Three Reasons To Keep Your Kids Off Social Media

As you may know, I am in full Mama Bear mode these days. With one toddler already and my second child due in July, I have become intensely focused on raising, protecting, nurturing, and teaching my children. 

For those of you who have kids, you know what I’m talking about. You’ve experienced firsthand how the process of becoming apparent causes a fundamental change in you. Moms, you know that before your baby even gets here you begin a process of child-proofing your home. You secure all the sockets with those plastic coverings. You take your fragile decorations out of arm’s reach. You replace sharp and precarious furniture with more kid-friendly pieces. 

This is the instinct of any parent who is remotely in tune with their child’s well-being. You protect them from harm by whatever means possible. And it plays out in every area of life. You don’t give them too much sugar, you don’t let them play in the middle of the road, you don’t let them wander off with strangers.  

It is therefore astounding to me that parents who otherwise protect their children would allow them to have access to dangerous and damaging technology like social media. A couple of months ago, I made some comments about the Kim and Kanye debacle over whether or not their daughter North should be allowed to have a social media platform and presence. 

And I just can’t let this go. I want to dive deeper today with you and share three reasons why you should keep your kids off social media.

A Childhood Stolen

First, social media robs kids of their childhood. 

As human beings develop, we should be exposed to certain ideas and images at appropriate times. Kids should be allowed to be kids. The primary concern of an eight-year-old should be who is coming to her sleepover, not whether or not she should get butt implants. 

And yet this is what we are seeing with kids on social media — they’re growing up at warp speed into a twisted, perverted version of adulthood that, frankly, adults shouldn’t even aspire to.  

Childhood is precious and should be protected. Your kid should be dancing in real life, not dancing on TikTok.  

A Modern Pandora’s Box

Second, social media is devastating to your child’s emotional and physical health.  

Social platforms foster unhealthy competition, comparison, and expectations. When you give your child access to social media, you’re also opening the door for the most extreme people and ideas on the planet to enter their minds. 

Kids aren’t emotionally equipped to process and evaluate all of this input. It’s sensory overload to the max. By nature, young children are often incapable of dealing with their emotions in a reasonable manner, and social media heightens and amplifies their emotions — especially the negative ones — leaving them in a dangerous state. 

And we know it’s girls who are most vulnerable to the effects of social media. Last year, BYU released findings from a 10-year study showing that as social media use increases among girls, so does their risk for suicide.

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