Have you joined the social media world yet? If not, Facebook is a fun and easy way to keep in touch with your friends and grown children. Many people use Facebook as a way to meet new people as well and connecting with friends, new and old alike, helps combat depression and other issues associated with getting older. Some parents are hesitant to Facebook and ask their grown children to be their friend on Facebook as their social circle may be quite different from their children’s. While some kids may not be thrilled that their parents are asking to be their Facebook friend, others don’t mind it and you may find that it’s a great way to keep in touch with your grown kids.
Facebook has a number of safety tools that help ensure a safer online experience as your privacy is very important. Setting your Facebook privacy level as high as it will go will help you stay safer online while allowing you to communicate with your loved ones. Even if your account is linked to someone’s account and theirs is not a private account, your profile is safe as long as you’ve set your profile to private. Online predators don’t just prey on the teenagers; they target adults as well.
You and your grown children have the option of posting things and limiting who sees them using the privacy controls to keep photo albums from familial eyes. Since younger Facebook users are more accomplished with Facebook tools, it’s easy for them to keep family, and others, in the dark if they don’t want their behavior or lifestyle exposed to their parents.
Don’t rob yourself of the opportunity to set up a profile on Facebook and connect with your friends just because your grown children are on Facebook. Although your children may not want to you to their friends list, you’ll find plenty of other friends, old and new alike, to connect with on Facebook. A lot of people use it to connect with cousins and relatives that may not live close or with whom they don’t always get the opportunity to talk to.
If you convince your grown children to add you as a friend on Facebook, do your best to keep your “embarrassing behavior” to a minimum. Kids often add their parents as friends because they tend to post embarrassing comments on their pictures and wall. Comment occasionally but make it a daily thing or you will drive your grown children crazy.
Maybe you have found some old buddies with whom you are re-connecting. Are you posting embarrassing pictures or topics that you don’t want your kids to know about? Use the privacy settings so your kids won’t hear about your Spring Break trip to Florida when you were younger. As you get older and your kids move away, it canl be difficult to maintain frequent communication. This is one of many reasons why it’s beneficial to have a Facebook page so you can keep in touch. If you have grandkids, you can also see updated pictures of them through your children’s Facebook pages. The chat feature is another helpful tool that will give you a chance to talk to your grown children in real time online.
