Yes, you can ban Facebook!

I recently read some discussion about how much to control our kid's access to social media. The focus was on the question, "What do we do about access to Facebook?" Several items were written stating that the parents felt there was no way to ban social media at home.

I find it interesting that many parents think that they can not ban things in their own homes. The arguments used sound like this. "They'll just do it when I'm gone." or "They have friends to help them do it." Yep, those are very true statements, but that shouldn't prevent us from setting precedents in our homes - even if it means banning something.

It is a very hard thing to try and ban anything. If you ban something at home kids can and do access it elsewhere. But it is also true with: content on TV and radio, drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, pornography, and the list goes on. Most people ban drugs and porn. Others are mixed on alcohol and cigarettes. TV and radio are perhaps the closest thing to social media since they are content based.

By way of example, we have bans on many things in our home: TV, radio, and internet content, drugs, porn, and cigarettes. Once in a blue moon you might find alcohol in our home (and no, we don't share it with the kids).

So we've set a precedent and started with the standard that those items are banned in our home. We don't merely ban something. We communicate with our kids why we don't think it's a great idea for them to view, use, or participate in the things we've banned. (Side note: we don't use the word ban. We merely say we don't watch that or we don't participate in that.)

We also communicate that we don't want them to participate in those things when they are not at home. Do they always follow the rules? No. But do we always come back to the standard when we learn of their participation in a banned activity or content? Yes. That's where we start the discussion and work toward an understanding of why we've banned those things at home in the first place.

Do they follow the rules some of the time? Yes. And they talk about how good it felt to say to their friends something like "I'm not going to watch that because it's has things in it that aren't good for me to see." OR "I have to check with my parents before I play that video game." They're proud of themselves for standing up for something the family values at our home. We also use those times to praise them and teach them how good it is to stand up for the values of your family.

To be continued...