Yes, he does, and you had no idea.
This is the latest craze among teenagers in middle school and high school. Kids have a “cover” Instagram account that is all happy go lucky for their parents to follow, and another account for their school friends and other peers.
And we do not know what they are posting. Are they taking pictures that we do not want them to take? Using language that we do not want them to use? And just doing kid things, that kids will do? Those rascally things that kids used to do where not too harmful in the olden days when I was growing up, but today they could get you labeled as a sex offender for life (not that we did things that awful in the olden days!). And when you are 14 you are not thinking about consequences. So we parents have to.
Snapchat is old news. We had a snapchat sex scandal in our middle school a couple of months ago. Everyone has been warned to be vigilant on that social media platform, but our kids are very smart, and always outwitting us. Again, that was OK when it was not harmful and would not affect their entire future. Those innocent days are gone forever. So we have to guide and teach them every chance we get. And yes, I am suggesting that we do not trust them implicitly!
Even on the Instagram account I know about, my son follows some shady accounts. It is all in the name of laughs and jokes, but it can be very rude. He sees words and other things that should not be used in every day life, in this parents humble opinion. Or, does it not matter because he is hearing it in school? Only you can decide.
HOW DO WE CATCH THIS DECEPTIVENESS?
I have a few ideas, but this is a very tricky road.
My son does not own a phone. I own a second phone that he is allowed to use. I own it. I pay over $50 a month for his phone. I mean MY PHONE. See, we forget that these are the parents devices. So I can check it at will. Or he loses it. But if it is a secret Instagram account, it will be very hard to find. So we parents have to work together, we have to be a village, raising and protecting our children as a group. Hopefully one parent will find some information that we can all use to protect our kids from themselves!
Lastly, do not ask them if they have a secret account. You may have the best relationship in the world with your child, but do not tip your hand and lose the opportunity to see if they are hiding something. Even the best of our children sometimes like to be sneaky, social media is a way for them to act out on-line where they think it is safer than in real life.
We parents have to be forever vigilant and we must work together!!
It is the story of our lives!!
went through this over and over with our teenager. I think most are inactive now, but I’m pretty sure she has had close to ten different FB accounts over the past three years.
Very interesting. I have enough trouble keeping up with one account no way I could do more.