According to a new study out from Kaplan Test Prep 35% of teenagers flatly refuse to friend their parents on Facebook. Another 16% are “friends” with their parents only because it is a precondition for being allowed to have a profile on the social networking site. So if your teenager rejected your “friend” request in horror, don’t feel too bad. You’re far from alone.
In fact, it’s a little surprising how many kids are connected to their parents on social networking sites, and visa versa. Parental supervision isn’t exactly high on the list of things teens love, and given the number of embarrassing, mom and dad related Facebook faux paus we’ve all seen go viral, its hard to blame them.
But it’s hard to be a parent in the social networking age. Dangerous situations can evolve quickly online, whether its high school bullies or predatory adults, the nightly news makes it hard to not want to confiscate your teens internet connection all together. But is forcing your way into your child’s social network a good idea? In the long term, teaching your kids to make good choices, and to trust you enough that if something goes wrong online they’ll come to you for help, seems like a better recipe for surviving their teenage years than obsessively stalking your children online. Plus, one suspects that the 48% of kids who do friend their parents voluntarily do so because they’ve learned to think of their parents as something other than dictators in a police state. In other words, like people they’d actually like to be friends with.
And helping them feel that way might be easier than you think. The same study by Kaplan shows that 82% of teens report that their mom and dad are either “very involved” (44%) or “somewhat involved” (38%) in their academic lives.
“Although for generations high school students have come to accept and even embrace their parents’ involvement in their academic work and the college admissions process, Facebook continues to be the new frontier in the ever-evolving relationship between parent and child,” Kristen Campbell, executive director of Kaplan Test Prep’s college prep programs, says in a press release about the study.
So enjoy the fact that your kids probably don’t mind you double checking their homework or helping them pick a college and relax a little on the Facebook front. After all, do you really want your kids seeing those pictures of you partying in college or commenting on that wild office party last week? The benefits of a little privacy go both ways.
