Florida is one of a handful of states taking action to restrict social media usage for pre-teens and children.
But finding a way to monitor what your child is doing isn’t always easy.
It’s a problem Vivian Urbine said she has run into with her 13-year-old son.
“He is very communicative, but he has his moments that I have to be totally in touch with him to be able to get the words out of him,” Urbine said.
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She said as he has gotten older, she worries more about what he is exposed to online.
“Social media has positives and negatives,” Urbine said.
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Starting in January, a new law in Florida will ban social media accounts for children under 14 years old and require parental permission for children 14 and 15 years old.
Florida isn’t the only state taking steps to restrict social media usage. Arkansas, California, Ohio, and Utah have also taken steps to restrict usage. Though in some states, legislation has been met with legal challenges.
Family therapist Laura Parodi with Azzurra Health Care Center in Doral said laws can only do so much. She encourages parents to take active steps to monitor what their children are doing online.
“What is it that they are accessing? What platforms they are using?” Parodi said this is information parents should know.
But some apps help to give parents insight into what apps and online browsing their children are doing.
Google Link, Kaspersky Safe Kids, and Qustodio all offer free versions of their apps. They give parents tools like app monitoring, app blocking, and the ability to manage how much time your child uses the device.
The apps Net Nanny and Bark are subscription-based, ranging between $40-$50 a year. They offer tools more specific to social media usage like tracking your child’s activity in real time and can allow you to set alerts when your child goes to specific websites.
But Parodi said the most powerful tool you can use is meaning conversation.
“What I usually ask parents is not to stop when your children tend to isolate or stop communicating,” Parodi said.
It’s a tool Vivian is using with her son.
“He understands, and I had to catch him in the act. I'm like, I had to, okay, give it a break, on the phone for a while, let's do something else,” Urbine said.
