Over this past weekend, I was part of a trio speaking group. I was the one that knew about social media while the two therapist talked about the emotional and legal repercussions of bad judgement tweets/texts/posts/etc.
We were talking to church leaders, mostly those that work with the youth in church. Long story short and without putting the fear of all the sexual predators and pedophiles in this post, we talked about protecting ourselves and the youth by having important discussions with them. It is important for parents to have the username and passwords for their child’s social media accounts, not just friend them. Kids are smart and like to be sneaky but some of that sneakiness isn’t as sneaky as they think and could get them in big trouble.
I ended my part of the talk reminding them that we all did crazy things at their age, but we didn’t have cameras on phones, social media networks or even cell phones for that matter. When in Sunday school class, at a lock in or youth retreat, there is a time and place for photos and posts and setting boundaries within the group. Not all discussions or comments need to posted on social media. Photos of eating or playing food is ok, but cameras should not be used in private places like changing areas, bathrooms, etc. It may seen obvious to some but not all. They walked away knowing how to turn the GPS off on their photos, and knowing that they needed to double check their security settings on their many accounts.
