Snap chat and parenting

[Trigger Mike]

I'd like to hear how others deal with snap and their children.  My 17 year old is a senior and all messages from his class mates are only on snap,  including news about events, some school related, some party etc related.   

 

I noticed he had several on his listed people he followed are people he doesn't know.  Matter of fact he got a new girlfriend that he didn't want me to meet.  He decided not to go out to eat with her when I suggested we all would go so we could see her, so I found her on snap and she added me without questioning who was I.  It was then I realized why he hadn't wanted me to meet her .  

 

I was open about finding her so he had her delete me.  

 

My 13 year old has a snap account and I friended his main friends and when he doesn't answer his phone I snap his friend to tell him to come home or call me.  He uses snap on his mom's phone as he has a gabb phone which is a smart phone without apps or internet.   

 

How or do you police snap for your children?

[Cold Lake Kid, SASS # 51474]

I guess I'm Old Fashioned as well as a Worry Wart, but I would be a little concerned about a GF a 17 year old doesn't want you to meet.

My "kid" Big Red, is now 45 and I still worry.

[LawMan Mark, SASS #57095L]

If I had teen aged kids, and I was providing their phones, I'd block the app from their phones. Working around a college, I'm well aware that drug sales, porn and other unsavory practices are rampant over that app.  

 

Most carriers have child safety programs that can limit what the child can access, or what apps can be loaded on the phone.

[Trigger Mike]

I have the Verizon family plan so I blocked snap once he had his girlfriend take me off her snap.  He was spending over 3 hours a day(the Verizon plan tells me how long for each app) .   It bothers me though that information we need is shared on snap but no where else sometimes but that may be on purpose to keep us parents in the dark.

 

He did threaten to go get his own prepaid phone so he could have snap but he doesn't realize how expensive they are .  

 

 

[Trigger Mike]

Any other insights from other parents?

[Rip Snorter]

My kids were just pre cell, I bought a Motorola Brick for work, very convenient because they were rare.  I can recall, Summer second year of college, running up an amazing phone bill calling my girlfriend.  Silly, but I never thought about what it cost till my dad mentioned it. After, I got rolls of quarters and walked to a phone booth.  As to not introducing girlfriends, my folks never liked one, except my last HS girlfriend, up to and including the one I've been married to for coming on 40 years. If the experience was similar, after a couple of tries, I can see why you wouldn't introduce.  Glad I missed the Kids / Cell phone challenge.

[Trigger Mike]

We really loved his last girlfriend.   She wins beauty pageants.  Her dad owns a contracting business.   Her parents insisted we all meet.  We had a good time.  She is a good girl and barely holds hands.  What any parent wants for their son.  She is aspiring to be a neonatal dr. 

 

He decided he didn't like her and ignores her snaps and text.  He gravitated toward more worldly girls who don't reciprocate the affection. This last one posted a tiktok video meme that said "just because I post pictures of myself half naked doesn't mean I'm a whore" .  That told me a lot right there.

[Dusty Devil Dale]

TM, It sounds like you have a 17 yr old young man who enforceably needs something more constructive to do with his time. 

 

For a 17 yr old to idle that many hours each day Snap Chating with GFs apparently chosen through his zipper suggests he needs to get a job, or at least a life. 

If all of our young folks are that limited in their interests. then the future of our Country is uncertain, to put it mildly.   

 

Kids require supervision, whether or not it makes them popular. 

 

Solution-- a hard wired phone placed in the kitchen area, where conversations are audible, (like most of us grew up with) and take custody of the 17 y-old's expensive  phone.  Next year at 18, he can buy his own.  

 

[Dirty Dan Dawkins]

10 hours ago, Trigger Mike said:

Any other insights from other parents?

Sometimes you have to pick your battles. Other times you have to show them who’s the boss. 
 

On the girlfriend/boyfriend and my teens thing, I think of that Fleetwood Mac line,

”women they will come and they will go”…. I may assess and critique them in my mouth mind, and definitely keep an eye out for trouble, but remember they are most likely a passing, fleeting part of their life and that one or the other will dump one or the other for the next thing they become enamored with.

 

The whole keeping the “girlfriend” from parents thing can be a hiding thing, an embarrassment thing, a not wanting your input for a change thing, control thing or simply kids growing up and wanting some sense of privacy. It can be good or bad but it usually isn’t. And it’s usually just control and privacy and not getting unsolicited input and flippant remarks from parents. It’s not necessarily bad or abnormal.

Idle time, frittering away productivity and things that build a teen into an adult, those are things to look out for. And let’s be real, we’re 40-50-60 year old men screwing our time away on the SASS wire, YouTube, Fox News etc. The apple doesn’t fall far from the cart.

 

Letting them grow and mature and work out maturity and self control on their own sort of has to be done at a certain point around 17-18. I hope I explained that well from my perspective. 
 

But you’re still the boss. You and the misses….

 

And all that said, raising boys sure is different than raising girls.

[Trigger Mike]

He has a job at a farm, but uses snap while driving a tractor.  These days the tractor drive themselves he just makes adjustments at the end of each row.  It's also 3 hours of snap while at school, when he's supposed to be learning.  

 

 

[Trigger Mike]

The first girlfriend was not what we liked but had her come to his birthday party a while back but did tell him to be careful.  Turns out she just stopped answering his snaps and text.  The last one we encouraged. He just wants control.  I get it.  Snap breeds other problems.  Local parties with 300 people are posted there etc.  

[sassnetguy50]

Does your plan offer a daily limit of app use?  We did parent controls so they could use a hour or a half per day.  Letting them choose important things or stupid things at the expense of important things.

 

Yes, you have to be good at video games to operate the systems in modern tractors.

[Trigger Mike]

He bypasses the limit.  If you get on a wifi you cam bypass Verizon limits.  

 

I just today caught him with his old, broken screen phone, that is not active, on our home wifi using snap and youtube

[Trigger Mike]

He's addicted partly because everyone else on snap is addicted and send random pictures of the corner of their room etc as a "streak" and they get mad if you don't "streak " them back.