We are both raising girls, quite a few between us actually! I have two girls with a good amount of years and one brother in between them. Erin has 3 girls…… 3 girls 😳….ALL girls and fairly close in age. I pray for her often 🤣. And whether you want to admit to it or not, it’s definitely different raising boys and girls. And I’ll be honest, I am for sure stricter and more protective in many ways of my girls. Don’t misunderstand, I am still very strict with my son and no doubt he would back me up on that. I expect good behavior, manners and have rules for all of them. But danger seems to be lurking around every corner for girls these days, which is why I feel setting boundaries and ground rules from the get-go is so important. But this social media stuff is crazy hard to manage and stay on top of. It takes a lot of time and management which is why I think most parents don’t pay much attention to it. Unfortunately for my kids I’m not most parents lol!
The newest App on the scene around here these days is TikTok. It started out as kinda cute. All of our girls (kids really because my son even made an appearance in a few) were doing dances whenever they were together and my daughter would have to show me all of the videos before she could share them on her private account. After a while it just sort of took off and somewhere along the way I feel like I lost the reigns. (I think Erin can probably say the same with her girls.) Life just got so busy that we didn’t monitor it the way we had originally planned to. Since our kids are so close in age and spend a good amount of time together going back and forth to each others houses, we thought it would be best for us to be on the same page. And me in all my over-organized obsessiveness decided we needed rules…..in hard copy of course! I did a quick search and couldn’t find much online from a parents perspective. There are tons of rules and contracts out there that parents have made and shared for cell phone usage, video games, texting, etc. but I didn’t find anything specific to this App. So I decided to make my own. Rules are my favorite 🤗 so it was a piece of cake!!
Here are the rules:
Rule #1. Accounts must be private. ~No exceptions.
Rule #2. Users can only follow you if they allow you to follow them. ~Meaning no nosy bodies and it will be checked regularly so that if somebody continues to follow but changes it so you can’t follow them then buh bye! 👋🏻
Rule #3. Anyone commenting inappropriately must be removed and unfollowed.
Rule #4. Parents can access your account at any time and must have login info & password.
Rule #5. ALL videos must be parent approved before posting.
Rule #6. Songs with foul language, explicit or inappropriate contact can not be used. ~Even if you’re not saying the words the songs are still not to be used.
Rule #7. Dancing and gestures must be appropriate.
Rule #8. Clothing worn must be appropriate for all videos.
Rule #9. If any of the above rules are broken you will lose use of the App for 1 week. ~That means no posting and no viewing!
Rule #10. Three strikes you’re out and the App must be removed.
Wellllll, the kids didn’t love my rules. Some felt a little stronger about them than others 😬 We gave them time to go through their accounts and tidy it up so we can move forward and really stick to it. The funny thing is when my daughter can’t post immediately… she rethinks a lot of her video or song choices. When that initial moment passes there isn’t an urgency to share the videos anymore, which is really the point any way right?! It’s often the case that when we take a moment and don’t say or do what we feel so strongly about in that particular moment, it doesn’t seem to be so important later. It’s also making her filter what she puts out there, because once it’s out there there’s no taking it back!
I guess we’ll see how this works from here on out. I’m always welcome to advice on how to handle all the social media stuff. Message us if you would like a printable copy or if you have any rules we should add….I love a good rule! 😜
~Elena 💖
Elena And Erin.....It Is What It Is 