Is Social Media Safe for Pre-Teens?

So, when is it the right time to allow your child to log on to and become an active member of a social networking site? By the age of 5 to 7 years, children have learnt a lot through interactions and real world experiences. Once your child crosses this age, they are ready to become active media users and stand to benefit from the educational content generated on electronic media. Moreover, since tablet and smart phone technology is rapidly evolving to be more intuitive and creative, it has opened a world of possibilities for children who may have been frustrated by the constraints of their environment, says an article published by the BBC. Social media forums provide a great outlet for older kids to express their thoughts, learn new things and increase their knowledge.

Empowering Communication

Social media interaction has the power to empower tweens to get their ideas across through increased visual and auditory learning. At a young age, your child will understand video-calling, start engaging and supporting social interactions, and even develop vital communication skills due to exposure to such technology. Also, since a diverse range of topics are discussed on social media forums every day, it can guide children in the right direction by showing them things that might spike their interest. This can help build passion and concrete opinions on various matters and topics. Moreover, viewing photos and uploading statuses offer great shared experiences that can provide stimuli for children’s own imaginative responses.

Guided Interaction on Social Platforms

Guided interaction on social media can aid your child, and even prompt lingering questions in their mind and increase awareness and attention naturally. This would not only lead to raising a confident child, but also one who is aware and level headed. When a group of children are given a choice to read the newspaper or read the same news story on a social media platform, the choice becomes an obvious one.

But can you Regulate and Monitor What your Tween Does on Social Media?

The internet possesses exhaustive and uncensored information of every genre, which can at times discourage parents from allowing their pre-teens from logging on to social networking forums, such as Facebook, Instagram or Twitter. Rather than letting your tween access such forums on a computer, opt for a smart phone or tablet. Smartphones and custom tablets can come pre-installed with applications such as Kids Place-Parental Control, which restrict and regulate the information your young one has access to. Such applications have special parental controls, which allow you to lock specific apps, and keep access to only the ones you approve of for your child. This can even prevent your child from performing other unwanted actions, such as downloading additional apps, opening a browser or performing actions that can cost you money. With additional features, such as pass code entry, time regulation, disabling wireless signals, and blocking unwanted plug-ins and pop ups, social media exposure on a tablet can turn into a safe and regulated space for your child to learn and grow.