It all started as I was searching through my son’s phone and the various social apps he had downloaded. I noticed he was following the daughter of a friend of mine and she had two accounts! I was surprised, confused, and inquisitive. I found out that most of my son and his friends all had two Instagram accounts, the second one called a Finsta, and it was more private than the one their parents could view.
Your child has two Instagram accounts. One is rated G/PG, and the other is not.
What should you do? Have you downloaded the Finsta App?
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. With some nasty stuff. It’s no longer just Snap Chat and its disappearing texts that you have to worry about.
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 these kids could post things that get them labeled as sex offenders, and that is for life. And when you are 14 you are not thinking about consequences. So we parents have to.
The kids refer to these accounts as their “FINSTA” account. That stands for Fake Instagram. See how little you knew? Did you look for the Finsta App? There is none. Finsta means second Instagram account, or Fake Instagram account. And it is practically required for teenagers today. Chances are your child has one, or his friends do, and that’s where the nasty stuff gets posted. And we parents had no idea.
HOW DO WE CATCH THIS DECEPTIVENESS?
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. 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.
I follow my son on both of his Instagram accounts, so he does not post anything on those that he shouldn’t. I am sure he has other avenues to use. But, this is a good way or parents to find out what is happening in their children’s world, when looking through their kids phones, they can see his or her friends Finsta accounts, just to get an idea what is happening out there in social media for teenagers. It will be eye opening.
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. NOTE, they can send private messages from Instagram, and from Finstagram. See, I caught you again, there is no such thing as Finstagram, parents, stop being so gullible!
We will never be smarter than them, but we have to keep trying! And be warned, this is not the only trick available to them, and new apps are appearing every day. Snap Chat has conversations that disappear. And did you know about the new app, Sarahah.com? That one is also dangerous for our teens as it is anonymous. Quick and easy “snaps” can help one to plan a drug deal. Locating a sexual partner can be quick and easy, AND ANONYMOUS with sarahah. The on-line world is changing daily and becoming more difficult for parents to monitor, but we cannot give up.
Parents have never had a more difficult time monitoring their kids on-line life in this ever changing and dangerous world.
BE VIGILANT!
I will have to tell my kids about this ‘especially the part it could be their friends phone.
People do not realize how true all of this is until it goes down. We caught my daughter with an insta account we did not know she had. Fortunately we did. She got into a chat room starting with a friend of hers that had one. Lets just say this chat room was very intense. While we did go through her phone and have someone that is a friend of ours scan the phone, we did find out that while she was not talking in it, she was reading all sorts of things that whack jobs were posting that we did not want her exposed to and most, she did not even understand. She spent months on lock down with electronics as where she had a little freedom, they are only used with us right there constantly. She has been slowly earning back some of the freedom but in baby steps. While we had stuff to monitor her phone, it slipped through when she would get on wifi. We now have a device that monitors the wifi on any device she has at home…as far as out of the home, we keep our fingers crossed but the phone she takes when she is not with us is totally internet disabled.
Out son is 14 and we found two accounts that he denied having. Trying to figure out how to have the conversation with him. How did you approach it with your daughter?
Great post! We as parents can never be too careful to protect our children from others and themselves. I had not heard of the Finsta nor the sarahah. Thanks for sharing.
I don’t have any kids, but I have a pre-teen nephew who is a heavy Internet and YouTube user. I heard Finsta used somewhere before, but not sure why. Sarahah is a new one to me.
It’s too late for us. One of my daughters has a FINSTA account which I only discovered in looking through old phones to see if any worked. She hadn’t locked this phone, it powered on, and wham, there was a Finsta account in addition to the one we knew about that was squeaky clean. On her secret account I found photos that were suggestive, photos of her vaping, and of talking in sexually suggestive slang (teen slang). It was horrifying. This account existed for 2 years and we never knew. Unfortunately DD is now 18 and at college, so the conversation is a different one as we cannot control her phone behavior (as if we could before).
Parents, be very mindful of your kids’ phone usage. We instituted rules like, no using phones in the bedroom at night, but still, one of my kids managed to text friends when the parents were sleeping.
It’s a scary world online, the best parents can do is have conversations early. It’s impossible to monitor teens 24/7 and helicoptering around social media usage is going to cause resentment. Hard issue to deal with.
This is a great article highlighting the need for vigilance in monitoring our children’s digital lives. The constant emergence of new social apps like omegle makes it challenging, but as parents, we must stay informed and proactive to ensure their safety online. Maintaining open communication is key.