“Your kids are living in a world that you are not invited to be part of. And they know how to keep you out.”

That’s the stark warning one teacher has issued to parents about their teens’ use of social media, urging them to “wake up”.

Skipper Coates, from Pleasant Grove, Utah, asked her 14 and 15-year-old ninth graders to finish the sentence: “What my parents don’t know about social media is…”

And their candid responses broke her heart.

“You guys,” she wrote in a post to Facebook. “The answers were SICKENING. Heartbreaking. Depressing.”

Among the confessions shared by Ms Coates’ three classes were revelations that social media is keeping students awake, that they have multiple, secret accounts, that they are sending and receiving nude photos, are subjected to bullying – and often adopt a different online persona.

Only five of the children didn’t have social media accounts.

“I swear so much and talk sh*t on everyone,” one student wrote. ” I get nudes from boys I don’t even know.”

– Ariane Beeston

Read more: Teacher’s Warning to Parents
Image by Morgan Basham from Unsplash