It simply doesn’t matter. Your teenager’s, and unfortunately, your pre-teenager’s will find a way to bypass your parental controls. They will find a way to communicate with their friends and you will simply die trying to stop them.
Experts say, “Monitor your kids’ online activity.” Well, I for one am tired of other mother’s (you know the type; the mother whose teen got a perfect score on the SAT; a.k.a. the “name dropper” at the PTA meeting) passing judgment on us moms who are just trying to stay one step ahead of the game and growing gray hair faster than the weeds are growing on our front lawns.
Yes, we are monitoring the activity, but sites like Tik Tok, Hot or Not, Kik, X, Instagram, and Snapchat do not make it easy for us. We are doing the best we can and are exhausted just trying to keep up.
Here are 5 reasons why your efforts won’t work.
1) Take the kidlets’ phone away and he or she will have a friend who will provide another phone. Yes, it’s true, friends always seem to be able to get ahold of something; iPhones, androids, IPads, and burner phones can be “found” and secretly given to friends who get their phones taken away by parents. I don’t like it either, but if I didn’t see it with my own eyes, I wouldn’t have believed it. Keep in mind that there is always some type of online tutorial that will happily educate your child on ways to hide things from parents. And by the way, those other parents do not know their own kidlet just gave away their IPad or phone. Yes, this could be you folks.
2) Take away all tech privileges, it won’t matter. Again, they will sneak laptops or technology from you. Yes, it’s true, unless you can be awake 24 hours a day and police your own rules, or put a lock on your own computer, your kidlet will find a way to log-on and it won’t take but five seconds to download an app and hide it. Parent controls are definitely getting better, but teens definitely won’t miss an opportunity to connect.
3) Go ahead, delete that X, Instagram, Kik, Snapchat, Hot or Not, Tik Tok, or any other account you can think of…your kid will just make another one…here we go again, delete the new ones and so on and so forth. Our kids have a way to make up random id’s so we can’t figure out who they are.
4) Other teenagers will know who you are. Your child’s friends will hide their online activity so other parents can’t stalk them; they work together to keep information away from all parents. Be careful with this one; they all stick together and will do whatever they can to block you. So, if you need to call another parent about something important, you may want to just knock on their door instead. If you call that parent and no answer or response, chances are your phone number has been blocked. They will sneakily access our contacts and block numbers from other parents we communicate with. Yes, our teens are talented.
5) Teenagers will always, and I repeat, always know more than the parents about social media. They will always be faster, quicker, or smarter, and of course, devious. You can argue with me all you want; they hold this title hands down.
I know there will most likely be some “nay sayers” who will ultimately want to condemn me for promoting the idea that children are able to confuse us. Some tech savvy gurus may even want to teach me how to stay ahead of the game. Parents are getting better, but it can’t and won’t happen…these kids aren’t going down easy–but neither am I.
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