Let’s face it, gone are the days where kids get together with their neighbors and carelessly play freeze-tag and capture the flag until dinnertime. Now, they are practically born with an iPhone in their hands and seem to know more about social media than their parents do. So in a world that is growing more and more “virtually connected” does it make any sense to try to shield your children from it?
Facebook users are required to be 13 to create an account, although it doesn’t take a genius 10 year old to figure out that they simply need to manipulate their birthday to reflect this and get around the official requirement. And since many of their friends are going to be jumping into social media, they are likely to be secretive in order to make it happen for themselves.
It is important for parents to communicate their feelings towards their child’s activity on social media, but also to be realistic. While it is entirely understandable that parents would like to shield their children from the transparency that social media provides and the potential harassment, being too harsh with rules is likely to only create more problems. If parents, instead, work with them to create a profile with privacy settings that both parties comfortable with, then they will actually have a more active role in protecting their children’s privacy.
Take some time yourself to really understand all the privacy settings and which would be most important to a child’s privacy. Here are some suggestions:
- How they can connect with others: Go to Privacy Settings –> How You Connect –> Edit Settings and Select “Friends” for all options, allowing only those that your child already connects with to search for them, send friend requests and messages, post on their wall and view wall posts.
- How/who they share their photos with: Go to Privacy Settings –> How Tags Work –> Edit Settings and Select “On” for Profile and Tag Review to make it so that your child must first approve of a posting that includes a tag of their name or photo before it gets posted to their profile. Next, select “Friends” for Maximum Profile Visibility to allow only friends to view tagged posts that have been approved. Lastly, select “Off” for Tag Suggestions and Friends Can Check You Into Places in order to turn off geo-location for your child.
It is important for parents to have open communication with their child about their involvement in social media. There is no way that you can be the controller of their Facebook account or have alerts sent directly to you, Facebook only allows the intended user to access their account, even if they are under 18. If parents establish trust with their child and their social media activity and maintain and open conversation about it, they are less likely to act out recklessly and “overshare” and potentially put themselves in harms way.
But one thing is for sure: Your child WILL get a Facebook account, better to accept it now.
