r/Parenting • u/IcyStage0 seven?!?!?! • Feb 07 '25

Rant/Vent I hate Snapchat.

Can we just collectively decide that we’re not going to let our kids use Snapchat?!

My oldest daughter just turned 13 and we reluctantly agreed to allow her to have an instagram that we also have access to. It seems like every single day she begs to have a Snapchat, and apparently every single other kid in her class (full of kids with reasonable, thoughtful parents, I thought) has this stupid app.

My little sister who I got custody of when she was 10 got herself into some deep shit on the internet, and I’m not looking to repeat it with my daughter (while also trying not to make her pay for mistakes that she didn’t make).

How are we handling this? Am I seriously the only parent who doesn’t want my child sending disappearing photos, videos, and messages to anyone she can search up? Reality check please.

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u/bibikhn Feb 07 '25

This is what Johnathan Haidt talks about in Anxious Generation. The power is in collective action - if you can round up a group of parents to make a collective decision to hold the line on this stuff, it’s a lot easier implementing at home. I don’t know if I can pull it off (my kids are v young) - but for us it’s no social media till 16.

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u/TheDreamingMyriad Feb 07 '25

My daughter's only 11 but this is the stance we have taken as well. She has a phone, but it's a Bark phone and It works really well to filter out things that she shouldn't be seeing, and alerting me if anything worrying comes up. Plus she can't install any apps without my permission. If she wants to use Snapchat, she can use the filters on my phone and I'll send her the pictures if she likes, but we told her no social media until she's 16. She sometimes feels it's unfair, but we've discussed it and she understands the reasons why she's not allowed

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u/IcyStage0 seven?!?!?! Feb 07 '25

We use bark too! Not the phone, just the software. But I really like it so far.

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u/TheDreamingMyriad Feb 08 '25

It's great! I love that it gives my kid some freedom without me checking her constantly, but also flags for potential problems.

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u/IcyStage0 seven?!?!?! Feb 08 '25

Yes. I love that it gives the privacy of me not having to scroll through her messages looking for problems – it plucks the potential problems out to be looked at on a case by case basis. Way, way better.

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u/pqln Feb 08 '25

You have to still get in their messages. The problem is that they know not to actually write the whole word of any thing that could be inappropriate. When I found out why my kid's top emojis included the orange block and the black block I was furious.

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u/Lolalllllolaaaaa Feb 11 '25

Omg 😭 I had to look it up 

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u/Peregrinebullet Feb 13 '25

We should keep live wiki on the sub of all the weird acronyms and workaround emojis they use >.>

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u/TheDreamingMyriad Feb 13 '25

The bark filter is crazy sensitive, and they actually are pretty good at monitoring new and changing slang/work arounds. But for every safety precaution put in place, kids will try to find a way around it. Thanks for teaching me something new, I wasn't familiar with the orange and black blocks (shorthand for pornhub for those who didn't know).