Don’t Trust Your Kids On Their Own

In my opinion it’s the teenage years that bring the most challenge and stress as a parent. Our first born gave us plenty to worry about throughout her teenage years. She's now a strong and independent 21 year old, thankfully. Bound and determined to go her own way and test boundaries, she found ways to do things that we were unaware of and would not approve of. Sometimes those things would become part of the rumor mill and get back to people who knew us.

As a parent it’s inevitable that people will make decisions about your child or you as a parent based on things they may have heard. It’s not your place to set the record straight or go to the person and explain things, in my opinion. They can think what they want but it’s your job to know what is happening in your teenagers life as if their life depended on it. We parented our oldest as first timers in the social media age and make plenty of missteps along the way. Whether we let others opinions into the situation is something that deserves some thought.

I can’t emphasize enough that allowing your teenager the privacy they need is necessary but it’s your place as a parent to oversee and guide them through interactions both in their digital world and real life world. My biggest regret with my first two kids is not having more involvement and input in what they were being exposed to online. I had some degree of knowledge, but I wasn’t the parent who could say I knew what my child’s experiences online looked like on a daily basis. I’m doing things a lot different with our 11 year old as she’s in the early exposure to the online world of Messenger Kids, YouTube Kids and texting with friends.

We use an app called Bark. I can’t begin to tell you have well this app does in keeping me informed of what our 11 year old is doing on the internet. The other day when the app notified me that my 18 year old son could no longer be under my supervision through the Bark app I was taken aback for a minute. But then that’s what happens in life. We are given 18 years to parent them and then it becomes our job to step back and let me take a front seat in guiding their lives.

I am grateful for social media tools that help to guide us as parents through it all. A favorite of mine to follow on social media is called Protect Young Eyes. They have involvement is many areas of the online parenting landscape, including presence in Washington D.C. at times when it is necessary to engage with and inform lawmakers. Their mission states: “We show families, schools, and churches how to create safer digital spaces. We do this with a pretty great website, powerful presentations, and a private learning community where you can "go slow" and learn with other, like-minded families #delayistheway.”

I also use the Life 360 app with my family. I know people have lots of opinions on whether the GPS locator app oversteps privacy boundaries or not, but in our case it is available asset to know where each other is and that they are safe. If you use the app with a teen driver and haven’t yet had the fright of receiving a call that a crash was detected, it’s pretty alarming. But the notice is likely to come to you faster than the police are even contacted about the car accident. I find that just amazing. The fact that my 21 year old hasn’t removed herself from our family circle on Life 360 shows the value she sees in it as she probably looks at our location more than we look at hers these days.

My referral link for Bark if you want to check it out: https://www.bark.us/?ref=F5Y6BKM