Being a parent in this age of social media expansion can be overwhelming and worrisome. Monitoring your children’s social media accounts may seem easy at first, but then you come to realize they are engaging on websites and apps you didn’t even know existed! Kids In The House is ready to arm you with the knowledge to make sure your kids are safe online. This week our experts will share with you their knowledge to help you better understand the workings of social media sites such as SnapChat and Ask.fm.

SnapChat is a mobile app that allows you to take a picture and send it to another cell phone. The other person receiving the photo will only be able to view the photo for 1-10 seconds (however long you decide). This leads to many teenagers sending inappropriate or embarrassing photos to their friends because they think they can only be viewed that one time. However, like everything else on the Internet, nothing is gone forever. Technology expert Lori Getz explains how the SnapChat privacy policy allows SnapChat to keep the photos on their server for an undetermined amount of time. The person receiving the photo also has the ability to screenshot the photo before it disappears. Educating your teenager about these consequences will help them be more cautious about how they are using SnapChat.

Ask.fm can also become a dangerous environment for teenagers to be interacting on with other people.  Ask.fm is a website where people can ask and answer questions anonymously. Unfortunately, it has developed as a hostile environment where a lot of cyberbullying occurs. Parent Tina Meier explains how anonymity on the Internet leads to more negative and damaging comments being made between teenagers. Meier’s daughter took her own life after being cyberbullied by a friend who had created a fake profile online. Understanding the repercussions of what we say is an important lesson for teenagers to learn both in life and online.

There are many other important things for parents to do to keep their kids safe online. Author Rachel Simmons encourages parents to monitor whether or not their teenagers are becoming addicted to “likes.” Many teenagers spend their time checking their social media in order to seek approval through these channels.  “The more a girl is desperate to be online, the more she needs a parent to step in and regulate her access,” explains Simmons. Technology expert Theresa Payton also encourages parents to use all of the security and privacy settings on Internet browsers and social media sites in order to keep your kids safe. You can also monitor what your child is looking at by checking the browser history and the cookies. Many free resources online can help you learn how to best use these tools to keep your kids safe online!

Do you want to learn more about these social media sites and how to create good security settings? Join Kids In The House on Tuesday, December 9th at 1:30pm PST as we host a Google Hangout, “Secrets of SnapChat Revealed: What Every Parent Needs to Know.” We will be joined for a live Q&A discussion with Lori Getz and Theresa Payton!