Parents gather in Fairhope to learn how to monitor their children’s social media usage

FAIRHOPE, Ala. (WALA) – Twitter, TikTok, Instagram and Snapchat. Each of those apps is used by billions every day.

Millions of those users are kids. Tuesday at Fairhope middle school, parents were briefed on the biggest issues their children may face when scrolling.

“Children will tell you when you ask them. What’s the biggest concern that you have? They always tell you cyberbullying. But for us as parents and us as educators, the inappropriate picture sending can absolutely change their life,” Guest speaker and social media safety expert Kristi Bush said.

“So much of that happens through Snapchat where they think that it disappears or Instagram disappearing stories. That’s what we’re really seeing a lot of. Even with children who are in elementary school, which is terrifying,” Bush added.

Bush told FOX10 it was her own negative experience with social media that inspired her down this path.

“We actually had an incident with my son when he was younger, and it just sort of propelled me to want to help other parents,” Bush said.

One thing that parents learned from Bush and the other guest speaker; miss Alabama Lauren Bradford is that the apps themselves aren’t the biggest issue.

“We have the world at our fingertips. We can access anyone on social media. I think it’s important to recognize who our children are following, what kind of content our children are consuming, and really setting boundaries on that,” Bradford said.

Experts say it’s important for parents to communicate with their kids and do random device checks to monitor their usage.

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