Parents of older teens, what age for Snapchat?

[Anonymous]

My 13 year old son is begging for Snapchat. Says that is how all the middle school kids chat now versus texting. I’m hesitant to allow this for a rising 8th grader, but admittedly don’t know a ton about this specific social media platform. Can more experienced parents share the good, bad and ugly about Snapchat? Age it’s appropriate to get it. Thank you!

[Anonymous]

Never. It has been used to bully.

[Anonymous]

It is true that the middle school kids use it to communicate and “network”. It’s very frustrating.

[Anonymous]

My very cool sil is the coolest mom I know, very open with her kids, funny, not a prude. Sometimes her kids say “grow up mom” while they laugh with her—still very responsible and capable.
Her kids are now 18+ so she has been through it—

The past 5-10 years, she told them age 18. When they can do it themselves. They respected it. Now, the kids don’t want it much. It’s for younger kids, doing stupid things.

My 14 is begging me. I will wait at least a year and see if she still cares. I have app control on the phone. I will say, she could create an account on a friend’s phone. If she wants to go to that length, whatever. But she wouldn’t have access to it on her own device all afternoon and evening.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My very cool sil is the coolest mom I know, very open with her kids, funny, not a prude. Sometimes her kids say “grow up mom” while they laugh with her—still very responsible and capable.
Her kids are now 18+ so she has been through it—

The past 5-10 years, she told them age 18. When they can do it themselves. They respected it. Now, the kids don’t want it much. It’s for younger kids, doing stupid things.

My 14 is begging me. I will wait at least a year and see if she still cares. I have app control on the phone. I will say, she could create an account on a friend’s phone. If she wants to go to that length, whatever. But she wouldn’t have access to it on her own device all afternoon and evening.

I have to add my 14yo’s friends who have it are not stupid. They are normal kids, they only friend their 5-10 girls in their very close friend group.
-I still say if can add to drama. Because you can see when people saw things
-my dd is constantly telling me this is how she plans to use it. Just for close friends.
-I tell her, “close friends” may change and you’ll start to ask to add more people.

This is why i want to wait. She’s convinced it holds her back socially in some way. She is not held back. She has many friends, is cute and likeable. She can communicate with anyone in her phone already.

[Anonymous]

I have a 15 yr old- no Snapchat. They can call and text, that should be sufficient to communicate

[Anonymous]

Never, it only leads to trouble

[Anonymous]

18

[Anonymous]

And TiK Tok? I also have a young teen begging for these saying they feel socially left out … which I think is true but also their way of trying to build their case for why we should say yes. We’ve held firm at no but are curious like the OP how others are handling this.

[Anonymous]

We were very cautious with social media. We ended up allowing SnapChat at 13, Instagram at 14. No Tiktok. I would have waited longer but like you said, this is how the kids communicate these days and the potential social isolation won out. We did come up with very clear rules though.
Our rules are don’t follow anyone you don’t know in real life (more so on snap).
parents must be able to follow and have passwords.
Under 15, downtime with these apps inaccessible from 10/11pm-9am, and during school hours.
Phones charge downstairs at night.
No phone in the bedrooms.

I may be missing a couple but these were the big ones. Our oldest is a pretty easy kid and a mature sole. I’ve overheard her lecturing friends and siblings about screen addiction and social media. And this was a kid who begged for all of it starting in fourth grade.
I get the desire to avoid it, but social media is a fact of parenting teens. This approach has worked well for our family.

[Anonymous]

We are a no here too. If enough parents had a spine all of our jobs would be easier.

[Anonymous]

One of its many bad features is you can see everyone’s location all the time. So if other kids are hanging out without you, you see their little avatars clustered together. I assume there’s a way to turn this off but the kids did not seem aware of how dumb and risky it is.

[Anonymous]

These responses are not typical IRL. My kids are 14 and 17. 14 yo uses Snapchat. 17 yo doesn’t by choice. My youngest got it a couple of years ago with restrictions with encouragement from my oldest after he showed me it’s just another form of texting and how you can turn off a lot of features parents are so scared about. I’ve always told my kids to keep their locations off and set setting to private or contacts only (or whatever it’s called on snap). It is truly how they communicate with others in middle school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:One of its many bad features is you can see everyone’s location all the time. So if other kids are hanging out without you, you see their little avatars clustered together. I assume there’s a way to turn this off but the kids did not seem aware of how dumb and risky it is.

Yes. It’s easy to turn off.

[Anonymous]

18