Social Media – 7 Tips to Making it Positive and Safe

Most of us have heard so many horror stories about the dangers of the social media experience. We have to wonder if it is really safe for anyone to use … let alone our kids.

Well, it can be much safer if we pay attention to avoiding some of the traps people seem to fall into, especially our kids whose abilities to reason and regulate feelings are still developing.

There are a few tips to think about and implement to make your and your child’s social media experience a safer one. It would seem that social media is here to stay, right?
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1. Educate yourself to the extent possible about technology, especially that which houses the social media experience.
2. As a parent or caretaker, talk to your kids about your concerns about their use of social media. After you educate yourself, educate your kids on the possible dangers.
3. After researching what is available from expert sources, use parental controls to help protect your kids from harm.
4. If your kids are on social media, make sure to friend and follow them so you can monitor what goes on. If your kids refuse, you can suspend their use until they comply with your parental rules.
5. Think about this – we are marketing ourselves by engaging in social media, so we need to know who we are – what our identity is.
6. By creating an identity, we are creating a reputation. We should know who we are and what we represent, as well as knowing our audience.
7. Unsubscribe from anyone and anything that leads you from your own goals, your own brand, your own reputation.

For more information on staying holistically healthy, please go to my website, healthandwellnessonline.org. Here is to a healthy and safe social media experience!