Add The California Post on Google Parents have a mix of emotions when it comes to technology, like AI and social media.
“When I think about it for myself, I love it. It saves me so much time. When I think about it with my teen, it’s a different story. I feel mostly fear.”
That ambivalence is common, as I discovered when I surveyed parents for my new book about raising teens with courage.
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The fear of technology can become divisive. Parents feel helpless and tired of screen time battles. Children and teens feel frustrated and misunderstood when, of course, they want to be in the places all of their friends are hanging out online.
California has passed new laws in recent years to control some of the addictive parts of social media, such as autoplay and personalized feeds (though infinite scrolling is not going away).
Gov. Gavin Newsom signed new laws last week that will not only prevent children and teens under 16 from accessing features that keep them hooked, but will also hold tech companies accountable with steep fines.
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That is one step forward, and I hope it will serve as a model for the rest of the country.
But the truth is that no laws will fully protect your digital native children or teens who have the savvy to navigate their way into darker corners if they want to do so.
For that reason, we have to build strong skills in our children and teens to ensure they can make wise decisions on their own about social media.
The virtues of moderation, transparency and responsibility can serve as guideposts.
Moderation teaches us there is a time for everything: to sleep, to eat, to enjoy family, to play games with friends, to complete schoolwork, to play video games.
Any one of those activities should not take over the majority of our time.
So spend time with your family talking about how you love to spend your free time.
Then, set boundaries around when screens are used for entertainment-based purposes, based on how you and your child want to live life as a whole.
Transparency with technology can lower our fears and raise our sense of competence and confidence.
Each child has a “tech village” that he or she interacts with online. You should keep that village a part of your family dialogue, just as you would discuss a coach or a team your child is on.
Don’t discuss it as a “gotcha,” but with genuine curiosity about the people and influences in their lives. Discuss what guardrails you need in your family to keep one another safe — like devices out of the bedrooms at night, and social media tabs closed when doing homework.
These can apply to the adults in the household as well as the teens.
Responsibility means being proactive and not passive about your relationship with technology.
Co-designing as a family how you use devices, when you use devices and what times, places and events are sacred and device-free shows your commitment to your family life.
Sharing with one another how you are kind and respectful to others on social media is important.
And getting hurt online by others is as common as getting hurt by others at school, so talk about how to respond in ways that are firm but not recycling the hurt.
One simple way to gain digital agency is by working with your children to control their algorithms.
Perhaps practice on your own social media first, to set the example and discover how liberating it can be.
Sit with your children and brainstorm all the things that they love — otters, tacos, travel, bookstores, Legos, trees.
Then, head together to their social media accounts and do a search on all of the topics they love.
Click “follow” on the feeds that look nourishing.
Go through their now highly-satisfying feeds and enjoy them together.
Take some time afterward to discuss whether there’s content they receive that they don’t want to see, and “block” those together.
Teens, in particular, are highly aware of the dangers and pitfalls of social media, and don’t want to get sucked into a vortex of judgment, negativity, comparison and addiction.
But they also want us, as parents, to bring a balanced perspective.
It’s not all bad. We don’t need to fear it all.
As we take proactive steps for ourselves and in concert with our children, we’ll demonstrate courage.
Instead of worrying that technology is controlling our lives, we can model how technology can serve us and add to the quality of our lives.
Jennifer S. Miller, M.Ed., is author of the new book Humanaissance: Igniting Courage in Our Teens and Ourselves, now on pre-order.
