Why Insta star Hayley Berlingeri won’t let her kids use social media until they are at least 16
Influencer Hayley Berlingeri makes her living from social media, but has also experienced the dark side – prompting her to ban her four children from having their own accounts.
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Adelaide mummy blogger Hayley Berlingeri is among the growing list of celebrities who want to raise the age for social media use to 16 years.
Currently, it’s 13 years, and names like Whyalla-born Sunrise star Edwina Bartholomew, who has more than 225,000 followers on Instagram, and supermodel Megan Gale, with 455,000-plus Insta fans, have joined the @36months.com.au movement and signed its petition.
They’re concerned about the impact social media is having on children, and mother-of-four Hayley agrees.
On the books at Charlotte Marks MGMT, she has close to 130,000 Insta followers and is making a career out of being a content creator.
Her young family often feature in her happy snaps shared on Insta but she is concerned about the impact of social media on young people and together with News Corp Australia, is calling on the federal government to raise the age limit at which children can access social media to 16 as part of a national campaign, Let Them Be Kids, to stop the scourge of social media.
Let Them Be Kids: SIGN THE PETITION
Hayley says she and her husband Paulo have already decided their kids – Valentina, 10, Romeo, eight, Sonny, six, and two-year-old Giulietta – will not be using social media before they turn 16.
“Even later if I can hold strong,” Hayley tells us, adding:
“When our children are 16, and if they’re responsible, we’ll consider allowing them to sign up to socials, but there will be rules in place,
“Every account will be monitored, and if the rules are broken, the device goes,
“We have this in place already with their iPads, so we’ll just carry that same rule across once they get phones and socials.”
Hayley’s strong views on kids using social media come almost a decade after she took a break from it when her previous account @sweetlittlestory was hijacked by a malicious hacker, claiming links to ISIS.
“(In 2015) my previous Instagram account was hacked at almost 300k followers, and the hacker tried to extort me for a large sum of money, and when I refused, then threatened to kidnap (my daughter) Valentina,” she says.
“It was so difficult to get help from Instagram, so my friend printed an article about the situation in a local newspaper which was then seen by Sonya Ryan, whose own daughter (Carly) was groomed online and then sadly murdered.”
The federal police contacted Hayley. They were alerted to her case by Sonya, who is the founder and CEO of The Carly Ryan Foundation, a not for-profit organisation dedicated to protecting children and specialising in online safety education.
“(The federal police) contacted Instagram, who then gave me my account back,” Hayley says, adding: “The police also traced the hacker to an overseas address and assured me there was no threat whatsoever, rather just some low life trying to scam money from me.”
Hayley made the decision to close the account, but two years later she decide to give Instagram another go.
“When I started a new account with a new name (@hayleyberlingeri), many of my original followers found me again … and since then I’ve very rarely had any form of negativity in this space,” she says.
“Maybe once a month I’ll get the odd person having a go when they don’t agree with something I’ve shared or said, but it’s never trolling and it’s generally quite polite,
“I think I’ve built a community of like minded women who know what I’m about … everyone is always so supportive.”
Like Edwina and Megan, Hayley strongly believes children shouldn’t have social media accounts.
Asked if her success on social media – and the perks that come with that – has piqued her children’s interest in social media, Hayley is frank.
“To be honest, I’ve actually never told the kids about the ‘perks’ that I receive as an influencer,’ she says.
“They definitely benefit from the perks, but as far as they know, I’m just working with the brand and filming content for them, and it’s my job. So I don’t really think they’d connect the two.”
That said, tween Valentina has been asking when she can have access to her own phone and social media like some of her friends.
Obviously, that’s all on hold until she’s at least 16, but in the meantime Hayley and Paulo encouraged her to sit down with them to watch a recent episode of 60 Minutes discussing whether Australian should ban kids from using social media.
“It was a real eye opener for her,” Hayley says, adding: “I think it really showed her the truth about the risks of young people having access to social media, and she could see that it wasn’t just Mum being strict and saying no, but it was a real issue that can have devastating effects.”
Hayley said while the couple hasn’t told Valentina about the kidnapping threat made by the hacker close to a decade ago, the show sparked an important discussion about safety.
“We had a long chat about it afterwards too, and talked about the grooming that can occur via socials and just how easy it is for strangers to gain access to children online, and what can happen as a result,” Hayley says.
“It was actually heartbreaking to have to teach her about these things, but in reality, in this day and age, as parents, we have to, to be able to protect our children, and equip them to keep themselves safe too.”
Hayley is also speaking about children’s use of phones and social media because she understands it is “such a tricky thing to navigate” for parents.
“We didn’t grow up in this digital age,” she says. “We haven’t known about the risks until we’ve lived through the consequences.
“It’s all new to us and we’re all learning how to handle this phase, and trying to do our best.”
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Originally published as Why Insta star Hayley Berlingeri won’t let her kids use social media until they are at least 16
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