Social Media. Grrr!

[EndangeredCheerleader]

We have an ongoing battle with Paris over appropriate media usage. It's almost comical the lengths she goes to in an attempt to circumvent our rules. Poor girl is never getting a FB because she won't behave herself long enough to earn one. Good grief.

About a month ago, I showed her a news article regarding two young adult difficult child's who were murdered. The pictures of the deceased were pulled off social media and none were photos you would want the world to remember you by. I thought it was a pretty memorable lesson. Apparently my daughter learned nothing from it...

Yup, that's right, my daughter doesn't even have her own account(s) and still manages to behave inappropriately online. She is gifted.

 

[SuZir]

Well, she doesn't plan getting murdered...

And she may have different understanding how she would like to be remembered by. Or she would not care how she would be remembered by, because, duh, she is dead and it wouldn't matter her any more.

I have learned that when trying to impress a teen (difficult child or easy child) with these types of things, you have to use examples they can relate to. And because all teens tend to be bulletproof in their mind, even the most terrifying examples don't rattle them. Then again, they may be very impressed by much smaller scale examples they can actually relate to.

Don't try to find your good bad examples from news of things they are sure will not happen to them. Either try to find them from very similar to them (kid who got bullied and laughed at school because something in social media) or from something they would like to be. Celebrities in area of your kid's interest and their screw ups with social media can be extremely effective. Or stories of social media mistakes costing someone something your child dreams of.

 

[EndangeredCheerleader]

I hear you, SuZir. I really do. And I know this is typical teen behavior.

I had hoped a stunt she pulled was going to be addressed by her band director. It will prevent her from holding a leadership position if it happens again but she won't acknowledge that because he never said anything to her personally. SHE can't help what other people post, don'tcha know?!

 

[SuZir]

Yup, that's right, my daughter doesn't even have her own account(s) and still manages to behave inappropriately online. She is gifted.

I have to say I like your attitude

And I do very much sympathise. That combination of bulletproofness/wishful thinking/rules don't apply me (at least unless personally told)-attitude, can be rather irritating to say the least.

Of course handling social media really is challenging. Being good at that requires so many skills. You have to think ahead, understand potential consequences, make quite complicated risk evaluations, go through several 'if's, understand other people perspective and reading on what you put up there. Handle your output skillful enough to make others understand what you meant to tell by it, remain cool headed and not get caught at the moment and much more. It is difficult to even well adjusted teens at times and even big accidents can happen. It's even more difficult for our troubled children. And while we can minimize some of the hazards simply forbidding it from them, that can be a poor cop out in the long run. Social media is not going anywhere, they absolutely have to learn to handle it, because most likely it will be part of their life sooner or later anyway. Just forbidding it till they turn 18 doesn't solve the problem any more than locking them into the house till they are 18, because they can't handle traffic or interacting with people. So we just face the exhausting battle of trying to teach, giving privileges, revoking them when abused, giving a new chance etc.

Mine have not made any major gaffes with social media till now *knocking wood* and they did the smaller ones when they were young enough that those didn't matter much. But still I dread every time when opening especially difficult child's FB or Twitter page. Especially FB, because that is supposed to be more 'private' (with all those about 1000 'friends', from whom half don't even like him) with Twitter at least having a heavy reporter presence in his followers keeps rules in his mind.

 

[Liahona]

difficult child 2 asked for a facebook account. I just laughed. (And then had to explain why I was laughing.)