Conversations For Well Intentioned Parents
Ready to learn about essential conversations you need to have with your daughter today? Great! Read on!
Parents have the best of intentions when it comes to their daughters. They want their girls to feel connected to others and enjoy life. At some point, this is when a cell phone enters the picture. For many parents, getting a phone or device is a very thought out decision. For other parents, getting a phone or device doesn’t feel like a big deal. These parents feel they have a great kid who is going to make great decisions. While this may be true, when it comes to having an online life, your daughter is interacting with others. She is not alone, and that’s where things can get tricky.
Giving your daughter a cell phone or device can seem simple at first but easily morphs into parents feeling overwhelmed. There are so many apps, passwords, channels, social media, and games marketed to kids. I find well intentioned parents will take a stance like, “No social media until you are 14.” This is a great boundary to have for some families. However, there is so much out there under the umbrella of social media; it might blow you out of the water. And what you are trying to protect your girl from might just be a few clicks away on other sites.
Surprising Online Dangers For Your Daughter
Take Pinterest for example. This is an amazing platform to learn new craft ideas and get inspirations for decorating. However, what many parents don’t know is girls can enter into spaces from this site extending way beyond crafts and ideas. Porn, strangers trying to connect with your daughter, and mean girl stuff can happen on this platform too.
Pinterest isn’t just the exception here. Kid friendly games like Roblox are filled with inappropriate talk, humor, and creepy people trying to “friend” kids. Parents are floored when they see what their kids are being exposed to in what seems like an innocent platform for kids.
I follow a few platforms on kids and technology to help me stay abreast of what parents are facing in the online world. What has become clear to me is there isn’t one way to keep your kid safe online. Yes, there are many parenting apps and programs to help protect your kids. However, nothing is flawless. There are countless posts of kids working around parental controls, creating new accounts, and even unintentionally accessing things parents blocked in one app being ok in another.
While parental controls can be helpful, I think the biggest form of help we can give our daughters is to have ongoing conversations about what is happening and could happen in their online space and life. Our girls start out initially innocent. They don’t have any idea what is lurking behind the screen. They are exposed to humor, language, pictures, and ideas they have never encountered anywhere else in their lives. Unfortunately, daughters get desensitized to what people say and do. Yes, this is part of growing up, but it is essential for us to prepare them for what can happen. Parents need to help their daughters learn to make good decisions.
Conversations You Need To Have Today
Daughters need to know many things when it comes to having an online life. A few conversations you need to have with your daughter today are around basic etiquette. She needs to learn how to have balance and boundaries with her device. Your daughter needs to know how to handle when someone online says they want to kill themselves. She needs to know what to do when someone is creeping her out, asking her for pictures, or is sending her a friend request. She needs to understand not everyone online is who they say they are.
Other conversations you need to have with your daughter today include teaching your girl how to be assertive and disengage when her online life isn’t bringing her joy. She needs to know she will be influenced to think certain ways and is being sold a whole market of products and services set out to “fix” her. Your daughter needs to understand she isn’t meant to look like everyone else, and she might get wrapped up in comparing herself. Your daughter needs to be empowered to click off her device whenever she needs to. It’s also beneficial for her to know taking digital breaks is a priority for her mental and physical health.
Join Us For Our Upcoming Parent Workshop Series
Wise Girl Workshops tackles all of these subjects and more in our upcoming Workshop Series “5 Essential Conversations for Parents of Girls in the Social Media Age.” These workshops start Thursday April 8 from 6-7PM PDT and continues for 5 consecutive Thursdays. You will have access to the recordings for a limited time if you cannot make the live event. Please join us! You can register here.
