Five Things Parents Should Never Do On Facebook

Like discussing the birds and the bees or explaining the infield fly rule, having the ‘Facebook Talk’ is now one of parenting’s essential rites of passage. Your kids need to know the rules of the social media road and, more importantly, you need to know the rules – what you are and aren’t allowed to do in front of their 900 million closest friends. These rules will vary depending on your kids’ ages and personalities, so you’ll probably need to have this talk at least once a year. But here are five things you definitely should not do.

1) Forbid Your Kids From Joining Facebook
Maybe you think Facebook is a bad idea, and maybe your progeny are among the 0.3% who actually do what their parents tell them. But if your kids want to be on Facebook, they’re going to be on Facebook – if not from home then from their phones, their friend’s computers, PCs at the school or library, and so on. It’s just too easy to do and too hard to police. It’s much better if they do it on your watch.

2) Embarrass Your Kids
Embarrassing your kids in public is one of the great perks of parenting. But do it on Facebook and they will defriend you faster than you can say “Mark Zuckerberg is a knob.” For example, your kids first joined Facebook (like many kids, well before before the official minimum age of 13) they may constantly send you  game invites. Now that they are teenagers, they really rather pretend you don’t exist. God help you if you post anything to their Wall or comment on anything they post. In short: you can lurk, but you can’t Like.

3) Make Their Friends Your Friends
You want to be friends with your kids on Facebook, if for no other reason than to keep an eye on them. But sending friend requests to your children’s friends, regardless of your motives, is just creepy. If they reach out and friend you, though, it’s OK to say yes. Just don’t start posting stuff on their Walls.

4) Bring The Hammer Down
Admonishing your kids on Facebook is a really bad idea. You may scold your kids when they post nasty status updates which you may have heard from someone. It took years before they are willing to re-friend you after that. What you should have done was talk to them offline and convince them to tone it down – or at least make it clear what they were quoting.

5) Forget That Facebook is a Gateway Drug
Managing your kids on Facebook is relatively easy. They can’t really post nasty photos or get too out of hand without someone noticing. It’s a good place for you to teach appropriate online behavior and for them to practice it. The rest of the Internet though, not so much. Once they graduate to Tumblr, where there are no restrictions on content and no one but their friends and stalkers are watching, all bets are off. So get to them now, while they’re still young and relatively impressionable.



Pingates Ping Blog www.HyperSmash.com