How I Had a Breakthrough with Our Teenager…About Social Media

Every stage of my daughter’s life has been my new favorite. When she started crawling it was the best. When she began talking and telling stories…amazing. And now she is this fun, interesting, compassionate young lady, blossoming into her very own personality at the age of fourteen. We get to talk about more serious things and she even asks for my advice (sometimes). She’s a freshman in high school so of course this comes with its own set of challenges as well.

Because of my military career, she’s been to 9 schools in 10 years so the new people or schoolhouse didn’t concern her, but navigating the pressures of high school, peer and academic, have opened up the door for a lot of “first-time” conversations. The hardest, and most frequent talk, has been surrounding social media use.

I’ll be honest, I didn’t know what the hell I was doing out here when it came to what I should restrict and what I shouldn’t; still figuring it out actually. She had access to all the popular platforms last year (except TikTok) for about six months, but we started to see some concerning behaviors so we eliminated all but one of them.

As we learn more about a platform, we talk about it with her, and sometimes it would get confrontational. She kept repeating, “Why don’t you trust me?” and I kept responding with, “It’s not YOU I don’t trust”, which she thought was a bunch of crap. It’s like the ‘ol “It’s not you it’s me” line when breaking up with someone. She just wasn’t buyin’ it, and honestly, it felt incomplete while I was saying it.

I knew there was truth to it but I also knew I needed to figure out exactly what I didn’t trust so I can better articulate it to her.

One morning while we waited in the car for the bus, she questioned my motives again with the social media restrictions, stating, “I don’t know why you don’t trust me. I’ve always been a really good kid, and I make good decisions. Why won’t you give me a chance to prove it with this.”

In that moment I finally found the words to express what I was truly concerned about.

I said, “I do trust you, and I know you are a GREAT kid. But even knowing that about you, let’s suppose I put you in the driver’s seat of this car right now and had you take us to school. You’ve never driven on the road, you don’t know how to navigate the controls, and there will be a mound of pressure on you from people driving beside you. Yes, you’re a good kid, who makes responsible decisions, but do you think in that moment, on the road, you would know what to do? You don’t have the tools or practice yet to drive this car without us being terrified. It has nothing to do with who you are as a person. This is why we are so concerned about social media exposure. We are trying to figure out how to equip you to use something neither of us had to worry about at age 14. What will you do if you start to feel sad when you compare yourself to other people? What cues do you look for that the time you spend on the phone is taking precious time from other things? Will you know how to be safe when you can’t see the person on the other end of the phone? As your parents, we operate out of fear sometimes; it’s not fear that you will mess up, it’s fear that won’t be ready for what comes at you, and we want to prepare you more.”

She looked at me with the sincerest look and said, “Ok, I understand now. That was a really good analogy, Mami, I get it.”

Listen, none of these conversations are easy. We want to protect them. We want to shield them from the things we don’t even know are out there yet. But these conversations are crucial. The openness, the questions without judgement, and the support you show, will not only open the lines of communication but will allow for you to reflect on the real issues, so you can be vulnerable and real with them.

I’m so grateful I found the words to allow her to understand our concern without her feeling like it was just another “rule to control her behavior”.

If that analogy resonates and you feel it’s something that will help explain things to your children, please use it. At the end of the day, we are all just trying to figure this stuff out so the more we share our experiences the better off we all are. 

Mary Polanco, MSSL, RBLP-T
August 31, 2023

Mary Polanco is the founder and CEO of Live and Lead Well, LLC, and is a certified practitioner in Resilience, Emotional Intelligence, and the Work Place Big 5 Profile.  She is also an author, renowned transformational speaker, leadership development trainer, and Doctoral Student in the Psychology of Leadership Program at William James College. Mary's ability to connect with the audience using candor, humor and sheer authenticity enables them to truly self-reflect, creating a safe space for growth to occur. Learn more about how Live and Lead Well  can collaborate with you and your team at https://www.liveandleadwell.org/