HELLOOOOO! Ok so, I have a million things to talk about but none of them warrant their own post, so this is a post, Dump Salad style. (You know Dump Salad yes? When you throw all the leftover veggies in your fridge into one bowl and have a salad about it?)
I finally have an air date for season 2 of Fearless DIY!! Mark your calendars for May 14th!! We shot it Aug/Sept of last year and I have been sitting on the most amazing projects that I am DYING to share!! There might be a tutorial for the headboard that you see in all of Brem’s instagram pictures…
Also you know these shelves?
Wink wink.
Oh, and you know the light in The Nugget? Imagine how great a monstrous version would be…
Clearly vague enough? Good.
I have a tutorial coming tomorrow for a table that I built in literally 15 minutes. My friend Ben Uyueda has a Kickstarter going with THE MOST MIND BLOWING brackets that you’ve ever seen. It ends in 2 days so you should check it out now, and then be even more inspired tomorrow when I show you what I did with the UX4.
Have you been following Gwen’s kitchen reno? You guys. Who knew that sage green could look so smokin? Seriously, pop over and check it out!
Lets all move to Chicago and go thrifting with Kim. Seriously.
What are the rules in your house about your kids having social media? Iv is 12 and is DYING for an instagram. The problem that I have with it is more than her posting “bad” pictures, or creepers following her. I don’t want her to base her self-worth on how many likes and followers she has. As a grown woman who does this for my business it can be hard to not get wrapped up in all of it, I cant imagine trying to navigate the waters as a 12 yr old. But I also want her to flex her creative muscles and see what she sees in her life that maybe I’ve missed. I’d love your thoughts!
Last and most importantly, I finally get it. I get how much work it is to have a baby and do projects. Its like right when I get in my groove and making a little bit of progress the dude that stole my heart wakes up, or needs to eat, or just wants to be held. Man its good that he is so perfect.
My sister has a 12 and 14 year old.(going on 13/15). She let them have instagram, but she has to know who every single one of their friends are on Instagram. Plus it needs to be set to private, and you should be able to check in on it. Be wary of the private direct messages, kids can be mean in those messages. but otherwise, it’s been fine.
Amen on the social media! I was a 90s baby so I luckily didn’t grow up with Facebook and Instagram all over the place (heck- texting wasn’t even a thing until I was in middle school) so I feel like it’s a smart idea to wait until she can understand her self worth outside of how many ‘likes’ she gets on a picture or how many followers she has. I think you’re really smart for thinking of the harm that social media can cause outside of the obvious things. P.S. I’m so excited for season 2!!
I feel your pain. Social media can be great but then it can be a disaster. I guess you just need to educate kids to not worry about the number of likes and that it’s superficial. Difficult I guess but then if you won’t allow it they will do it anyway. Keep us posted on your next blog post as to what you decided. Luckily my daughter is some years away from the perils of social media. Have a great week. Adelyn xx
I love Instagram – I have found so many creative people around the world to follow! It’s by far my favorite!
Bottom line is do what is comfortable for you, set guidelines, you know your child better than any of us.
My son grew up with a computer in the house he could use any time. It wasn’t a forbidden fruit to sneak when our backs where turned. I lectured the best I could, hopefully without sounding like a nagging mom, of all the internet dangers. I’d like to think he listened 🙂 And I’d like to think I would have handled it the same if I had a daughter instead of a son. And I guess I’m showing my age – I’ve never even looked at how many likes any of my posts have gotten ;-} And, at my age I’m sure the only followers I have are family and a few close friends, I haven’t checked that out either.
Super excited for May 14th! I’ve been eyeing that headboard! You’re doing great – by the way. I know what is it like trying to keep up with work, family, life and breathing time with a new baby. Glad that he and your family are the priority! – After all – that is what matters. Love your fearless style!
He is the CUTEST baby! I mean my babies are the cutest, obvs ( what momma can’t say that?) but oh my goodness he is toooooo precious!
I might be the ‘strictest-mom-of-the-social media/technology-world- and that is a-ok. Our oldest are (nearly) 14yr old twin boys so Instragram isn’t what they’re dying for but their own Facebook? X-box? An I-anything? Yeah. I value Social Media & technology greatly, and I know they can’t be shielded from all evil, but by dang, I’ll do my best in our home–the ‘safe’ place. Some things just cannot be undone and honestly, too much technology simply sucks away my childrens’ brains. Not a good trade in my opinion. I’m not naive enough to believe my boys tell me everything, but I hold it sacred every time they come clean on something–and they have, several times. We work hard to ensure that the message that gets through is: there is a solid reason behind what we do/don’t do (not just ‘cuz I said so) & if you mess up, come tell us because we all mess up–we’ll work through it & we love you way more than any rule broken. We discuss the ‘why not’ a lot in our home and if something is a big enough deal to them, we find a a win-win. So in your case, what about an Instagram account/Instagram time with you? And being that you know the pitfalls, have a proactive mini council with her where you ask her opinion about a lot of the things you’re concerned about. You’ll find out so much that way. Then, have her make the plan of usage/time/what happens if she doesn’t do what she agreed to do, etc. & she’s a billion times more likely to follow through with it because it was her idea. Also, we have to walk the walk ourselves. That means time limits/saying no to certain things for grown ups too! Good luck to you, we all know there is no ‘one’ answer for all children, but just some niblets to gnaw on 🙂
please be so careful. i am/was one of those laid back and naive parents and my 13 year old daughter got obsessed with IG, and number of likes, based her self-esteem on them, made a secret profile, found porn, got addicted, acted out sexually, and basically got taken out of our home. not trying to alarm you or make you feel bad for me. just warning you! we are a “nice mormon family” and it CAN happen to anyone. Things are turning around and there are happy endings and hard lessons learned.
You can set her Instagram account to private. No one can see it but the friends she approves. My account is set to private. The only people I want to see my kids are my friends and family. 🙂
You got my attention! Cant wait for the airing of all those goodies. About your 12 year old, I get it! My youngest is 13 and its hard. She however shares everything with me, and its brought us closer. Shes also landed a spot on a collaborative YouTube channel, known as the SAKS, where they make themed skits every week. Check it out and share with her.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZXp-Xld_7Rx8Uvh_cVdCXgMVFDzYyMA4
Very age appropriate 🙂
<3 Ingrid
Beautiful photos
In our house, we believe that if you want to use a type of social media, you should be following their guidelines. Most of them, including Instagram, have a minimum age of 13. If you are under that, you will have to lie when entering your birthdate, which, obviously we don’t condone lying. So, in our house, it’s not even an option before 13. After that, we have several conversations about safety, what to do and what NOT to do that are frequently revisited.
I have a very strong opinion about Instagram and kids, so excuse if I hop on my soapbox for a second. First of all, you might not have known this but as a previous commenter mentioned, in order to get on IG before 13, you have to lie about your age, and I ain’t cool with that! Strangely, I have many friends who I would think would NOT be cool with that either, but instead choose to help their kids lie and start an account for them as early as age 7! It’s just ridiculous in my opinion. Secondly, even if your account is private, there are NO filters on IG, so you can go into the search section and see absolutely ANYTHING. There is some nasty stuff on there. Also, the point you mentioned about gaining your self-esteem from likes and comments is a very real thing. I have a 16 year old niece who was telling me that if you don’t get enough likes on a post in the first hour, you have to take the post down because it’s just too embarrassing to have it up with so few likes. How sad is that? Another reason against it is the time suck and limiting face to face interactions. My 10 year old was at a birthday party the other day and about 8 girls her age were all watching a movie. Every girl except for my daughter and the birthday girl were being so rude and not even paying attention to the movie because they were all staring at their phones (why 10 year olds need phones, i do NOT know) and the girl who was throwing the party had her feelings hurt. My daughter came home and told me about it and felt so bad for her friend. This stuff doesn’t need to happen!
My oldest daughter is almost 13 and she won’t be getting an Instagram or Facebook account. We have talked about the many reasons why she doesn’t need it and she totally gets it. I show her pictures on my IG account of friends and family that she knows and she’s totally fine with that. I just think it’s so important to keep having those conversations with our kids about why we make the decisions that we do. Good luck. Stepping off my soapbox now.
I am an IT specialist for a school, and after the things I’ve seen kids do, I would never let my child have any type of social media account until their later years of high school at the earliest (if then.) I’m grateful my child grew up before every kid had an iPhone and had to deal with the influence of Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and others. These are not places designed to be safe for kids. There is bullying and harassment and exposure to people who post explicit photos. Children are still developing thinking ability throughout their teenage years and do not have the maturity to handle the situations that arise through these online interactions. Kids simply do not need to interact with their peers 24/7/365. It’s too much constant pressure. They need a break from it.
If you decide not to let her have an Instagram, you’re going to need to have a serious conversation with her about why you don’t think it’s a good idea for now. Just saying no won’t prevent her from doing it. Kids find all kinds of ways to create social media accounts and keep them hidden from their parents so you really need her to buy into whatever plan you decide on whether it’s no social media at all or a supervised account. I really feel for people raising children today! It was so much easier to know what was going on with your kids when the worst we had to deal with was cell phones. We got our son a cell phone when he was a teen, and we didn’t have texting on our plan so we only had to worry about who he was calling. It wasn’t that long ago, but those are already “the good old days”!
You’re so sweet to share! Excited to see your next season and I’m totally not ready for my kids to be begging for social media! The thing about Instagram is it can be so amazing but all a kid has to do is search one wrong hashtag and it’s crazy inappropriate. I’ll never forget the first time I hashtagged snapchat and clicked on it just to see other tags and was mortified at the amount of nakedness I saw. Even with privacy settings, there’s no way of avoiding that kind of thing. Maybe within parameters it could work, but it’s just such a tough call. Good luck with it all!
Some good advice in the comments about kids and Instagram! My kids (14.15) are so deprived so as to not even have a phone, and are somewhat okay with that. But my niece is crazy about her phone and her Instagram account. I noticed once that she was following THOUSANDS of accounts and some of those accounts were terrible . It was all about self hate, self harm and suicide and if definitely affected my niece. So just remember, it’s not just who they’re friends with, but what accounts they are following, because that is a direct effect on what they are, or think they should be thinking about. Monitor closely and it’ll be fine!