DENVER — We showed you the code, the acronyms that teens are texting to hide things from their parents. But, are you looking in the right place for your teen’s online conversations?
In a world of apps, tablets and smartphones, it can be tough to keep up, but our kids are there, just ask 12-year-old Maddie Hayes. “Instagram is big at my school, also like texting … just communicating.”
As parents we have no choice, we need to be onboard. Most of us try, like Maddie’s parents Amy and Jonathan Hayes. “We have certain rules in our house that we try to abide by, but it’s easy to get distracted as parents and assume everything is OK.”
If you think it’s enough to “friend” our children on Facebook, think again because Facebook isn’t even on their radar anymore. “She said it’s for old people! That’s where her grandma and grandma’s aunt and cousins are so it’s not even interesting to them anymore,” Amy Hayes said.
We brought seven Colorado parents together to give them an app test, asking them to name icons of apps that are popular among teens. They knew the easy ones like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram but, what’s this? The white ghost, omegle or how about one? Oh – you better check your kids smartphones for these. Scroll the gallery to see the app icons that all parents should be aware of:
So many of these apps do more than promised. Instagram for example. It’s about pictures but, it also has private message built in. “Our daughter is in 7th grade and this is actually how all her friends communicate in groups. They’ll PM each other and it’s difficult, it’s how you exclude some girls. It lends to that whole middle school drama piece,” expressed one parent.
That white ghost that was mentioned earlier: That’s Snapchat, an app that automatically erases picture messages in 10 seconds after they’re viewed.
You can imagine why parents don’t like that one. “I’ve heard of it, I don’t know that my kids use it. My daughter has talked about it. I’m going to be going home and asking her about it,” another concerned parent said.
Another app is KIK. It’s a private messaging app that can be used instead of texting and if you don’t know what it is … you’ll never know where to look to see their messages.
Our parents were surprised that they didn’t know so many of these apps. One parent said, “Schools need to come together to warn parents to get these apps off their phones! So we can protect any child that’s potentially a victim of being bullied.”
Another parent expressed the same concern, “I’m hoping that even if she does know them, I feel like we have a pretty good relationship and we’re pretty open with each other. I think I’m in shocked to be honest with you about some of these.”
But, many of these parents plan to turn that shock into action.
All of our parents raised their hands when we asked them if they’re going to check their kids’ phone tonight. Something many of you at home may want to do as well.