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Teaching Your Teens What to Avoid on Social Media · 5–Minute Parenting: Tips to Help You Raise Competent, Godly Kids.

• 0:33
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to another episode of Five Minute Parenting.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_01: Today I have a special guest, Alyssa A.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_01: Vand.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_01: She's a Christian author, podcaster, and virtual assistant.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_01: She has worked from home for the last 15 years while raising her three children.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_01: She is the mom of three teenagers and the wife of Greg.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_01: And she and Greg have been married for 23 years, and her family resides in a small town in Mississippi.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_01: So Alyssa is my virtual assistant.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_01: She is wonderful.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_01: She picks up with me and does all kinds of things.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_01: So if you're looking for a virtual assistant, I highly recommend Alyssa.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_01: And Alyssa's going to share with us today on teaching your teens what to avoid on social media.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_01: And since she has three teens currently, those of you who have teens or are about to have teens can learn from somebody in the trenches.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_01: So welcome, Alyssa.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: I need to update my bio because one of my children is almost 21 now.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: So it's funny.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: Well, he'll be 21 in December.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: But um he has been a teenager, obviously.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: So, but I have a 16-year-old, a 17-year-old, and a 20-year-old at the moment.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and they are boy, girl, boy.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: So just in case anybody was wondering about that.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: So, yes, I wanted to share about social media because it is such a large part of our children's, you know, children and teenagers' lives in this day and time.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um, unfortunately, they spend more time on social media than they probably spend in face-to-face conversations or relationships.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: I know that sounds terrible, but it's probably the truth if you really want to get down to it.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: So I have three things that I wanted to talk about in regards to social media.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I have tried um my very best to teach this to my kids.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: And also uh when I was involved in youth and children's ministry prior to having children, even back then, this was relevant and the case.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: So the very first thing that they must remember is that social media is forever.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: Once it goes online, it is very, very hard to take it back, almost impossible to take back.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and therefore they have to think before they send, post, share, like, comment, all those things that we do on social media.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: So this is very much the case in regards to the fact that it will affect their future.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: They don't realize it, but one day they may have a potential job look back at their social media to see what was on there and to see if they are the type of person that they want to hire.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: Not only that, but I'll be honest, when my children started dating, uh I'm the Facebook mom stalker.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: So I, you know, they met someone new, and my kids will tell me, um, don't go stalk them.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: I will, but you know, mama doesn't listen to that.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: I go stalk them, their parents, their friends, um, to see what they're like.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, that's going to happen in the future uh when they meet someone new.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: What you put out there on social media about yourself tells a lot about you.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: And it will either make or break, you know, some future decisions and some future options for you.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: I know of people personally who have not gotten specific jobs due to the fact of what was on their social media.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_01: That's true.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: So social media is forever.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: That's my first point.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um, secondly, you have to be careful who you talk to.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I meet a lot of people online and my kids know that.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, almost all of my clients, I risk I got them through online relationships and haven't met them face to face.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: Like Miss Sandra and I have never met face to face.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: We talk a lot um through email and then the phone and Zoom and things like that.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: But for kids, this can be very scary.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um, my teenage daughter, I tell her not to enter into relationships with guys online that she does not know.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: And that is for her safety.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: She um has social media, she has most forms of social media, but she is very safe with what she does.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: Her, for instance, she has TikTok and Instagram, but those are not public profiles.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: Not any person can go, not just anyone out there can go and look at my daughter's photos on her Instagram or her videos on TikTok.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: She posts a TikTok, but they are shared with friends only.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: And those friends are people that she actually knows in real life.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I'm doing that for her safety.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: Now, will she always be that way?
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe not.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: I have public TikTok and Instagram accounts myself as an adult, but I do not want my daughter at 17 to do that.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: And so you have to be careful who you talk to and who you allow in your in your circle.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: I still, as a an adult, don't friend men on social media that I don't know in some way through um my past, like through, you know, I I grew up with you, or I went to church with you, or I went to seminary, so I'm friends with a lot of pastors.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: If I didn't go, you know, don't know you, I don't friend them on Facebook.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: That's a rule that I have.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: I agree.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I give that same rule or or ask of my children to do the same.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: So being careful who you talk to is to me, is even more important probably than the first, because again, you hear these horror stories of children or young adults who go to another state to meet someone they met online, or someone from another state comes to their home to pick them up.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: We uh redid some things in our insurance in the last few months, and we had to meet with a nurse that took our vitals and did some tests for our life insurance, and she shared with us when we were talking about our children that she had a 14-year-old daughter, and she had a man show up at her house to meet her 14-year-old daughter because she was talking to him on social media, and that was, you know, that would make me sick to my stomach and very, very scary.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: So that is one of the main reasons you should teach that to your kids, especially girls, but boys too.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: It can happen to either.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: And then the last thing is to not, and this kind of goes along with this, but is to not share personal information.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: So, and parents tend to do this and probably don't think about it.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: I myself have probably done it and not thought about it, and that is like where your kids go to school, for example, um, what grade they're in, all of that information.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: There is so much info readily available online for people who are meant meaning to do our children harm that they can get with just a few pieces of information from your social media.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so sharing, you know, it's your kids' first day of school and having the logo of the school in the photo is a really bad idea.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so the same thing with your kids, they should not share their phone number, their address, you know, where they go to school, things like that, because of the fact that adults that are meaning for their harm can use that information to find more info about them and to, you know, come to them to do bad things, you know, put out false information about them, so on and so forth.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: And I have heard those stories as well, where you know people have had adults that were not there for good good practices or good things show up their their kids' schools or homes based on what their child put out online.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: So my top three again are social media is forever, so you have to be careful about what you share.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: Be careful who you talk to and don't share personal information.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_01: Those are just some great basic tips that all parents need to know, and that all kids don't know.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_01: They don't realize um what social media can do.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_01: So those are just great.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for sharing those with us today, Alyssa.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_01: Just appreciate all of those tips.