My son is technology savvy. He taught me things on my iTouch that I was clueless about such as how to take screen shots. When he said he wanted to go to the Moon Park- I told him there was no park called that around here. He grabbed my iPad, pulled up google maps & showed me despite never having been. He can navigate his way around the Internet. Sometimes it's for good, such as looking up lyrics to his favorite songs so he can memorize them. Sometimes his dad isn't paying attention and I get an email thanking Gman for joining an Asian dating using my email address. (I swear that's a true story. He thought he was signing up for a game.)
One of his favorite things to do on his computer is play on Facebook. We built a farm in FarmVille together. He played my Pet Society pet when I was playing that one. He loves to do my Bejeweled Blitz spins. Once he even posted "Taylor Swift I love you. I'm a fan and dream about you" on my behalf. My friends had a great time with that one. So I decided that maybe he should have his own account. It was a compromise - he wanted a Twitter account, but there is less control over what he reads on twitter.
A few of my friends think I'm crazy for signing him up. True - I lied about his age by ten years, but the account is under my junk email address - so I see every request he gets. He is very in tune to pop culture so we went through and liked a bunch of pages together. Yes- Taylor Swift was the first page he liked. He asked for Usher's page and I vetoed that. I let him friend my friends who don't necessarily post inappropriate things such as "aunt Susie" because they talk on the phone and Lisa because he thinks she and her daughters are cute. I wouldn't let him friend family teen friends because they do post things he probably shouldn't be reading - but as mom - its my job to censor what he reads - not what they write. What I'm enjoying most though is that he has his own platform to post what's on his mind.
His teacher told me that Gman has the most personality of any child he has taught in years. Given that from 0-4 he was predominantly with either me or his dad; he speaks maturely for his age because he was rarely around other kids. As his teacher put it - he speaks like an adult with child like delivery. He has my sarcastic wit and his dad's sense of timing. He is by far one of the funniest people I know, so I enjoy reading what he has to say. One post simply said "I'm bad at darts". One post was about a Just Dance video he had just watched on YouTube. They were both about what was on his mind at that time and that isn't always something that comes up in conversation. It also shows me what we need to work on as far as spelling.
So I embrace the fact that my child is using a social media app. I would also encourage others to do the same. I do highly recommend it is stringently monitored, but I think most people would be pleasantly surprised by just what their kids have to say when they have the freedom to express themselves in their own words.
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