Anonymous wrote:From a 5th grade teacher— please please please, if you’re going to allow your child to be in group chats of any kind, frequently read them. Like daily.
No one thinks it’s going to be THEIR child joining the group of kids who is urging another child to commit suicide, or sending/receiving sexually explicit messages, or posting racist memes. Not my sweet, mature, responsible kid. Not at ten years old.
Your sweet responsible kid’s brain is not developed yet, and many of them WILL make terrible choices unsupervised.
When the drama inevitably spills over to school, it is shocking how often a really great kid has been sucked into really awful behavior.
Or has been exposed to something awful by their friends. And that’s just the ones we find out about.
Yes, they need to learn to be responsible digital citizens, but 5th grade is still very very young. They’re just not ready to navigate this stuff without LOTS of scaffolding and support.
I say this as the parent of a 5th grader as well. I understand the difficulty of the social piece.
Thank you for this perspective. I know SO many moms who said they would hold out on phones, give in because they so desperately want to have popular children. I don't know why this is such a draw for adult women, to be the mom of the cool kid.
-Proud uncool mom
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