Do you have a teenager that seems to be addicted to facebook? Parents need to know what their kids are doing online and they really need to start paying attention to the role of social media in their children’s lives. Facebook allows kids to connect with each other but it can also cause a lot of drama. High schools are filled with plenty of drama and the last thing any parent needs is hearing about who said what on Facebook. As a parent, here are some of the things that you need to be aware of when it comes to facebook and your child’s privacy.
Your child will have control over their own profile. They can choose to post pictures and personal information. Your child can also choose what information they should not post on facebook and who they should or shouldn’t add as a friend. Parents need to find out just what type of information their child is sharing on facebook if they really want to protect them and ensure that their child is going to be safe.
Facebook has some rules about posting and they will remove nudity and other things and they do try to remove profane and crude remarks, but there are still quite a few comments that get made that really do not belong on Facebook.
As a caring parent, it is a good idea to create your own facebook account so you can keep up with what your child is doing. You don’t need to watch them like a hawk and it’s best to avoid commenting on all the information that is being posted as you might end up embarrassing them. Instead you just need to look over their personal profile and find out what they are saying and to also see what type of friends they have. There have been some cases reported that teens with low self esteem can suffer dramatically from accepting friends that are very rude to them on facebook. Some cases of teen suicide have been linked to the rude comments left by another person on their facebook account.
Since your child may be sharing videos and pictures, make sure they aren’t sharing them with the entire world. Online predators feed on this type of information so it is a good idea to talk to your teen about setting their profile to the highest protection level. This way only their real friends will be able to see these pictures and other information.
Facebook can become a big time waster with all of the various games and other things that it has. As a parent you need to limit your child’s access to facebook in order to be sure it doesn’t become an addition and to be sure they don’t spend all of their time on this social media site and not on other important tasks like homework. Plus the less time they spend on Facebook the easier it will be for them to avoid a lot of the drama that goes on.
Comparing facebook to other social media sites, it does really top all of them. This is because it is very private compared to the others and it’s made up of several small networks and communities. It is a large site but it can be condensed so it isn’t this huge social media site. Everyone’s accounts look the same, making it easier to understand and you can simply click through the pictures and other things to learn about the people you and your children are connecting with.
Talk to your child about Facebook and about the dangers of wasting too much time online. If you have open relationships with your children it will be much easier to learn about the pressures and challenges that they face and will help you to have a better relationship with them.
