Reply to So how did you influence your teen social media was harmful and to stay off it-

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I chuckle with each of the authoritarian posts above. You are fooling yourselves. [b]Your kids know how to get around all of your rules and restrictions. [/b]Have the open conversations, discuss the risks and rewards of online engagement, and be there to talk through the challenges. Ultimately the goal is for resilient children who can assess their virtual and real environments to the best of their abilities - and that takes both clear guidelines and conversation. It also takes modeling healthy online management ourselves. [/quote]

Perhaps, but I think it’s better to establish boundaries and a level of trust up front and ease up on restrictions as they get older and show that they’re responsible. You can’t put the genie back in the bottle once you’ve let them loose in the internet. It’s worked really well for us so far.

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NP.  Trying to establish standards for social media use may be worthwhile, but I would focus more on encouraging personal growth, behaviors, and coping skills that insulate kids from the toxic nature of social media. I am fortunate to have a teenage DD who does not get sucked into social media or in-person drama. This is in large part due to who she is as a person (innate qualities) rather than parenting. Still, I can point to factors that make her less likely to be influenced or hurt by social medial posts, including having a small circle of very close friends, a strong sense of who she is as a person, being comfortable in her own skin without much need for external validation, passion for several activities which give her life meaning and fill up her time, and experience with a disabling health condition that has required her to learn and utilize coping skills to accept unpleasant and uncomfortable emotions but not allow them to control her life (basically tools for managing distress). Ss I mentioned, some of this is luck of the draw, but the more confident a kid is, the less likely they are to fall under the harmful spell of social media. [/quote]

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