Social Media

We have navigated through the teenage years with our older two children and now have a 17 year old and an 19 year old who have a much better understanding of the online world than when we all embarked on our online journey. 

If you are heading into this minefield I really hope this helps!.........

When you enter the teenage years you often think of stroppy youngsters storming off upstairs and banging doors, but in today’s world it’s a little different.

Our teenage daughter was the first up in the battle to have access to a fast paced, (and sometimes dangerous), online world. Outside the safe confines of our family home, her friends were, (and still are),  her world.  Most had phones and social media and, as we all know, peer pressure sometimes dictates our wishes and desires.  This is something we experienced big time!

We started to encounter questions like, "when can I have a phone", as early as Years 5 and 6! Other parents had decided to let their children have phones and they must have had their reasons for doing this but we refused to discuss it until the transition to Senior school. We were very unpopular! The girl we were raising to be strong and know her own mind just couldn't understand why we were saying no.

Year 7 arrived and our Daughter started to catch a bus to school. The need to be able to contact her when she was not with me overrode any decsions we had made to delay letting her have a phone, thus opening the flood gates to the online world. 

Neither myself or my husband were at the time, completely au fait with any social media platform other than Facebook, (Insta was fairly new back then!). With a lack of knowledge, we were not confident we could keep our daughter completely safe online, so we decided to offer Facebook as an alternative to the options she was telling us were a must have.  We thought we were being fairly reasonable with our offer only to be told, ‘Facebook is for oldies’!

How times change so quickly! 

Eventually, she decided that she would give Facebook a try.  I suppose it was the ‘it’s Facebook or nothing’ attitude from us which made her realise any kind of social media was better than nothing.  As the weeks progressed I, in particular, found it very entertaining to have my daughter on social media with me.  We have always had a great relationship and she shares a lot at home, so I suppose it didn’t enhance our relationship just compliment it.  I started tagging her in funny posts I had found on my news feed; she started posting photos of family events and tagging me in them, (both accounts were set to private). She posted a beautiful message along with a picture of us both on Mothers Day.  All of these things I found to be a wonderful addition to our already loving and caring relationship and if it had just been limited to Facebook all would have been well.

However, her desire and wish to go further on social media was still hanging in the air.  My overwhelming desire and wish to keep my daughter safe was battling against her ever increasing anxiousness.  The trouble was all her friends had other social media and, away from school, were chatting and even talking about homework using Instagram and the like.

My husband and I were lucky enough to have an informal chat with her head teacher at a school event.  We didn’t chat for long but he agreed it was a minefield of decision-making and constant checking of online activity.  He made a very valid point.  He told us it would help enormously if parents did not let underage children join social media groups.  This happened to be one of the problems we had faced 12 months beforehand.  Our daughter could not understand that if her friend, who was under age, was allowed social media then why wasn’t she?  We stood our ground and did the right thing, but perhaps before any parent grants permission to access social media, it may be worth checking the age limits.  

Eventually, and with some trepidation, we agreed to more social media. It soon became clear that, despite the education she had received at school and at home regarding online activity, she was very naive when it came to using her social media accounts.  We found we had to go back to basics with teaching her to stay safe online.  We discovered she thought every profile photograph was the true identity of the person holding the social media account that she was interacting with.  Probably all of the accounts she interacted with at that time were ok, BUT, we all know it can be a dangerous world out there with people pretending to be someone they are not.  We had no desire to frighten our daughter, however she was shocked when we explained how careful she needs to be in order to keep herself safe.  We asked her if she would give personal details to a stranger in the street, or indeed walk down the High Street wearing next to nothing! Obviously she said she wouldn't which led us to question her as to why she thought it was safe to do so online! She’s a very sensible girl and thankfully the message got through, so we decided to progress along the social media pathway a little more and grant her access to other platforms on which she wished to communicate with her friends.

By this point, I had got to grips with most social media programs, so one condition of her having more social media was I would be one of her followers.  To be honest, there was little that interested me on any of her social media but Facebook.  I did keep tabs on her activity and was pleased to see she had settled down and was not befriending every Tom, Dick and Harry in this world!

However, when she was 15 we hit a bump in the road. 

Previously to this we had bought the Qustodio monitoring app and installed it on both our older two children's devices. It worked well, (although Whatsap is still not monitored), and we soon relied on it to check both children were safe online. We knew exactly what social media apps were being used and could even disable the App Store to ensure we needed to grant permission to download any new apps. All was going well until school issued ipads to all students and this is where the problems started. Despite their online activity being monitored carefully on all personal devices, the school ipad was only monitored AT SCHOOL! We were told by members of staff we needed to make sure parental controls were in order on our home wifi. This wasn't easy as we needed to know ALL of the platforms they were using in order to restrict. Two apps went under the radar. Soundcloud and Reddit, (both of which I was not aware of at the time).

To cut a very long, (and quite frankly traumatic), story short..... She was groomed online. This was after the safety chats and equipping her with, what we thought to be, the correct tools in which to use her social media appropriately. She was totally unaware of the grooming until it was very nearly too late. This is what happened. She uploaded a piece of music she liked to Soundcloud. Someone sent her a message saying "he" liked it. After a few more public messages, "he" suggested they switched to Reddit and go private. It was very nearly catastrophic. Within a week the gang responsible had convinced our girl that her family and friends were worthless to her. They told her they were her "soulmate". They gained her trust. They got her to divulge personal infomation, family photos and our address. 

Fortunately, we found out, (by chance!). We called the police. Her school ipad was taken away from her and she had to study for part of lockdown with just books and paper. The police advised we take away all devices, which we did. They told us the gang would have been operating within the UK. We were probably days away from her meeting them and then...well I can't bring myself to think what may have happened.

This all happened to a sensible but at times naive young girl. Despite us and school educating her on the dangers she still fell for a facade of flattery. 

Some might say we were being overprotective initially.  I disagree. I do know plenty of parents that have happily let their children set up social media accounts without any concerns, but for me safety was paramount and I wanted to be able to look back with no 'what ifs".  All parents are different and where social media is concerned there is no right or wrong answer.  In everyday life, we make decisions for our children which we believe are the right decisions FOR THEM.  No one knows our children better than we do, and I’ll go as far as to say sometimes we know them better than they know themselves.

My intention here is not to scare. The world has lots and lots of good people in it but I hope this blog brings some comfort to those that are about to enter this social media chapter with their children. Our world is changing; it is a world where the internet is king.  We will not be successful in our attempts to stop youngsters accessing this occasionally mind boggling world.  The best we can do is monitor their activity and educate them about online safety.  Below, I have included the link to the NSPCC website which provides wonderful tips and advice on how to keep your children safe online. 

Finally, my advice to parents....

If your instincts tell you it is not the right time to agree to your child’s requests, then don’t be afraid to say no. 

If anyone tells you, "it's snooping" or "It's controlling', tell them it isn't....It's caring.

If you do decide to let your child access any part of the internet, then please please check their online activity, monitor if you can,  and make sure they have been educated properly to keep themselves safe especially when interacting with others. Educate yourself too. We can always learn more. Keep up to date with the latest apps and obvioulsy keep an open dialogue going with your child.

In America they have a "Wait Until the 8th" pledge. It's an initiative to let children be children for longer. 8th Grade in America is the equivelant to UK Year 9. I would love to see this initiative in the UK soon. Webite details below.

The information I mentioned within this blog are:

NSPCC Online Safety advice: https://www.nspcc.org.uk/preventing-abuse/keeping-children-safe/online-safety/

Wait Until the 8th website: https://www.waituntil8th.org/

Age limits for Social Media:

AGE 13: X, Facebook, Instagram, Tik Tok, Pinterest, Tumblr, Reddit, Snapchat, Flickr. Youtube & Wechat are for 13+ WITH PARENTS PERMISSION, otherwise they are for 18+.

AGE 16: Whatsapp.

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