Comments on: So Many Ramblings, We Have To Have A Post About It!

By: Jolene

Jolene — Sat, 16 Apr 2016 05:37:58 +0000

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!

By: Gwen, The Makerista

Gwen, The Makerista — Thu, 14 Apr 2016 15:01:04 +0000

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!

By: JoDi

JoDi — Thu, 14 Apr 2016 02:41:58 +0000

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”!

By: Meredith

Meredith — Thu, 14 Apr 2016 00:40:31 +0000

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.

By: Jane T

Jane T — Wed, 13 Apr 2016 17:14:42 +0000

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.

By: HayMama

HayMama — Wed, 13 Apr 2016 16:46:21 +0000

Beautiful photos

By: Ingrid

Ingrid — Wed, 13 Apr 2016 15:40:47 +0000

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

By: Sabrina

Sabrina — Wed, 13 Apr 2016 13:52:01 +0000

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. 🙂

By: Tristie Mangus

Tristie Mangus — Wed, 13 Apr 2016 03:21:32 +0000

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.

By: Jenna

Jenna — Wed, 13 Apr 2016 00:14:31 +0000

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 🙂