Social Media

I just saw a report on tv about how social media affects teenagers with it's sexual/promiscuous content. The report was saying that little is known about the effects this will have on current teens/preteens because this is the first generation with so much access to social media sites such as Facebook and instagram. It highlighted you tube videos that were sexual in content and showed young girls singing along to songs that were in no way appropriate for them to hear, let alone sing. This got me thinking about my daughters and their use of the computer/ipad/ipod etc and what we, as parents, should be doing to ensure that they are not viewing inappropriate content. My youngest daughter (8) has an ipod touch and has use of my ipad. She is prohibited from going on youtube unless we approve of the video first. She does not have a Facebook or instagram account (although I do know some of her friends have had them for years). We monitor what she sees on the web and she is only allowed to access the web in common areas of our house, never alone behind a closed door. However, despite our efforts to keep her pure, we can not keep her from hearing things from other kids, from songs played on the radio or in stores, and from hearing adults/older kids out in public. So, she does say or do inappropriate things from time to time and it is our job to explain to her the wrong of it. My mother likes to blame me and my parenting for anything the children do wrong (in her eyes). She will say, "what are you teaching her?" or "are you monitoring what she sees on tv and the computer?" "Where is she coming up with this stuff, she didn't just make it up." I try to explain that there is no way, aside from moving to a remote area of the country and living as the pioneers did, that we could possibly monitor her 24/7 and that she hears things just walking through the mall. We, as parents, know that no matter how hard we try, there are outside influences on our kids that we could never eliminate completely. We all have differing parenting styles and what we may view as inappropriate, others view as ok. But, it is important that we do our best to limit our children's exposure to what we feel is not appropriate for a child of their age, as much as we can, and take the time to talk to our kids about the things we were unable to filter. There are a lot of ways that children nowadays are influenced- much more than we ever experienced- and it is exhausting to try to keep up with the newest technologies, but that is our job and we should try our best to raise moral human beings. I didn't realize that I had so much to say about this subject, but as I started typing, it just came out. I will use another post to delve into how social media affects my older child in a later post, so as not to overwhelm you.