Yesterday, I had a conversation with my college friends about how lucky we were that we went through those formative adulthood years without social media. We remembered drunken nights, which if they had ended up on Facebook or Instagram, we’d never hear the end of it. Our childhood was even more idyllic–our only virtual entertainment was Cartoon Network and a game of Minesweeper on the computer.
But, this new generation is being born into a tech-driven world. From the day they come out of their mother’s womb crying, it’s all captured in real time. How many times have we moaned about social media making us feel pressured because all we see are pictures of our pals getting married and having kids? As I get older, I see friends and acquaintances posting pictures straight from the hospital with a caption like, “We welcomed a baby girl into the world today. Both mum and daughter are doing great.”
While we do enjoy sharing in the joy of your parenthood and we will definitely congratulate you on the newest member of the family, sharing too much about your kids might just be a big no no.
Watch what you post
Predators lurk all over the internet. But, your concern for them should not only start when your child is old enough to own a phone. It should start from day one. Some predators are known for stalking a parent’s social media account in order to get to the child.
So, the first thing you should remember is, do NOT tag locations when you are with your child. Tagging a school, a dance class, or a swimming lesson may seem harmless–after all, most parents are proud of their children’s achievements–but it can prove to be dangerous. Predators will take note of where you are and then see patterns. They will know that dance class is at 5 pm every Tuesday or that swimming lessons are at the community centre at 4 pm on Thursdays.
One day, they might wait outside and tell your child that you sent them to pick them up. Not all children will be wary of strangers (no matter how much we tell them to be).
Keep personal drama out of social media
If you post about having a fight with your husband or about being sad, chances are a predator might be lurking somewhere waiting to take advantage of this information.
A household that has strife will have vulnerable children. The 2018 movie Searching shows the perils of oversharing on social media platforms. The protagonist’s teenage daughter goes missing one night and it becomes national news. Her father breaks into her social media accounts and manages to figure out that his daughter did many solo trips to a lake at the outskirts of town. He also belatedly found out that she had been sharing how difficult her life has been ever since her mother’s death from cancer.
Sure enough, a stalker tracked her social media and tricked her into meeting him by claiming to be a girl whose mother was dying of cancer. The missing girl, from the goodness of her heart, saved up money in order to help pay hospital bills. The stalker ended up pushing her into a ravine after pushing her car into the lake she frequently visited.
All this, just from interacting with the girl on her social media.
So, as much as we like to share our children’s achievements and believe in giving them the space to be themselves on their social media, it is important to remember that our kids are still children at the end of it all. Like we did stupid shit as youngsters, they’re bound to do it too. But, this time, it can possibly be tracked and used against them.
