He told us he didn't have social media but found out through a friend's mom that he has a secret account. He's got like 200 followers and is posting stuff. When I confronted him he freaked out. Now he wont talk to me. I feel like I breached his privacy but also hes a kid and I need to know whats going on. Do I apologize or stand my ground? This is harder than I thought.
Yeah that's a wake up call. I'd sit down and talk about trust rather than just punishing him, but also definitely need some clear boundaries about what's acceptable. The fact that he tried to hide it means he knows it crossed a line.
We went through the same thing with our oldest. The deception was the real problem. Once we talked about why he felt like he needed a secret account, things got better. He just wanted privacy which is normal at that age.
The fake account thing is tough because it's the lying that gets you more than the social media. He's 11, he's testing boundaries. How did you approach the conversation with him about it?
This is what scared me into paying more attention to screen time early on. They're getting more tech-savvy and they know all the workarounds. At least you found out instead of it being something worse later.
The good news is you caught it at 11 and not 15. Still time to build that trust back and set some real conversations about social media.
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The secret account thing is tough but at least he's talking to you about it now. I've been dealing with the same stuff with my kids and I found that having real conversations about why they want social media instead of just shutting it down works better. Maybe find out what he's actually posting about?