It’s the moments many parents fear – the time when you need to negotiate with your tween about getting a phone, connecting to a social media site, monitoring the site and everything else in between. When this first starts, there’s often a great deal of nagging, complaining, coercion, pleading, fury, stamping, stomping, slamming (and every other ‘S’ word you can think of), listening to well-thought through arguments, tolerating screaming ‘everyone has one!!’ at you. There is nothing pleasant about watching the ‘need’ emerge in your much loved child.
You are trying to protect them, weighing up in your head if they are ready for it. The question is usually ‘am I ready for it?’ that is actually more relevant. I wonder if the answer is ever yes as the parent. I can see already there’s a disconnect in her social events – kids coming to parties with their devices and dis-connecting with each other. The activities are documented, curated into Tik-Tok-ability (this is my phrase) and then assessed through the eyes of the waiting, watching throng of other children.
We look for steps to climb, rather than buying into the device drama. How about an apple watch? What’s family sharing mean? Actually, lets just go camping somewhere without service. It would be fun. That’s enough! I can already hear the back-and-forth frustration emerging on both sides of this debate in our house. I heard about a positive reinforcement strategy of $1600 at 16 years (for not having social media until this time). I tried this – too far away to be an effective consideration for my budding teen.
Top tips:
- Educate yourself as much as possible about the options and how to support your tween with what you both agree to trail.
- Put in place tech-free hours of the day which are agreed, non-negotiable and consider applying this to your own usage to model the behaviour you want to see. It’s harder to do than you think.
- Get on the same page as adults in the network around your child – have conversations with their carers and ensure you’re backing each other up. It’s harder to exploit a crack in a brick wall.
Parenting and paper cuts. 