10 Things You Should Know if Your Kid is on Social Media and You're Not

I have a middle schooler that's on social media. It's still new to us, so I follow all my kid's accounts and she follows mine. I've been noticing that some of her friends seem to be aware that adults might see what they post, while others really don't. I don't know what to think about that. I can only guess their parents aren't seeing what I'm seeing. 

I get that it’s all overwhelming and that constantly changing. I understood Instagram, but then Snapchat was suddenly everywhere, just to confuse me. I got up to speed on Vine, then got hit with Music.ly. But my daughter and I are figuring it out as we go along, hoping we're not making too big a mess of things and honestly I'm glad we're doing it together. And I'm grateful that I'm seeing all this stuff, because it's eye-opening.

If your kid is all over social media and you're not, here are ten things I really think you should know:

1) If you're not keeping an eye on what your kid is posting on social media, just know that other parents are. So when your kid uses really bad language or shares inappropriate pictures or retweets racist jokes, I assume that either (a) you have no idea or (b) that you're fine it.

The Life Cycle of Sunblock

I have no explanation for why this happens to me but every summer, but it does. Get your shit together, sunblock. This is why I end up every September with fourteen half-empty bottles.

(c) Mommyland Blogs 2013-2016

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Do you drink in front of your kids?

As many of you know, I work with responsibility.org and this month they asked me to write about drinking in front of my kids. I do it. Apparently a lot of parents don’t, preferring to wait until their kids go to sleep. That used to be me! When my kids were little, they needed my complete and total attention in order not to set the house on fire or attempt to ride the dog. The only time I could sit down, let alone finish a drink (alcohol or otherwise) was when they were asleep.

If we were in a social situation like a party or a barbecue, there was no way I was drinking because that’s when my offspring needed me to be on super high alert. 

Plus, have you ever noticed that when kids are little and you’re at a party, at least half the parents of young children conveniently disappear and just expect you to watch their kids for them while they enjoy some nice adult time? And then you find yourself alone in a room with twelve screaming toddlers and preschoolers and you’re like “how did I become the sheriff of this goat rodeo?” Then you glare at your husband casually drinking a beer and chatting with another grown-up, while you attempt to pull brawling children off each other and repeatedly tell some random kid to stop squirting his juice box into the DVD player, while praying someone comes to your rescue? No? That was just me?