Reply to Kids and Instagram

Forum Index » Elementary School-Aged Kids

Reply to "Kids and Instagram - do you allow?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Ummm no Instagram, Facebook, twitter, vine or any of the like. She/he can have whatever they like at the age of 18.[/quote]

You clearly have a younger child because this is entirely unrealistic.  Once kids get to high school there are official functions that are only communicated via facebook.  Also EVERYONE is on these networks so your child will be socially isolated unless he is as well.  Finally, you don't teach your child internet safety by banning it all together -- you teach internet safety by allowing it when they are old enough and easing them in with some monitoring and lots of discussion.  But you will see this when your children get older.  There is no question in my mind that you will change your mind.

My DS was on at 13 and came to us when he was troubled by a communication from an adult that he knew.  We stepped in and everything was taken care of but I was glad that he knew he could come to us and that his antenna was up when something wasn't right.[/quote]

This is so true PP.  It's a teaching opportunity for tools they'll use throughout their lives, not something you need to protect your children from.   I would add, that twitter is fast replacing FB as way to communicate about high school activities.  In a few years they may be using something else.

I let my 7th grader get an instagram (my other two are in high school and already fairly experienced with social media--one loves it, the other can't be bothered) with the proviso that I had to follow him.  So far he's had fun with it and most of what he put on their was appropriate.  One picture I questioned led to a very interesting discussion and he took it down -- again I think there is no other way for them to learn to use it appropriately.

Also, you can have you kid make their instagram account private -- that way only their friends can see what they post and you can tell them not to let people they don't know follow them, thus eliminating the adult strangers another poster was talking about.  I do notice a lot of parents follow their kids friends, but I tend to draw the line here.  I think kids need their own space within reason.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics