Why do you allow your teen on Snapchat?

[KimGa]

DS is about to turn 14. All his mates are on Snapchat, he’s coming to me daily upset that he’s left out because I won’t allow him to download it and that’s how they all communicate.

When he asked for it I read up on it and tried downloading it myself to see whether it would be ok. The Stories / discover page is absolutely full of soft core porn videos and loads of other crap. From what I have read it’s not possible to turn this feature off.

I’m shocked at all the other parents being ok with this app - do people not realise what it’s like or think it’s harmless?

I don’t want him to be left out but I don’t think I can say yes to this.

DD1 had it since 14 as that how her friendship group has chosen to communicate - there were apparently others apps they wnated but other parents veto - not sure why.

Not seen anything like that on her's and there's been no issues. They use it now to keep in touch now they've all gone elsewhere post 16.

DD got it in year 10 at a new school because that was how they communicate - no one was using WhatsApp as they did in her previous school (where I didn’t allow it). As it was a new school I didn’t want to put barriers in the way of her making friends. She was 14/15. (She wasn’t allowed WhatsApp till she was 13, so texted prior to that.)
A year later and it doesn’t seem to have caused any problems, touch wood.
She’s still not allowed TikTok.

Do you also ban music videos OP?

I look at my son and daughters (twins) snapchat all the time, never seen any content like this! On their FYPs she gets shown dance routines and make up tutorials (both of which she is totally incapable of replicating, to her great distress 🤣) and he watches the Worlds Greatest Goals Everrrrr and someone doing something MINDBLOWING on Minecraft.

None of it’s interesting to me but they enjoy it, they rarely look at the FYP though, snap is for messaging and probably 90% of their communication with friends is via the app. They do have friends who don’t have Snapchat and I make sure to frequently mention to them to ensure those friends are invited to events etc, and kept in the loop with conversations via WhatsApp, but it doesn’t always happen.

I came from a home where my mum was extremely anxious and we weren’t allowed loads of the things that all my friends had and it still feels painful to me to this day. I’ve probably gone the other way to make sure that my kids are doing everything that their friends are doing, but honestly, it’s important. Being left out or thought of as a bit weird at 15 is the absolute worst.

Teens like Snapchat because messages disappear (parents can’t check your messages) and you’re told if the other person has screenshot your post. It’s a good way to bully, sext or communicate about illegal things because most people aren’t quick enough to use tricks like another device to record your posts for “receipts”

My kids don’t get the soft core porn because the algorithms show what they think you’re interested in or it will be what is trending now sort of thing.

Both my teens have Snap, it’s how they communicate with all their friends, no one uses WhatsApp anymore.

The feed is an algorithm so will be based on their interests. My DS’s is filled with gaming stuff and silly pranks, my DD’s politics and Gaza.

I don’t really understand the over the top restrictions some people put on their teens. We need to let them live in this world which is now highly tech focused. Keep the home balanced with regular tech-free meal times, plenty of face-to-face interactions, conversations and healthy debates about the world during family time but otherwise let them find their way and communicate with their peers however they like, I say.

(a girl dancing in a bikini is not soft porn).

I held out until the end of year 10 but they were genuinely being left out of stuff by my insisting on WhatsApp and that was impacting their mental health. We have had no issues since being on it and they're well aware of the potential issues and fall outs from others at school

Im really surprised how pro Snapchat everyone is.

Its causes endless safeguarding issues at the secondary i work at.

I think most parents allow their kids on it because they don't want them to be left out and they haven't thought that deeply about the negative consequences/hope it won't happen.

Mine aren't allowed smartphones until 14 and no snapchat until they're adults and can decide for themselves. They are left out of the 'cool' groups but have plenty of friends. Increasingly, parents are wising up to this stuff.

The whole argument about learning to regulate makes no sense to me. You don't have to ever have snapchat. It's not essential for life. Plenty of people don't have it.

Banning things doesn’t safeguard teenagers. Especially when they don’t agree with the ban and think it’s unfair. They are more likely to do it behind your back and keep secrets from you. Effective safeguarding is centred around trust and open communication.

If your DD is getting Gaza content she may well be seeing people literally dying on-screen. I can't believe you think that's ok.

Yes, there is a lot of tech in the world but these things are completely untested on young people. As an adult I don't have TikTok, for example, because I went on there, became hooked, saw horrible things and decided it wasn't good for me. A child/teen just doesn't have the maturity to reflect and look after themselves in this way. To be honest plenty of adults are addicted, as the platforms intend them to be.

You won't be popular but personally I think you're doing the right thing not letting him have it.

It actually literally does. There are all sorts of things that are banned for everyone. Some things have age restrictions because kids are not competent to decide for themselves, e.g. smoking.

Yes, she is seeing some very distressing images about Gaza on Snapchat. She sees them on the news too. And elsewhere online.

She is deeply affected by this situation and I can’t protect her from that. I don’t believe in censoring what she sees. But we talk about it most evenings and talk through her feelings. If she were not getting her news content from Snapchat, it would be somewhere else. She is highly politically motivated. The key is just to regularly communicate, not to start banning news sources and censorship.

Banning Snapchat wouldn’t change how politically motivated my 16 year old is. It is innate in her.

Does age restrictions on smoking mean teens don’t smoke or that they just do it behind their parent’s backs?

You are proving my point. If a teen doesn’t agree with a ban then they are likely to just do it regardless, shrouded in secrecy, and will never come to their parents about an issue if it means owning up to breaking an imposed ban.

A woman in a bikini is not soft core porn.

Strange view of women.

DD didn’t. We had a perfectly sensible chat about these things, and come back to them frequently. She has to get DH’s percolation to download an app, it’s linked to his phone. The only thing she did was set up an instagram account but she told me pretty quickly she’d done it and so I created an account too and followed her.

Not all teens are sneaking around behind their well-meaning parents’ backs. Some of us are lucky enough to have good relationships with them. Some teens simply aren’t interested in this kind of thing. So some of us are comfortable in not being that permissive.

Ii really was just reflecting on how positive people were about it rather than agreeing with a ban as such. I dont think a ban for an individual would help anyway. They'd just be left out. But the wider implications of us leaving young people completely unregulated on things like tik tok and snap chat but over protecting them in the real world are playing out very negativily in schools.

It didn't really sound like people were aware of the risks and suggesting ways to promote safeguarding like ensuring children can recognise the different types of harm and how to report them. They seem to be much more 'its all fine, nothing to see here and we couldn't stop them anyway'.

Snapchat is not too dissimilar to Insta. Allowing one but not the other is odd imo.

You either trust your child to use social media responsibly or you don’t.

My children are 12 and 14.

They dont and wont be having snapchat. (nor do they have tictoc / insta / fb or any other SM)

We also have no screens at all upstairs. (no TV / phone etc)

They manage to waste enough time on whatsapp, chatting with their friends... they wont be having anything else.

Also, as I pay for their phone SIMs I consider their phones to be "mine"

I'm absolutely in the educate them to use it safely camp.

My teens are allowed Snapchat because I needed them to have it while they're young enough to have to listen to me when I speak 🤣 and trust me to know better. DS is approaching 16 now and has been absolutely fine, DD is 13 and hasn't had any problems so far.

The rules in our house are SM wide not just for Snapchat and are quite basic.. don't message/reply to anyone you don't know, bring me anything that makes you feel uncomfortable even if you can't explain why or aren't sure. Spot checks happen if someone is inexplicably moody/quiet. I've never found anything bad. DS is pretty much monosyllabic game invites, DD gets loads of photos of her friends being silly, and requests to video call. Kids can handle this stuff with guidance.

She now has both. I don’t think they’re particularly the same, to be honest.

And it’s got nothing to do with not trusting her and everything to do with not trusting anyone else, including the makers of the app.

But I don’t have to be consistent. I just have to be in charge - parenting, adulting.

If they have access to the internet then they have access to porn. They don’t need Snapchat for that. Banning it can make it forbidden fruit that’s the trouble.