Tinder and Facebook pose new pitfalls for parents of social-media savvy teens

Do you say yes to Facebook but no to Twitter? And what if your teen wants to open a Tinder account? JOHANNA LEGGATT talks social media parenting.

Debra Crivelli monitors her children's internet usage. She is pictures at home with daughter, Laura, 18 and son, Luca, 8.

WHEN Simon Pullan found out his 16-year-old son had opened an account on dating site Tinder he was a little bit concerned.

“I was less comfortable with that one than any of the other sites,” he admits.

“I sat James down and told him to be careful; that people aren’t always who they seem on those forums.”

The dating app involves inspecting reams of potential dates’ photos and swiping right on the picture of one you like (and if they swipe right on your image you have a match), but James assured his dad that his intention was not to hook up.

“He and his friends are all on it and they see it as a bit of fun to flirt and see who would be interested in them. He is not actually going on any dates,” Pullan says.

“I figured if I banned him from using it, then that would just drive him to use it in secret. I would be more worried if he were a girl.”

Pullan’s younger son, 14-year-old Sam, is also on social media (though not Tinder) and both brothers joined Facebook in their early teens.

“I’m not so worried about them being on social media because I feel like I understand it and the risks,” Glen Iris-based Pullan says.

“I am not big on social media myself but my major concern was to make sure that when my kids did go on social media that they befriended me so I knew what they were posting.”

When the children were first engaging in social media, Pullan — who raised the boys as a single dad before he met partner Clare two years ago — would make them leave their accounts open so he could take a look.

“My main concern was not that they would use bad language themselves, but they would be sharing something inappropriate and because they shared it, it was connected to them,” he says.

So far his approach seems to have worked and while there has been an occasion when someone sent a nasty comment to Sam online, it never escalated.

“It wasn’t bullying as such, but it wasn’t a very nice comment,” Pullan says. “I just teach them to block that person or unfriend them if that ever occurs.”

He ensures, too, that devices stay out of bedrooms at night, as teens will think nothing of getting on social media at 3am for a chat. And there are times when Pullan calls time-out on all the devices.

“QI (the TV show) will come on, which they enjoy, and I will make them log off and watch TV as a family,” he says.

“Then you hear them giggling and you realise they have picked up their phones and are back on Facebook messenger, and you have to make them put them down again.”

While Pullan is largely winning the battle over access to social media, many parents are drowning.

Sally Phillips* admits to being concerned about the way two of her children engage with others on social media. She has two daughters, 13 and 11, and a boy, 9, all of whom have Instagram and Snapchat accounts.

“My problem with my eldest daughter is that she has no awareness of who she is actually talking to,” Phillips says.

“There are people she is talking to on Instagram and I ask her, ‘Do you actually know who you are talking to?’ It could be a 40-year-old man posing as a 12-year-old girl.”

Her elder daughter has set up three Instagram accounts — her own, a fan-based one for an AFL player, and one for her dog that has more than 1000 followers.

“She gets quite competitive about it and will be concerned if one of her friends has more followers on Instagram than she does,” Phillips says.

Her greatest worry by far, however, is her son, who has been caught bullying other children on
social media.

“He will bully other children and has sent classmates nasty messages,” Phillips admits.

“I’m quite concerned he is the kind of kid who is going to be a troll.

“He is one of the cool kids at school and he has taken that power and turned it into being nasty.”

Debra Smith at home with daughter, Laura, 18 and son, Luca, 8.

Phillips says after she found out her son was bullying other children online, she removed his computer for two months, which seemed to rein in his behaviour.

“I’m just worried what he is going to be like when he is a surly teenager and he insults the wrong person and they come down on him like a tonne of bricks,” Phillips says. “People are not going to take it in high school.”

Future Proof Your Kids: Protecting Your Children in the Social Media Playground author Fiona Lucas says if parents want their children to behave online, they need to start looking at their own engagement with social media.

“Parents will see something on Facebook and they start commenting straight away: ‘You didn’t
tell me you were pregnant,’ that kind of thing,” Lucas, who also helps parents navigate social media with their children in her consultancy business iRespectOnline, says.

“Meanwhile, their child is being ignored.”

Of course, there is nothing wrong with parents engaging with social media, but they need to choose when that time is appropriate, Lucas maintains.

“There should be no technology at meal times, and if your child needs your attention, you should be putting the phone away and focusing on what they are saying,” she says.

“If you have not set up good behaviour by the time they get to their teens, then when they come to use social media and they are wanting to push boundaries there can be problems.”

Lucas doesn’t issue strict rules for the age that children should be allowed on to the various social media platforms, and says it depends on the age restrictions for account holders (on Facebook it is 13 in Australia), and how emotionally mature the child is.

“If a child does want an account and you think it is a bit young, ask them why they want it,” she says.

“If it is because everyone else has one and they are throwing a bit of a tantrum, then that is not a good reason.”

Lucas says parents have good reason to be wary: social media platforms are sometimes used by paedophile rings, they can be a source of bullying and harassment and many children can share too much information.

Then there is the issue of sexting — where teens send explicit images of themselves to each other — with many teens using Snapchat for this.

“Instead of flashing behind the sheds like teenagers used to, they send Snapchats of each other,” she says.

Lucas recommends parents download monitoring devices — such as Parent Kit — that allow them to see the kind of conversations their child is having on social media.

“A lot of parents are concerned about this, that they are violating their child’s privacy, but you should know what your 10-year-old is up to,” Lucas says.

But it’s not all dire news. Lucas sees some positives to the social media movement among young people, not least of which is the ability to “connect and explore in ways we have never done before”.

“Before, if kids wanted to learn about Africa they went to the encyclopaedia, but now they can go online and immerse themselves,” she says.

“Social media is also great for teens who feel a little bit different from others, they can find people who are like them and they realise they do fit in somewhere.

“Technology needs to be the tool to connect to others in life rather than the be-all and end-all of life. And childhood is a very free time, or at least it should be, but I feel like we have dropped the ball on this one.

“And as a parent myself, I think it is up to us. If we don’t look after our children, who will?”

Melbourne mother of three Debra Smith* wholeheartedly concurs.

Smith and her partner, Simon, allow their daughters, Laura, 16, and Gemma, 12, to use social media, but there are strong restrictions in place (their son Luca is eight and is not allowed to have an account).

“I have access to their accounts and I have their passwords so I can check on what they are posting,” Smith says.

“Our overriding philosophy is to make sure the people she has contact with have similar values to us.”

While Gemma confines her social media engagement to Snapchat and Instagram, Laura has accounts with Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Pinterest.

“We make the girls put their devices away when they are doing their homework,” Smith says. “Our approach is that we pay the bills and they need to do what we say until they are 18.”

Despite their strict approach, Laura was unwittingly pulled into controversy when she “liked” a Facebook page that was set up by a group of girls at school that turned into a forum for vitriol and nasty commentary on other students.

“Any of the students who had liked the page received a talking to by the school and it was a bit
of a wake-up call for her,” Smith says.

“But my main problem with social media is the huge distraction it creates in their lives. I would much prefer them to be reading a book.

“Like I say to Laura, if someone is on Facebook constantly saying how cool their life is, then they are not that cool.

“The really interesting people don’t need to get on Facebook and do that. They’re the ones you never hear from on social media.”

* Names have been changed

 

Radio personality Jane Hall. Picture: Nicole Cleary

KEEPING LIFE FACEBOOK-FREE

RADIO personality Jane Hall is living proof you don’t need a Facebook account or a strong social media presence to live a fulfilling life.

“I am not on Facebook, and have no interest in being on it, and I only maintain an Instagram account for work purposes,” Hall says.

But Lucia, her 12-year-old daughter with her ex-partner, actor Vince Colosimo, is part of a generation steeped in the world of “likes”, “shares” and “follows”.

For a long time, the KIIS 101.1 breakfast presenter resisted Lucia’s entreaties to let her open an Instagram account, but she recently relented.

“She basically waged a war for a good 12 months,” Hall says. “And very reluctantly I have let her open an Instagram account.”

But not without some strings attached.

Lucia is not allowed to access her account on weekdays and Hall has access to her password so she can keep an eye on posts and maintain the privacy settings.

Other social media sites of the moment — Kik, Facebook and Snapchat, for instance — are banned.

“I am worried not so much about how she would handle it, but more about how children can become victims of predators or even the cruelty of other children,” she says.

“I’m not worried about being too strict, I don’t think you can be too strict with your own children.”

Part of her resistance stems from her desire to protect her young daughter from the complications of the adult world.

“I think the world is so much trickier than when I was a child, and (social media) is a steep learning curve for me,” she says.

“It doesn’t help that for me personally, I am not savvy when it comes to social media, and I have very little interest in it.

“I have had to work pretty hard to overcome my own prejudices.

“And I understand the reality is different for this generation.”

Hall also thinks many parents have stopped being parents and are more focused on being seen as cool.

“Across the board, I think parents are losing their power,” she says. “We are more concerned about being friends with our children than their parents.

“My daughter doesn’t agree with some of the things I insist on, but in five short years she is going to be out in the world and my job is to prepare her for that.”

As Lucia gets older, Hall will reassess her opposition to the sites, acknowledging that it’s important to find a balance between protecting her child and giving her the opportunity to take part in a medium that is only going to grow.

“Like so many other parents, I’m just feeling my way,” she says.

“And I certainly don’t judge what other parents do, nor do I think you should be a tyrant about it. But it is my job to protect her.”

Originally published as Tinder and Facebook pose new pitfalls for parents of social-media savvy teens