Instagram tagging -
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Anonymous
| The way certain kids tag in pictures seems to be mean girl behavior. For example, at a big party they tag a picture of two people with like 15-20 tags, intentionally excluding a number of people who were also there, It's not that they forget, they know and are friendly with these other people. Or that they constantly tag a certain group of 8-10 who they think are cool. It all seems very silly but it definitely hurts people's feelings. Do others with teens have this same experience? Our 13 year old is having a hard time with this, she has lots of friends and is sometimes tagged so it's not that, but it is bothering her how cliquey everything seems to be, with an 'in' and 'out' crowd and so on, and her friends are very caught up in it and she's starting to be also. I want to help her to take a step back and not care, but it is hard. Middle school is always hard, but Instagram really seems to feed on insecurities. Snap chat too but in a different way. |
Anonymous
| SMH |
Anonymous
| Yup, its hard and it can hurt. Snapchat and Instagram are like the slam books we had back in the day. If you can get your DD off social media it truly helps. |
Anonymous
| My 13 year old is also on instagram but has never complained about any social drama of that sort. Not sure if she's not experiencing it or if she just doesn't care enough to mention it. Kids just need perspective about what matters, and I think most need to work on developing confidence and a thicker skin to not get offended as easily. It's hard as teens but useful later. |
Anonymous
| Omg, make it stop? What you concentrate on grows. Concentrate on teaching your child confidence and kindness. |
Anonymous
| No. my DD is also 13 and they just tag whoever is there. But she's very low drama, and I think attracted to people who are similar. |
Anonymous
Hard to do but good advice. Help her find activities, other connections that empower her and build her confidence. |
Anonymous
| Maybe our child is just in a very cliquey class but this happens all the time. |
Anonymous
| What does the response SMH mean? |
Anonymous
| SMH = smacking my head |
Anonymous
So? Teach your kid to see this for the pointless posturing it is. Worth little more than an eye roll, if that. Teens who are able to (at least appear to) not care about this stuff benefit from being able to remain unaffected by social drama or leverage it to their benefit. |
Anonymous
Another popular/common alternative is "shaking my head" |
Anonymous
Yeah, I think this is more common than smacking. My bad. |
Anonymous
|
It is indeed a very subtle form of mean girl behavior that can actually go over many adult's heads. Instagram is the perfect breeding ground for this type of behavior which is why my DD13 said, "instragram makes me feel bad and I'm taking it off my phone".
That was 4 months ago and I think she's much happier and we have less relationship dramatics and breakdowns going on. It's still happening she's just removed from it a layer. I'd say encourage your DD to notice how social media makes her feel and empower her to get off. Or set limits. I've learned from this and will not allow my younger DD to have social media until she is probably in high school. |
Anonymous
Good advice, esp for those of us who have kids who tend to be more influenced by social media/are "followers" and joiner by nature. |