Social Networking Advice For Parents By Parents
Top 13 – Things you might not know (but need to know) about social networking
Once again, we asked you, the parents, to share your expertise from the trenches: What have you learned about your teenager and social networking that surprised you and what advice would you give other parents?
Thanks for the input!
- Some teens have two pages on one social networking site — one they show you and one they don’t.
- There are numerous security settings inside a single page, such that certain areas of the page are accessible to some “friends” but not others.
- Joining the same social network as your teen can act as a deterrent to risky behavior, because they really don’t want you to see inappropriate photos of them or their friends.
- Joining the same social network as your teenager and spending time navigating the site with your own “friends” helps you better understand the site and know what kinds of questions to ask.
- Forbidding teens from joining social networks forces them underground. Not recommended!
- Teens can become addicted to social networking. The symptoms mirror those of other addictions and can be very harmful.
- Teens join all sorts of social network “groups” that connect them to others. Stay informed about which groups your teen has joined, as this might tell you a lot about what he is thinking and doing.
- There is peer pressure to “accept” an invitation to become someone’s friend, even if you don’t want to.
- Young teens are “friending” their older sibling’s friends and vice versa, enabling younger siblings to access more mature (or sometimes more immature!) communication threads and photos.
- Teens who are overly involved in others’ online activities and seem to know everything about everyone’s profiles are labeled with the derogatory term “stalkers” and may need help understanding social networking etiquette.
- Your teen can “block” other users. This is recommended when they are “friend- requested” by a stranger, or when someone they previously “friended” starts acting inappropriately or makes them uncomfortable.
- Potential summer internship and job employers, college admissions counselors and recruiters, law enforcement officers and school officials are seeking access to young adults’ profiles with increasing frequency.
- Best advice parents can give teens: Only post information and photos that you’d be willing to share with Grandma or your school principal
