What Is On Your Social Media Diet?

I do not know about you guys, but quarantine snacking is a REAL thing.  Adding insult to injury, every time that I log in online, I see all the diet advice.  How NOT to snack during lock down.  What TO eat.  What NOT to eat.  What foods will keep us the healthiest.  What foods to eat to protect us from COVID 19.  The list is long, vast and never ending.  Just. So. Much. Advice.  And with so much attention to our quarantine diet...and my vastly growing waist line...it got me to thinking...what about our social media diet?  What are we consuming there everyday?  If eating right and working out is an incredibly small percentage of our day, and we are spending vast, copious amounts of time online right now...how is that diet effecting us?  And more importantly how is it effecting our kids?

Most of us were told as kids that in order to be healthy, we must eat a certain number of servings from the top 5 food groups daily.  This would ensure a strong, healthy body.  Have you also heard that you become the top 5 people that you surround yourself with?  Which begs the question...what(or who) are the top 5 social media platforms you are serving yourself everyday?  What are your children serving themselves?  This is such an important question.  Now more than ever.  Everyone has increased device time.  It has become our outlet. If we are not working then we are using it to connect with loved ones or as an escape.  And while we can be so incredibly thankful for this outlet...it does not come with a "consume all you want" without risk.  Just as we monitor our diet to make sure we are feeding it healthy foods, monitoring our social media diet will help to ensure a healthy mind and body.  

So how do we monitor the top five people we spend our time with...if it is through social media?  How do we monitor our child?  Most social media is search generated.  Take a few minutes each week and do a random device check on your child's devices.  If they have you tube, look at the search history.  This will tell you where they are spending the most time.  The same for the search history on their computers for online activity.  Tik Tok and Instagram are also mostly search history generated.  Look at what is popping up in their feed.  Especially on Tik Tok.  What videos are coming up for them to watch?  On Insta look at the search area (click on the eye glass).  This will also give you an idea of what your child/teen is searching and watching.  If you are noticing inappropriate content, or content that you do not approve of, this is a time to have an open conversation with your child.  Have a discussion about what they are viewing, how it makes them feel, and do they feel it is benefiting them in anyway?  Not all content has to be informative to be beneficial.  Watching silly videos that make your child belly laugh is incredibly beneficial right now.  If you allow your child Tik Tok, doing a silly video with them right now might be beneficial for you both.  But if we, or our children, allow negative, inappropriate information to filter into our days...for hours on end...this has far reaching consequences.  If the top five platforms that your child is following are negative, do not be surprised when your child has a negative attitude.  Currently there is a massive amount of frightening information online.  It is hard for adults to disseminate what is true and what is false.  Imagine how hard it is for our kids! Helping your child to steer from that and in the direction of positivity will greatly increase their mood, and decrease chances of depression, anxiety and confusion about some of the scary things that are going on in the world today.  We can help them (and ourselves) by searching for positive platforms, things that make you laugh, places that get you excited about travel, activities to get excited about for the future, making plans or setting new goals then finding people online that have the same goals.  

So much feels hard and weird and just not real right now.  Using the outlets we have to bring joy into our lives is such a gift!  We may have to look a bit harder to find the joy, but it is there.  I promise.  Helping your child, yourself, your family to do this...that is the best serving you can give everyone!

WHAT IS BETTER...
UNCOMFORTABLE TRUTH
OR COMFORTABLE LIES?

 No one likes the stickiness of uncomfortable truths.  We will lie to ourselves 1000 times over so we continue to feel comfortable.  But does that serve us?  It does.  But not well.  I want to address the elephant in the room...minus all judgement.  And that is what our kids are doing online.   Right now.  In the middle of this pandemic and lockdown.

As parents we are incredibly overwhelmed.  We do not know what the future holds...on so many levels that it hurts.  Our kids are home.  They are in the way.  They are bored.  Restless.  Anxious.  Disconnected.  Scared.  Angry.  They are these things and so much more.  Many of them are also happy for the extended break.  For the "free no school zone" that has been thrust into their lives.  But the reality is they are stuck.  And when having all those emotions connected with being stuck, they are reaching for an outlet.  Just as we are doing as adults.  We become thankful and eternally grateful for devices, apps, social media, games that can give us a feeling of connection.  That can be a welcome distraction for days that feel like an eternal ground hog day.  But what happens when they reach for outlets that will not serve them?  That are inappropriate.  That are harmful.  What do we do?  What can we do?




The uncomfortable truth is that our kids, if they have unrestricted devices, they are seeing things they should not be seeing.  They are possibly posting or saying things they should not be posting and saying.  The comfortable lie we tell ourselves is "not my kid", "my kid is a good kid". " my kid would never..."  And we sit with that comfortable lie because we WANT to believe those things.  Lets be honest, you DO have a good kid.  You have a GREAT kid.  But their "goodness" or "greatness" is not defined by will they or won't they get involved with things they shouldn't online.  Looking at inappropriate content doesn't make them "bad".  It makes them curious.  Which is normal.  It highlights their impulse control issues.  Which is normal.  Because impulse control won't happen til after they are in their 20's.  So we continue to tell ourselves the comfortable lie that our kids "would never" and we leave them to their own devices.  Which, in the end, doesn't protect them.

You show up for so many things.  You feed, clothe and bathe them.  You go to all of the school events and after school activities.  You are the doctor, nurse, lawyer, janitor, inn keeper.  You are ALL of the things.  We must show up in this space as well.  We must not tell ourselves comfortable lies that could harm our children later.  It is ok to feel weird, and sticky and just NOT WANT TO DO IT.  Can we just NOT do this.  Because devices and social media are hard and overwhelming.  And we are already showing up for all of those other things.  So can we just skip this ONE THING?  We can not.  This one thing can define our child's life just as much as those other things.  It can.  And it probably will.  They are not doing ALL of the bad things.  They are doing some amazing, beautiful, inventive, brilliant things with their media.  They have eclipsed us at such a pace that as parents we will never catch up.  But we can check in.  Monitor.  Guide.  Provide impulse control.  All it takes is picking up their device.  Take a look.  Have an open conversation with your child about what you are seeing.  Good and bad.  Let's sit with the uncomfortable truth that they maybe struggling a bit.  And that's ok.  Because we show up for ALL of the things.  We are good at showing up.  That is what we do.  We.  Just. Keep. Showing. Up.  In all the places that they need us.  They need us here.  They will never tell us.  But they need us.