Every child is just one decision away from making a mistake. As parents, we hope to help them avoid these mistakes by teaching responsibility – but, errors in judgment are an important part of the learning process on the road to adulthood.
Unfortunately, the Internet introduces new challenges in parenting. Now, in the blink of an eye – with one silly post, or one tweet in anger and defiance, in an instant our children can lose control of a situation. Today, my teen posted something snarky on Facebook. Luckily, I happened to log on and see it, and had her take it down almost immediately. She was annoyed at another girl, and said something funny/mean. Aside from the bullying factor – there is the simple fact that once something is posted – it can immediately be “shared” by others, and with that any control over a post is lost. Arguments between two children quickly escalate into arguments between dozens…
It is now so easy for kids to take a situation out of control with social media at their fingertips, they can easily turn a small situation into a huge one with a simple comment on Facebook. There aren’t really ways you can monitor this constantly but I guess children need to make mistakes to learn from them and discussing the consequences with them will hopefully help them to make good choices in the future.