Beautiful Girl

Both my kids are on Instagram. Audrey wanted either Instagram or a phone for Christmas. After debating both, we decided to try Instagram because we felt we could control it a little more..oh, and she is 10. So, option C for Christmas, neither, was a consideration too. But, we decided to give it a try and here we are.

Before letting either of my kids get an account, I had to open one, check it out, find all the privacy buttons and figure out how it worked. This is one of my least favorite parts of kids and technology. It feels almost impossible to stay ahead of them and I think I may have lost the battle before we ever really started. Mason was telling me some other social media kids are into and I had never heard of a couple. I can't give up the fight though and here is why...

At my house, we have some rules in place related to electronics. One of these rules involves mom's ability to pick up your phone or ipod at any time and see what's on it. Every now and again I check their instagram accounts, texts, calls, etc. I feel a little funny doing it but I know for a fact that all the synapses in their brains ARE NOT FUNCTIONING. I don't know what age most of the connections are complete but it is definitely not by 10 and 12. Internet privacy from their parents is not something they are allowed yet. We can revisit when they are 20.

Most of the stuff I find is harmless...sometimes mind numbing. Audrey had a friend that texted her the entire alphabet...one letter at a time. Whew. But what I found yesterday was alarming. If you have a kid on instagram, you may have seen the "20 Beautiful Girls" post going around. I hadn't heard of it until yesterday but I am usually behind in just about everything. What I gather is a girl takes a selfie and then nominates "20 beautiful girls" from her follower list to do the same...and on it goes. My heart sank when I saw post after post of Audrey's friends and their selfies. You know the problem right? First, let me remind you...they are 10 YEARS OLD. Oh, and if that isn't enough, you know each girl has more than 20 friends that are girls among their followers. That means some kids are getting left out. If that wasn't bad enough they are often saying how many times they were nominated as beautiful girls.

I felt sick to my stomach. Before Audrey and I read before bed (yes, I will probably still read to them until they are 18. I get to read the coolest books this way), I asked her to tell me about the whole 20 beautiful girl thing. She told me pretty much what I had already figured out as well as that she was nominated a few times. I told her that she is beautiful inside and out and that will not change no matter how many times she gets nominated. Instagram and her friends do not determine her beauty. We had a good talk. I told her I really didn't want her to play along. She had already thought about the fact that she had more than 20 girlfriends as followers and how the others would feel. She decided that if she did do it, she could include all of them anyway. I do appreciate that she had already considered feelings. We left it with steering clear of it for the moment and if she wanted to talk about it more we could.

We had a really good discussion. I reaffirmed all the awesome qualities she has that make her beautiful including her kindness and compassion. When I left her room she was smiling and said "Mom, you are so full of compliments tonight. It's nice." Oh my sweet girl...I am going to work on being full of compliments every night to combat what is happening on social media. Please have this conversation with your kids. It's hard enough to be a kid and trying to figure out where you fit in...it is even harder with social media when you are measuring yourself by how many likes you get or how many people nominate you for being beautiful. Ugh.

For the record, you do not have to "like" my post. You do not have to nominate me as one of your 20 beautiful girls, average women or quirkiest acquaintances. Like I am encouraging Audrey to do, I am going to try my best to not find my worth in social media.