Why Should You Think Twice Before Following Your Teen on Social Media?

Following your child’s social media accounts has downsides. What are they?

Parents worry when their children want to open social media accounts. Why wouldn’t you? There are plenty of horror stories out there about how these apps affect some children’s physical safety and mental health.

Some parents set controls on app usage. It’s also pretty common for parents to only allow their kids to open accounts if they agree to allow a parent to follow or friend them. While this might work at the start with younger teenagers, I’m not sure it is the best long-term solution.

And good luck getting this to work with older teenagers. In my experience, it causes more problems than it solves.

What are the downsides of following your child’s social media accounts?

You erode trust

Your child might see your demand to follow/friend them as a sign that you don’t trust them. You can tell them till the cows come home that it is the apps — and the people who use them — that you don’t trust.

This won’t make a difference.

Your teenager might get this on a level. But, most of their brain will focus on the fact that you don’t trust them to take care of themselves.

To be honest, this is basically true. Your child might not be able to find matching socks in the morning, never mind negotiate the hidden dangers of social media apps. You know that they are more likely to run into problems than not.

However, a perceived lack of trust is like a red rag to a bull for many teenagers. Their hormones are all over the place, and at this stage of their development, they react more emotionally than rationally.

They also think that they are invincible. They overestimate their abilities to cope with new and difficult situations without any help. They certainly don’t want your help or oversight.

So, your relationship with your child could suffer. Your perceived lack of trust could be a constant simmering — and sometimes boiling over — source of resentment.

You become an embarrassment

Some parents sit on their children’s social media accounts without actively interacting. They simply keep an eye on the account.

This approach can work well as long as your child doesn’t mind you being there. Be aware that some will find your very presence irritating and embarrassing. Like they do in real life, you know.

They think you are treating them like a child. They worry that their friends will see you there and poke fun at them.

If you interact at all, then things can really blow up. You embarrass your teenager in front of their friends.

No teenager wants to open themselves up to this kind of social scrutiny. They are testing their way in their social world right now. If you join this world, then you inhibit them and their friends. You open them up to teasing and goading.

I know one parent who really engaged with her child’s social media accounts. She commented on everything, used pet names, and used so many heart emojis I’m surprised there wasn’t a global shortage.

She then started to use accounts to get messages to her child. She’d ask where he was, when he was coming home, and why he hadn’t tidied his room. She’d tell him off if she thought he had said or posted something inappropriate.

He was mortified. His friends teased him every time she commented. Some stopped interacting with him because they didn’t want his Mum to tell their parents about their posts and comments.

It’s perfectly normal for teenagers to be occasionally embarrassed by their parents. That’s what we’re there for. You just don’t want to make this a permanent state that could affect the health and depth of your relationship.

You affect your child’s development

We all learn from experience. Problem is, if you take too much control of your child’s experiences during their teenage years, they don’t learn as much.

Making mistakes and working out how to negotiate your way through problems is often more effective than having a smooth ride through life. It helps prepare teenagers for adulthood.

At its worst, this can turn into a type of helicopter parenting. A parent who has complete control over a child’s social media accounts and who directs the way they can interact online, either by being present as a failsafe or by directly intervening, doesn’t necessarily do their child any favours.

They could make them anxious, depressed, and less able to cope independently in later life.

Students who reported having over-controlling parents experienced significantly higher levels of anxiety and depression and less satisfaction with life. Moreover, the students felt that these effects of helicopter parenting were due to the violation of their basic psychological needs for autonomy and competence.

Journal of Child and Family Studies via APA PsychNet

You fail

Some parents think that they nail this whole social media minefield by being part of their children’s accounts. They relax.

After all, if you can monitor an account and see what your child is saying and doing, then you have achieved your aim. You keep them safe.

Unfortunately, you don’t have any guarantees that this approach works.

Your sweet butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-their-mouth teenage baby can bypass your controls. If they don’t agree with what you do, or if you won’t change your controls to give them more freedom, then they will find ways to get around your boundaries and your presence on their accounts.

For example, they might filter their posts to block you from getting all of them. You get the bland, sweet stuff that puts your mind at rest. They hide others from you and only share them with their friends.

Or, they might open a second account and hide that from you. They post on the account you know about periodically. They keep things safe for family there and then get real on their second account.

This is quite common on sites like Instagram. A teenager might have an identifiable account and a hidden private one. They won’t use an identifiable name on this hidden account, so you can’t find it in a search.

This catches out a lot of parents. The Mum of one of my son’s school friends had concerns about her daughter. She was a bit of a wild child, so my friend insisted that she follow her on Instagram before she allowed her to open an account. She relaxed because her daughter didn’t seem to do anything bad on the account.

I mentioned this to my son and told him my friend thought her daughter had calmed down. He snorted, laughed like a drain, and told me I should see what she put on her second account.

The point here is that teenagers want to control their freedoms. They won’t always get things right, but most will resent you for taking too much control away from them.

If you push them too hard, then you drive them to be deceptive. If they have problems with social media in the future, then they also might not want to bring them to you because they’ll then have to admit that they lied.

So, what should you do? I only wish I could give you a definitive answer. There isn’t one. Each family has to decide the best way to handle their child’s use of social media.

In some cases, this might involve being on your child’s accounts. However, you shouldn’t discount other solutions. You can work with your child to set privacy and access controls on their accounts. You can set limits on their apps, phones, or your home Wi-Fi to control their time online.

I do think it is important to discuss social media apps with your child before they start using them. Talk to them about the pitfalls and problems they might come across. Tell them that you worry that they might fall foul of other people’s actions.

Your child might not want to listen right now, but if you put this information in their head, then they are more likely to recall it later if they have a problem. It could just help them make better decisions and encourage them to come to you if they ever do need help.

Source:

APA PsychNet: Helping or hovering? The effects of helicopter parenting on college students’ well-being.