How to Effectively Monitor your Children On Social Media

Years ago parents monitored their children’s television usage, watched out for what they read and kept an eye on their friends.  These days’ things have definitely changed! Something that is becoming increasingly challenging for parents to do is to manage and monitor their children on social media.

The online space has changed dramatically in a few short years.  The days of monitoring the PC and looking over their shoulders have long gone.  With mobile devices, tablets and individual PCs monitoring children’s social media usage has shifted.  Further children being just on Facebook have been replaced with splitting their time between a number of tools, platforms and apps which allow them to share, write, text and video chat.  Some of these include Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter and Tumblr.

These create a number of issues for parents.  Some of these include:

• Parents don’t know their children are using these accounts until a problem arises usually in the form of inappropriate photos from a party that begin to circulate among their collective circles

• Children don’t need a phone or credit card for the apps just an Internet connection and device such as iPod Touch

• Online services routinely collect personal data, such as a person’s birth date or the location of their phone, and they commonly share this information with third parties for marketing purposes of children

So how do you as a parent manage and monitor them?

It is believed that imposing time limits on devices or simply banning children from social media is ineffective.  These measures are really just trying to keep the dam wall from collapsing and are only short term stop gap measures.  Eventually the dam wall will burst!

The most proactive approach moving forward means parents as well as schools must talk honestly with their children about these issues starting at a young age.  Having a technology talk with your children that is open and honest is vital.  The best thing that parents can do is to provide the tools and education about being online.  Parents need to be talk frankly about privacy controls, the dangers online and what to do when they are unsure.  Including children in the discussion as an ‘expert’ in their wellbeing is vital as it provides a sense of involvement.  Also remember children are using these services and know what can done with them, therefore they must be part of the solution.

This is one of the most important talks parents can have with their children.  Trying to shield them will not work.  Not only must they be provided with education to become digital citizens for safety they also need to learn how to make the most of the opportunities of the digital space.

Part of this means that parents must also educate themselves.  It cannot be just left to the schools or to the state.  This way schools, families, industry and other relevant stakeholders can work in partnership to ensure that children are provided with accurate information as well as skills and tools to be safe and secure online.

##This is only a general article.  Educational approaches for children / adolescents vary depending on age.

To find out more about Anna, take a look at her website or Facebook page!

Thanks for reading!

Feel free to ‘tweet’ or ‘repost’ this article or leave your comments….

Tags: Chidlren and social media • Monitoring your children on social media • Social media and children • Social media privacy and children