Teens and Facebook…

I have teens on Facebook, as well as friends who have kids old enough to have accounts, and I’m starting to think some families are using it as a way to communicate.  I feel it’s a good idea to have parental supervision when your child has social media accounts.  It’s a good way to see what they’re up to, and how they interact with their friends in such a technology given era.

Several of my kids’ friends have friended me, and at first I was hesitant to accept, but I’ve decided I like that they trust me enough to let them in.  Kids need adults, and if they don’t want to open up to their parents, I’m glad they feel they can talk to me.

But some of these teens- they just don’t think.  I’ve seen kids with photos of alcohol and cigarettes on their pages, and it makes me wonder what makes them think that this is appropriate.  Don’t they realize that they’re just asking for punishment from their parents?   And then to let their friends’ parents see it- and then they wonder why I don’t let my kid hang out with them.

And then there are the parents who try to communicate with their kids on Facebook and really should know enough to take it off of a public forum.  I’ve seen teens lament about being bored at home, and their parents reply with comments like ‘Maybe you should get better grades so you won’t be grounded’.

While I agree with parental supervision online, I feel like there are some conversations that should be taken off the internet and brought up face to face.   Doing it through Facebook is just embarrassing the kid and creating a bigger gap between parent and child.

I guess it’s a fine line…

Source: socialgraphics.wordpress.com via Annie Infinite on Pinterest