and listening to. Talk together about what you are viewing and hearing.
- • Be a good model for your children. Abide by the media-free time rule. Put your smartphone away when dropping off and picking up children from activities. Take some time in the evening for a family game or other person-to-person interaction.
Social Media is a different challenge
Social media is ever-changing as new apps come and go, but the common thread is that they are intended to facilitate young people sharing photos, videos, and chats in real-time. As one person posts, others respond with comments, which may be mean-spirited, silly, or simply inane. In any case, social media can be highly addictive and a huge waste of time. If and when mean-spirited behavior gets going online, it can easily lead children to either feel that they are being bullied or shamed, and they cannot escape even at home, or they themselves may begin to try on a more mean-spirited persona themselves. Let’s face it, many people seem to ‘say’ things online that they, we would hope, would never say in person.
Then there are at least two other major concerns with social media. The first is the tendency that many people have of presenting their lives as much more exciting and glamorous than they really are. This tends to create a cycle where popularity is based on how many likes or shares a post can get, and a sense that everyone else is having a much better time than we are.
The second major concern with social media is that there is no way to know who may try to form a connection with children and teens that might make their parents extremely uncomfortable or actually be dangerous.
Texting
Texting is an easy way to keep in touch. However, there are certain cautions that you and your children need to be aware of. Texting takes away two very important aspects of communication. When we text we cannot see the other person or hear their tone of voice. Without these it is difficult to interpret messages that involve emotions and these messages can lead to quarrels or hard feelings. Guide your children to stick to messages that give information and save those that involve emotions for face-to-face conversations. Neither your children nor you want to get into a “text war.”
Hovering Parents/Overparenting
Technology can be so helpful to all of us in so many ways. In some cases, though, it can turn into an easy way for parents to communicate and watch over their children too much. It can actually inhibit children from learning and practicing life skills like problem solving and remembering, becoming confident in their ability to care for themselves when away from parents, and developing a strong sense of autonomy.
The most important things for you to think of when it comes to technology, just as in other areas of your children’s lives, are the core Montessori principles and your family values. Those will be your guides.
