In today’s world, it is quite impossible to be totally disengaged from the online world. This is because you may miss opportunities such as event invites; interesting workshops or conferences, sports activities… you name it, everything is on social media, especially Facebook. However, nowadays, children are starting to use Facebook from a very young age, despite needing to be of a specific age to have an account. They use Facebook to chat with friends, watch videos, play games, upload photos of themselves or just simply to scroll through their newsfeed endlessly seeing whatever one has been up to, mostly due to the fear of missing out.
As parents, we all have our responsibilities when it comes to children and the time used online. Nowadays, technology is so advanced that it also can let you know how much you or your child are spending on social media, which is a programme built in most smart phones. Results have been shocking from minimum of 1 hours up to maximum of 4 hours per day, just on social media. Constant internet use can lead to addiction, hence as parents we need to be monitoring our children’s use. In this blog, I will be providing some tips that have proven to be helpful for some.
- The first tip prior of monitoring your kid’s Facebook use, is to monitor your own. The expression children see, children do is mostly true, hence we need to model the behaviour first in order for our child to mirror our behaviour.
- The second tip involves a restricted amount of time tied to Facebook, such as no longer than 30 minutes in the morning and another 30 minutes in the evening, just to catch up with anything that needs to be caught up on. You can create a timer to remind you to detach from Facebook, if you find yourself easily being caught up scrolling.
- The third tip involves encouraging your children to do different activities, if they use Facebook to fill up their time. From reading a book, to practising some sports or music, they can help engage in other activities apart from using Facebook which can benefit their mental and physical health too.
- The fourth tip involves dedicating more family time together, if it is possible. As a parent this is where you can be creative of how to find your own way of spending time together in person rather than scrolling. Whether it is just talking with your children over a hot chocolate, dancing to some music, playing a board game or going for a walk or picnic can help you to bond further with your children whilst stirring away from Facebook.
We can all be victims of Facebook without even realising so, especially when we find ourselves scrolling endlessly on the platform. I hope the mentioned tips above can help with monitoring and restructuring the use of Facebook both for yourself as a parent and your child. Remember to switch off and if your child is spending too much time on Facebook, it is your fault.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.2466/02.09.18.PR0.110.2.501-517
Danica Cassar has recently graduated in Bachelor of Psychology. She works as a triage officer at Willingness. You can contact her on danica@willingness.com.mt or call us on 79291817.