Whether you’re butting heads with your tween about the best age to get them a smartphone or restricting screen time, or you’re finding it difficult to enforce boundaries on social media with your teen, parenting in the digital age is full of big questions and challenges. This can be an overwhelming issue for many parents and caregivers – and it’s relatively uncharted territory for less tech-savvy generations, too. Most parents won’t have grown up using social media from a young age, making it hard for them to relate and educate.
No matter how ill-equipped they feel to address the issue, this shouldn’t discourage parents from stepping in – as they can play a key role in shaping healthy social media and technology use for their children. Staying open to conversation while setting healthy boundaries can help families build trusting relationships and useful frameworks that will serve them if and when tricky situations arise online.
Here are a few expert tips for navigating this often daunting and challenging terrain as a parent.
1. Consider how you’re modelling healthy tech habits for your child
Parents can lead by example by examining their own boundaries on social media use and dependence on now-ubiquitous devices and services. After all, when it comes to other everyday aspects of life, like caring for your health or driving, you’re probably already aware of how you’re modelling certain behaviours for your child. Keeping an eye on your own relationship with social media and tech and making sure you don’t fall into mindless and unhealthy habits can help lead the way for the rest of your family to follow suit.
Taking a more mindful approach to your own use of tech — which means stopping to consider when it is hindering your daily life rather than helping it, and specifically, when it’s affecting your relationship with your child. When you have a better idea of what works for you, it’s easier to set achievable goals and stick to them, even if it’s just restricting screen time by a few more minutes each day.
2. Kick off conversations about social media by validating your child’s feelings
The fact of the matter is that social media and technology is a huge and often integral aspect of many young people’s lives. For that reason, it’s important to approach conversations around the topic with a non-judgemental attitude that frees kids to feel how they feel. Whether they’re expressing a fear of missing out on having the same device as their friends or frustration around not being able to keep up with their peers if they aren’t glued to TikTok, convey to them that what they’re feeling makes sense and is understandable. Try to avoid the temptation to fix or educate and just listen to what your child is trying to communicate – making them feel seen and heard is often half the battle.
3. Teamwork makes the dream work
When your child is pushing boundaries, it’s easy to find yourself dealing with an adversarial parent vs. child dynamic. By working together to deal with the addictive nature of social media and technology, you create a collaborative atmosphere where your child feels less judged or alone. After all, chances are you’ve had your own niggling doubts about the best way to use or reduce your own screen time.
Get together with your kids to come up with ways to address the challenges involved with using social media. In practice, this could look like trading questions like, “Why can’t you put your phone down?” or “Why do you care so much about XYZ thing on social media?” for talking about related to technology as a family and coming up with a plan for how to address those challenges. For instance, explains Nesi, if everyone’s struggling to manage their screen time, maybe you collaboratively come up with particular times of day that are device-free for everyone (like perhaps everyone puts their phone on Do Not Disturb During dinner) or locations in the house that are device-free. For instance, you might try to put the fun back into family meals by restricting screen time and focusing on real connection and conversation – if that feels right for the family.
Try to use “we” instead of “you” to get them on board. You can say something like, “I really want us as a family to be spending quality time together. How can we figure this out as a family to make sure that happens?”
4. Give them a sense of control
Not only is it best to offer rationale for rules that you set around technology (like explaining why they are not allowed to get a smartphone or why they can’t use a social media platform at a certain age), involving kids in the process of setting boundaries in the first place can pay dividends.
Ask questions like, “What is an appropriate boundary on screen time?” or “What are rules that make sense related to your first smartphone?” and “What’s the consequence if the rule doesn’t get followed?” Having these conversations can help kids feel more invested in the boundaries being set for them. Not everything will go down smoothly, so prepare for a little bit of conflict. This is fine, as long as it can be resolved healthily – which is easier to do if kids understand the “why” behind what they’re doing.
5. Follow the “5 Ss” to promote overall mental health
When it comes to mental health for kids and young people, social media and tech use is only part of the picture. Making sure you’re covering the bases involves pinning down a few crucial elements of their routine. Some experts recommend following the “5 Ss”:
Sleep
Sleep is absolutely essential to health and wellbeing throughout our lives, and childhood and adolescence is an important stage for setting a routine that may serve kids well for decades to come. Encourage them to leave phones outside their bedrooms so they get the best quality shut-eye they can.
Self-care
Make sure that teens are taking the time to do what they need to feel good and live well. That might look like getting a little bit of exercise, eating their favourite meal or taking a hot shower.
Service
Teens should prioritise activities that take them outside of themselves, whether that’s a simple random act of kindness like helping a sibling with homework or a more formal activity like volunteering or joining a club.
Skills
Learning new things, whether through a hobby or extracurricular activity, is a great way for kids to cultivate a sense of self-esteem.
Socializing
Seeing each other face-to-face rather than through a screen is a key part of kids’ social development.
The bottom line
When it comes to setting boundaries around social media and technology, many parents are facing ongoing resistance from their kids, which can be tough. It can help to understand that tech is an area of life in which adolescents can naturally assert their independence. This naturally leads to the type of conflict that’s a crucial part of growing up.
The best way to do this is to help your child feel that they are independent, that they are making choices for themselves, and that they’re being treated like adults — while simultaneously creating and enforcing rules, expectations and boundaries that will help to keep them safe when navigating a digital world.
