What IS Digitally Appropriate for 4th & 5th Graders?
This week I talked Digital Ground Rules with some 4th & 5th grade parents. It was an amazing group and they asked great questions. Here are the key takeaways:
“What IS digitally appropriate for 4th & 5th graders?”
No Social Media. Generally speaking the social media apps require users to be 13 in order to sign up. If you find yourself with a preteen who is asking for social media, remind them that they are younger than 13 they would have to lie about their age to join.
YouTube is inevitable but make sure your kids are not watching through unrestricted accounts. You can manage parental controls across many Google products through their free Family Link app. I recommend creating a Family Account on Family Link. For this age group, sign your kid up for a supervised account, restrict the content to 9+ or 13+ and disable autoplay.
Smartwatches can be pretty great. While they are not for everybody, I think Smartwatches are a great tool for teaching independence. But, if not managed well they can be another gateway to the internet or a distraction. My recommendation is to use it as a tool not a toy and go as low tech as you can.
Playing Video games is fine, depending on the game. With this age group is most important to know alot about the games themselves. What are their content ratings? Do they allow interaction with strangers?
It's early for a phone. I’m not going to definitively say do not give your child a phone because there are legitimate reasons you might want or need to. That said, I would recommend avoiding giving your child a phone at this age, if you can. Or at least severely limiting what they have access to.
“What should I be doing”
Be a role model- Listen, we’re all a work in progress, pretty much all the time. I believe good digital parenting starts with the examples we set. If we are chastising our kids about how much time they spend playing video games with our own phones in our hands— well, you get it. It's not a great look. There are legitimate reasons why adults need to be tethered to their phones but there are also plenty of us with social media habits. Just remember our kids look to us to model behaviors (she says while discretely putting her phone down).
Understand the tech- This gets more complicated and annoying when kids are older and want to be, say, on Snapchat which is notoriously challenging for grown ups of a certain vintage (me. i’m talking about me). Whenever you introduce a new technology or behavior to your kid, you need to dig in and learn it too.
Get a Digital Buddy— Our kids will be interacting with other kids throughout their digital lives. I highly recommend finding at least one parent in your kid’s circle that you can buddy up with. Compare notes, sanity check your own reactions, keep an eye out for each others’ kids. You don’t have to have the same rules or beliefs in your houses to be buddies. Having at least one buddy to go through this with is way better than trying to triage in a vacuum.
Talk to your kid— Yes, of course, generally we should be talking to our kids. Here I mean talk to them about the technology they are using or about to use. Name the worry, have the cringy talks. But also, look for the common ground too. You may loathe your child’s beloved YouTube personality with the fire of a 1000 suns (is it just me?), but if you invest time in what your kid is interested in or find other content that you both can enjoy, it goes a long way toward building trust.
Work on trust and independence but lean in when you introduce something new. It's very common to want to just say no or lock it all down. Not only is this very hard to do, it may not be realistic. Your kid doesn’t live in a bubble. Alternatively, finding yourself in a situation where you must constantly check up for a sustained amount of time is going to wear you down. My advice is to invest the time when you introduce something new with an eye toward granting more freedom as it is earned, over time.
Group Texting
If your kid is interested in texting their friends do the following:
Practice texting 1:1 before letting your child message his or her friends.
Explain scenarios that are likely to come up when using this technology and talk about how to handle them: sarcasm, bullying, being a bystander and feeling overwhelmed.
Monitor the texts a lot in the beginning and then less so over time. Revert if intermittent monitoring exposes problems.
Check in with your digital buddy.
And if this technology is not working for your family— your child is being bullied, your child is anxious or overwhelmed, or you just realistically do not have the capacity to work on this right now— then don’t be afraid to exit the chat. Your kid’s safety and well being are the most important thing.
For those looking to go deeper on 4th and 5th grader topics, I’ve curated a list of helpful articles from my archive. If you do a free trial you can access these & more for free for 7 days!
Interview: When Your Tween Doesn’t Want a Phone
Paid subscribers read on for my Additional Insights + Photos from Digital Ground Rules Workshop.
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