An explanation of Social Media for terrified parents - how to protect your kids

[MmeCinqAnneauxDor]

Over the past few years, I have often seen threads on Mumsnet from parents who are worried about their kids using Social Media. One of the often repeated claim is 'I don't understand Social Media'. Sometimes I've heard 'I don't need to know about it, I don't use it'.

The reality is that all parents have a responsibility to their kids to teach them about Social Media. We can't leave it up to the schools - they often don't start teaching about this until 13 or 14yrs, and 60% of children have already got a FB account at age 11yrs.

Schools also often concentrate on the issue of cyberbullying, but don't teach the kids about the other dangers such as oversharing etc.

I am writing a series of blog posts about this - the first one is about Facebook and I will follow with blogs about Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube etc

[underthebluemoon]

Even in primary schools we do a lot of work on what is safe to share on the internet. You are right that it shouldn't be just up to schools but unfair to say we cover only cyberbullying.

[MmeCinqAnneauxDor]

I don't say that they only cover cyberbullying, but that schools 'often' concentrate on this topic. It very much depends on the school.

My DD is in P7 (Scotland) and 11yr old. She hasn't heard any of this in school and most of her classmates have a FB account.

[sarahabel83]

I think that the rapid increase in the involvement of social networking sites, has also made an adverse effect on kids. They spend lots and lots of time on computer and mobile phone rather than playing out. I think being a parent, we must set an age bar for our kids. Like for kids below 10 years, social networks should not be allowed. So that they can spend more time in playing out and learning new things. Found this useful article on this as well. It has really inspired me.
www.idoinspire.com/blog/bid/104711/Should-Kids-be-Allowed-to-Have-a-Facebook-Account