How Can I Monitor What My Kid Does on Facebook?
We live in the era of social networking where teens are highly obsessed with social networking websites, and it’s no surprise that Facebook is the most popular platform. Facebook is undoubtedly very useful at times, but like all things, it has prominent downsides.
In most cases, turning into a serious Facebook addiction, deteriorating one’s healthy lifestyle completely.
Here we will focus on helping you overcome your teen’s Facebook addiction and also provide you with resources such as mSpy to monitor your teen’s Facebook activity.
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1. Find the Source
Facebook does not only offer simply IM (Instant Messaging) and a News Feed. In fact, that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Facebook has a lot of features such as being part of groups or ‘sub-communities’ and games.
The first thing you need to do is figure out what your teen is addicted to. Is it the addicting games like ‘Criminal Case’ or ‘Farmville’ or is your teen part of some Page? No matter what the case is, it’s impossible to progress unless you know what to look for.
You can easily find what your teen does on Facebook by going to the browser on their laptop/personal computer and pressing Ctrl + H, then Ctrl + F and type ‘Facebook’ – you’ll be directed to all the links on Facebook your teen visited recently. This way you can monitor your teen’s Facebook messages.
This is the first and most important step to overcome your teen’s Facebook addiction.
2. Set Restriction on Facebook Use
According to the ‘Pew Internet Project’, a jaw-dropping 71% of teenagers use Facebook over all other social networking platforms. The survey is dated to 2015.
92% teens have been reported to go online daily, and 24% teens go online almost constantly.
Needless to say, so many online hours are hazardous to anyone’s health. You can easily restrict your teen’s hours by setting limits. You are their parent and they’re accountable to you. Try with the ‘Carrot Approach’, explain and reason with them as to why it’s important for them to cut down on this addiction.
Chances are, they’ll most likely understand and will be willing to bring change. If not, you need to adopt the ‘Stick Approach’ and set measures to discourage overtime hours. This can include grounding them or physically making their phone/laptop inaccessible for a reasonable amount of time.
3. Monitor your Children on Facebook
There are plenty of Facebook spy apps available on the PlayStore, just download one to monitor your teen’s Facebook activity.
Today, dangerous pastimes such as sexting and cyber-bullying or ‘trolling’ are becoming popular among teens. Such things can develop bad morals in your teen and therefore need to be stopped.
By downloading the Facebook spy app and knowing what wrong your teen could be doing, you can prevent the problem from escalating.
Even if your teen does not do such things currently, they probably are aware of pastimes in question. If that is the case, it’s a good idea to explain to them how to stay away from such things.
There’s nothing to lose by adding some measures to avoid problems from worsening.
4. Explore Together: Reasons?
The most important reason as to why your teen might be addicted to Facebook is because they probably do not have anything better to do. If this is the case, you should help them develop some healthy pastimes to get over their addiction to Facebook.
This can include drawing, reading books, writing poetry or stories, etc. The opportunities are literally endless. There has to be something that your teen enjoys apart from Facebook, and you can help them discover that – together!
5. A Functional Family Unity
You probably have more than one teen at your house, or at least your teen has cousins around their age. It might be worthwhile getting advice from them. Looking at all of this from a teenager’s perspective is also very important.
Consider this, a lot of teens today use Facebook as an escape to avoid responsibilities or pressure from real life such as grades or family problems. They just want to forget real life and focus on the internet! Sound familiar? It should because Facebook addiction is like a drug. The anxiety builds up devastatingly and can get very destructive if allowed to continue.
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Surely you would not want your child to remain so stressed and depressed. In such circumstances, the best way is to consider other teens and possibly how they tackled their issues. Use their advice and insight to develop your approach better.
Approaching the matter in a haphazard way is not advised.
6. Try these Effective Ways
A good way to address an issue is to observe, experiment and then apply. You are the teen’s parent, you probably know them better than anyone and can supervise everything they do. If this is true, you need to be more observant.
When does your teen’s Facebook activity peak? When does it drop? Are they related in any way?
Answering all these questions, and effectively developing an idea, you can understand the core source of your teen’s addiction.
Here’s an example:
Do they use Facebook more during holidays? If yes, it’s probably because there aren’t many things to do. You can get them busy by summer school, an internship, extra classes, etc – anything productive, really.
7. Parents: Acknowledge their Facebook Addiction
The most important way to stop your teen’s addiction is to acknowledge it. This may sound simple, but it’s not.
A lot of parents are in denial, and they will do anything for their children, even if it isn’t exactly the best thing for them. Don’t fall prey to such traps. Don’t drown in denial. Understand that there is nothing wrong in using apps (such as mSpy as mentioned earlier) to get a better idea of what your teen is up to.
Acknowledge that your teen has a problem and that it is your duty to stop them from jeopardizing their future.
Good luck and happy parenting!