Snapchat question (1 Viewer)

My son is 13. He has had a phone since he was 11. He is an incredibly responsible and smart kid. I discovered last night that he has Snapchat on his phone and has been using it. I have the log ins to all of his accounts and do spot checks on activity. To date I have not installed any type of monitoring app on his phone to see every text or picture post or whatever. To be honest he has like 2 pictures posted on his Insta account and none posted on what is called a Finsta account(evidently some kids create for a spam account or pictures not worthy of their main account). 

Anyway - my question is do any of you let your teen use Snapchat. If so do you monitor it and if you do what app you use to do so. The crux of all this for me is that there was a let down in the trust level. I have a family account on Apple. So i have to approve all apps that are requested. I never saw the request for Snapchat. He has asked before in the past for it and my wife and i had always said no. We were going to have a discussion about it as we knew more and more of his friends were using Snapchat to text etc. Looking for opinions on the best way to safely let my teen use the app but with some controls. 

Thanks. 

Going behind your back to install an app that allows communication that disappears shortly after being seen definitely seems like a major problem to me.

I know a lot of kids his age are using Snapchat now. I think it's a horrible idea though. I don't think most parents that allow it have any real idea how different the world is from when we were kids. Kids his age are dumb#####. Every single one of them. They have access to so much more than we did and sometimes we mistake that for them actually being mature. They're not. They're little morons with no life experience and hormone soaked brains actively sabotaging them. They have no appreciation or understanding of risk levels or long-term consequences. 

GroveDiesel said:

Going behind your back to install an app that allows communication that disappears shortly after being seen definitely seems like a major problem to me.

I know a lot of kids his age are using Snapchat now. I think it's a horrible idea though. I don't think most parents that allow it have any real idea how different the world is from when we were kids. Kids his age are dumb#####. Every single one of them. They have access to so much more than we did and sometimes we mistake that for them actually being mature. They're not. They're little morons with no life experience and hormone soaked brains actively sabotaging them. They have no appreciation or understanding of risk levels or long-term consequences. 

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Grove - I am with you this. There have been no decisions made on whether he will continue to be able to use it and he had to delete it this morning. The "challenge" is that once it is downloaded it is easily re placed back on the iPhone. No parent approval is needed to re download it. Which is how i think he got it in the first place. Downloaded a while back to take a look at it. Rookie mistake on my part as i should have put it on my phone to see how it works. Anyway - there will be consequences and a new wold order as it pertains to the phone. Too many dumb things going on out in the world today and it only takes a second of a poor decision to change a life forever. 

My teen sons just use it to send junk pics to the ladies. No worries.

Do you actually want to monitor his Snapchat account, or do you want to make him think you do?

Look, we were all stupid teens too and most of us survived just fine.  We didn't have records of our stupid chats either.  They disappeared the minute we hung up the phone or went home.  

Trust was broken, that's a concern, but we need to dial back this rhetoric that teens are going to ruin themselves because of social media apps.  Plenty of adults using them who are just as stupud.

I think back to things we did as teens and it gives me chills.  And yet, here I am.

walnutz said:

Grove - I am with you this. There have been no decisions made on whether he will continue to be able to use it and he had to delete it this morning. The "challenge" is that once it is downloaded it is easily re placed back on the iPhone. No parent approval is needed to re download it. Which is how i think he got it in the first place. Downloaded a while back to take a look at it. Rookie mistake on my part as i should have put it on my phone to see how it works. Anyway - there will be consequences and a new wold order as it pertains to the phone. Too many dumb things going on out in the world today and it only takes a second of a poor decision to change a life forever. 

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difficult ground to tread here. he may have taken a step back in your eyes but if you take away/limit/curb his access to Snapchat as punishment he's going to 1) find another way, 2) resent the #### out of you 

both those things probably happen anyways since he's a teenager but is this a hill to die on right now?

suppose it depends on how egregious the offense. installing an app on his phone without clearing with you guys.... i dunno... it's Snapchat which some people use to send nudes to other people but probably lots of kids are using it just to send messages like "my dad is such a rooster".  guess you have to know your kid to decide which he's using it for.

General Malaise said:

Look, we were all stupid teens too and most of us survived just fine.  We didn't have records of our stupid chats either.  They disappeared the minute we hung up the phone or went home.  

Trust was broken, that's a concern, but we need to dial back this rhetoric that teens are going to ruin themselves because of social media apps.  Plenty of adults using them who are just as stupud.

I think back to things we did as teens and it gives me chills.  And yet, here I am.

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I don't disagree with the overall point, but you're making the case for why all teens don't "survive just fine". When I send a dumb text to a friend (and I send plenty of them, despite being a 34 year old father), I don't need to worry about that friend posting that text on social media a day, a week, or two years later when we've had some kind of falling out.

walnutz said:

Grove - I am with you this. There have been no decisions made on whether he will continue to be able to use it and he had to delete it this morning. The "challenge" is that once it is downloaded it is easily re placed back on the iPhone. No parent approval is needed to re download it. Which is how i think he got it in the first place. Downloaded a while back to take a look at it. Rookie mistake on my part as i should have put it on my phone to see how it works. Anyway - there will be consequences and a new wold order as it pertains to the phone. Too many dumb things going on out in the world today and it only takes a second of a poor decision to change a life forever. 

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You can turn off app downloads in app restrictions which requires a passcode to install any app (the app store disappears)

That's a bit nuclear but an option.

Also:

http://www.fireebok.com/resource/how-to-delete-purchased-app-store-history-on-iphone.html

eoMMan said:

My teen sons just use it to send junk pics to the ladies. No worries.

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Just thought of something...do these monitoring apps show the stuff being sent to your kid, in addition to what your kid is sending out?

AKA do you as a gross old man end up seeing what these teen girls send back to them?!  :X

General Malaise said:

Look, we were all stupid teens too and most of us survived just fine.  We didn't have records of our stupid chats either.  They disappeared the minute we hung up the phone or went home.  

Trust was broken, that's a concern, but we need to dial back this rhetoric that teens are going to ruin themselves because of social media apps.  Plenty of adults using them who are just as stupud.

I think back to things we did as teens and it gives me chills.  And yet, here I am.

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The issue isn't just that they can hide communication (although it makes it much much easier than when even we we're kids) but it also creates both a permanency and reach that is unlike anything that existed when we were younger. Social media takes all the drama of Jr high to high school, amplifies it, and creates a permanent record. 

Kids are going to make mistakes. But those mistakes can be seen by a whole lot more of their friends today and can have leave a permanent record of those mistakes.

I've worked with 6th-12th graders over the last 10ish years. I can tell you with 100% certainty that social media apps create way more problems than the vast majority of parents are aware of or prepared for. I've personally witnessed and dealt with more horrible situations than I ever thought possible that we're caused at least partially by social media activity.

And yes, plenty of adult do stupid stuff on social media as well. But they are at least old enough and their brain is developed enough that they should understand long term potential consequences and fallout. The adolescent brain just doesn't have that capability and it's our responsibility as parents to protect them from themselves.

Harry Manback said:

You can turn off app downloads in app restrictions which requires a passcode to install any app (the app store disappears)

That's a bit nuclear but an option.

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I don't want to go that far Harry. This is not the hill i want to die on here. To be fair - i really don't think my son is sending or receiving nudie pics. So there is that. I am really looking to take a pretty fair approach here with him. He has been uber responsible and really has not given us any reason to not trust him other than this. There has been a little sneakiness in talking to a girl - whom he texts with on snapchat. I really don't want to see all the stupid pictures or memes that 13 year old kids send out. I tried to have control over what he can download to his phone so that we at least have a conversation around why or why not my wife and i think it is a good idea. We listen to his points and I "think" we are pretty rational and fair. In fact we have turned our opinion on some things based on a point he has made. 

walnutz said:

There has been a little sneakiness in talking to a girl - whom he texts with on snapchat.

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is he not allowed to talk to girls? not allowed to "date"?

at some point you need your kid and his/her judgment and the job you did in raising him.

mr. furley said:

is he not allowed to talk to girls? not allowed to "date"?

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LOL - i think i mis stated that. He is totally allowed to talk to girls. We had not had a discussion on dating yet as he had not really expressed interest in asking someone out. I have talked to him in the past and asked if he had an interest in any girls at school. Told him that if he wanted to ask someone out to just talk to his mom and i and we would figure out how we could make it work. So when i meant that he was sneaky in talking to a girl it was that he has been doing it later at night when he should have been sleeping. 

Whole different discussion or topic - he had trouble going to sleep on his own. has bunk beds in his room and his little brother had to sleep in the bunk beds with him for him to be able to go to sleep. A compromise we made so his brother could move back into his own bedroom was that he could power his phone in his room so he if he needed to read a book he could. The rule was that there was to be no texting during that time though.

Angry Beavers said:

at some point you need your kid and his/her judgment and the job you did in raising him.

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Agree, wife and I had a conversation about this recently and we decided to give our 6th grader a little leeway to see how he does. So far he's doing OK. We have two older daughters that have been very responsible with this stuff so far but that boy brain of his is all over the place so this is new territory for us. 

My 15 & 16 year old daughters use Snap Chat.  But I randomly will pick up their phone and look at anything I want.  They know that if they are receiving inappropriate messages that I will assume they are sending them as well and act accordingly.  Other social media apps are easier to monitor.  

My 8 y/o daughter and 12 year old son both have it.  There isn't much we can do anyway imo with the innerwebs the way they are.  My daughter is on this roadblocks thing with gymnastics and has told me there are adult men on it.  I just hope they are dudes into gymnastics.

Help me out on the Trust issue...

He went to download the app, knowing that the request is typically approved by you.  If he goes to download Snapchat and it downloads and installs - would he know to ask for your permission, when he knows the permission has already been sent via the download request?  I understand you already downloaded it previously, which is why it loaded to his phone.  But I don't see this as a Trust issue that he downloaded it.  Could he have asked first?  Sure.  But if that's not the normal cadence, a teenager won't use that kind of logic.  I don't think it's going behind your back to get it - unless you openly told him not to use it before any of this ever happened.

On a sidenote, my 13yr old daughter uses SnapChat and while I don't like the app myself, I trust her judgement.  I know we raised her right, and she knows that her mom and I will randomly check up on her and what she's doing.  We went down this path with an Instagram account as well.  We have access to her phone and her social media accounts.  My daughter will keep us informed, and typically include us on snapchats when we're out with the family.  Kids will be kids and they need to explore a little of the world on their own.  We can help guide them on their way, but we can't shelter them from everything.  

Have to agree with @General Malaise on this one...we were all young and stupid once and we turned out okay.  

Peak said:

Help me out on the Trust issue...

He went to download the app, knowing that the request is typically approved by you.  If he goes to download Snapchat and it downloads and installs - would he know to ask for your permission, when he knows the permission has already been sent via the download request?  I understand you already downloaded it previously, which is why it loaded to his phone.  But I don't see this as a Trust issue that he downloaded it.  Could he have asked first?  Sure.  But if that's not the normal cadence, a teenager won't use that kind of logic.  I don't think it's going behind your back to get it - unless you openly told him not to use it before any of this ever happened.

On a sidenote, my 13yr old daughter uses SnapChat and while I don't like the app myself, I trust her judgement.  I know we raised her right, and she knows that her mom and I will randomly check up on her and what she's doing.  We went down this path with an Instagram account as well.  We have access to her phone and her social media accounts.  My daughter will keep us informed, and typically include us on snapchats when we're out with the family.  Kids will be kids and they need to explore a little of the world on their own.  We can help guide them on their way, but we can't shelter them from everything.  

Have to agree with @General Malaise on this one...we were all young and stupid once and we turned out okay.  

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OP said the boy had asked before and was denied. Then he downloaded it when he found out that he could without permission. 

bcdjr1 said:

OP said the boy had asked before and was denied. Then he downloaded it when he found out that he could without permission. 

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Ah...thanks.  That's what I missed.  

walnutz said:

 To be fair - i really don't think my son is sending or receiving nudie pics. So there is that. 

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You might be a bit naive about this. Snapchat is commonly used by pornstars to distribute their content to subscribers.
I'm no expert, but I think Snapchat allowing adult material is the only thing keeping them afloat against Instagram.

I do wonder how different I would be if I had today's technology growing up.  I know I'd have more money as I wouldn't have had to buy all those subscriptions to Playboy, which I only did because Publishers' Clearinghouse assured me that by buying a subscription, I'd be closer to the sweepstakes.  Still waiting for that.  And instead of having to work to save money to take a girl out and woo her as I longed to engage in long naked hugs with her, I could simply swipe right/swipe left until I discovered a slightly overweight girl who smokes and has daddy issues.  

But looking back, my parents told me not to drink, not to smoke, not to try drugs, not to have sex until marriage....I'm sure most of your parents did the same.  Did that stop all of us?  Or did we just get better at hiding it?  I know the answer for me and I didn't disobey because I had a bad relationship with my folks, I simply wanted to do all the other things other kids were doing, especially the cool ones.  I loved my parents, but I hid things from them because I wanted to fit in.  

@GroveDiesel I do get where you're coming from as you have a bird's eye view that few of us have into the lives of teens that aren't your own.  I have two teenage sons so I'm not tone deaf to the dangers of social media and will pick their phones up from time to time to look 'em over.  They both have SnapChat and a bunch of other social media apps many of us have never even heard of that are built on the same premise - chats or videos or texts vanish after use.  Currently, my 8th grader is on phone restriction because his grades aren't where they need to be and the phone is a distraction.  Looking it over, he had SnapChat and a whole bunch of these other apps I'd never heard of.  My 9th grader looked them over and told us about each one of them, which I appreciated.  But the only texts or emails he had saved were from us or his mom.  Now we KNOW he uses his phone all the time to talk to his buddies, but no texts from them?  No, they all use an app that hides their conversations or delete them like SnapChat.  What does that tell me?  It tells me he knows we're looking through his stuff and he's smart enough to keep it from us.  Guess what?  I would have done the same damn thing at his age.  No way would I have wanted my mom snooping in on my conversations with friends at his age.  She would have had me committed if she knew what we talked about.  

So it's a tough dance - do I go full Todd Marinovich's dad on him and lay down the law so he has no phone, no social media?  That rarely works, see Todd Marinovich.  At some point, I'm going to have to trust my son to do more right than wrong, despite his access to social media temptations.  But if I'm too lax, will I be able to live with myself if he does something so head spinningly stupid that he jeopardizes his life or the life of another?  A stupid cliche, but I think it rings true - you gain trust in drops, you lose it in buckets.  So my son has the next few weeks to do more right than wrong, to earn back his phone time, to show us that he can be a good student, a good kid and be a responsible user of social media.  

It ain't easy, that's for sure.  I just try to remember back to what I was like in 8th grade or HS and how different it would have been if I had access to this stuff.  

EYLive said:

You might be a bit naive about this. Snapchat is commonly used by pornstars to distribute their content to subscribers.
I'm no expert, but I think Snapchat allowing adult material is the only thing keeping them afloat against Instagram.

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What is the difference between this and a kid using Google Incognito to browse a pr0n tube?  

If he's a responsible kid, why wouldn't you let him use Snapchat? 

General Malaise said:

What is the difference between this and a kid using Google Incognito to browse a pr0n tube?  

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And are we really taking an issue with teenagers looking at porn? Sure it's illegal, but almost every teen boy that has ever lived on the planet would be looking at internet porn if given the chance. It's natural.

Ilov80s said:

And are we really taking an issue with teenagers looking at porn? Sure it's illegal, but almost every teen boy that has ever lived on the planet would be looking at internet porn if given the chance. It's natural.

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I'm not, no.  I don't want to know about it if they do, I just assume they are.  I was just curious how using SnapChat to look at nudity differs from Incognito to do the same.  

General Malaise said:

What is the difference between this and a kid using Google Incognito to browse a pr0n tube?  

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From the kid's perspective, not much I suppose. It's probably more inconspicuous to use a browser cuz don't need a separate app.

PIK95 said:

My 8 y/o daughter and 12 year old son both have it.  There isn't much we can do anyway imo with the innerwebs the way they are.  My daughter is on this roadblocks thing with gymnastics and has told me there are adult men on it.  I just hope they are dudes into gymnastics.

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Not sure what roadblocks is but if there are girls on there, there will be perverts. 

General Malaise said:

I'm not, no.  I don't want to know about it if they do, I just assume they are.  I was just curious how using SnapChat to look at nudity differs from Incognito to do the same.  

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I guess my comment was more just in the flow of the convo to the guy warning that pornstars are sending porn via SC. 

General Malaise said:

I'm not, no.  I don't want to know about it if they do, I just assume they are.  I was just curious how using SnapChat to look at nudity differs from Incognito to do the same.  

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From what I understand, Snapchat is more webcam type content. A browser would yield full movies is desired. In the end, it's all porn, but just different kinds I guess.

Here is my hitch around it all -- so maybe i am more trusting of my son than some of the other folks. I let him use the snapchats. However, maybe there is another parent that is not as trusting of there kid and they have a monitoring app that lets them see everything. So then maybe there is some questionable content that is sent out in a group snap - my son doesn't send it but he receives it. Then said parent who snoops everything notifies the school, the police or something else. I can't control what other kids send out - whatever it is and 99. whatever percent it is going to be okay but it is that small small percentage chance that something goofy happens. There was a situation at a local high school here where someone took a picture of an autistic student using the bathroom and sent it out to a bunch of people. Criminal charges are being filed. So i don't think my kiddo would do something of the sort but what if he were to receive it. 

I don't know - maybe i am splitting too many hairs and too much of a worry wort. I am doing my best to raise my kids the right way. I can't control what other kids do and maybe i just need to trust my kid will do the right thing if anything ever does arise. 

Edit to add - i am rambling now because i am on a work call. So getting some well put together sentences is not going so well right now lol. 

Being involved and pushing your kids towards success is good but also you have to let them do their own thing and learn for themselves. Keep the balance. 

General Malaise said:

What is the difference between this and a kid using Google Incognito to browse a pr0n tube?  

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my god this is just disgusting! using incognito to browse pr0no? how does one even go about doing that?? what sorts of filthy tubes are people watching?

where do i go to protect myself and my kids from ever doing something like this??

After I get one of those new iPhones with the better zoom I plan to install snapchat.

The FFA has a highly disproportionate number of smart and responsible kids.  Way to go.   

For those that use incognito, do you have a system for bookmarking the real keepers?  Asking for a friend.  

General Malaise said:

Look, we were all stupid teens too and most of us survived just fine.  We didn't have records of our stupid chats either.  They disappeared the minute we hung up the phone or went home.  

Trust was broken, that's a concern, but we need to dial back this rhetoric that teens are going to ruin themselves because of social media apps.  Plenty of adults using them who are just as stupud.

I think back to things we did as teens and it gives me chills.  And yet, here I am.

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I generally agree. However in 1985 when my teenage self said something stupid, it was not electronically recorded FOREVER. Nor did it follow me into my adult life or blow up on twitterbook or cause me to lose or be passed over for a job. 

Jobber said:

I generally agree. However in 1985 when my teenage self said something stupid, it was not electronically recorded FOREVER. Nor did it follow me into my adult life or blow up on twitterbook or cause me to lose or be passed over for a job. 

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Isn't the thing with snapchat that it isn't stored forever?  It disappears pretty quickly?

Snapchat is a no go for me. I had to field one call from a parent that said they were sure their daughter (maybe 13 or 14 at the time) sent some pictures to my son via chat, not Snapchat, obviously). They said he had not reciprocated (gross that they checked in that level of detail) but wanted me to delete any trace of said pics. Told them I wasn’t even going to look but I would take their word for it and just wiped his phone.

Disabled the camera on it, phone stayed downstairs at bedtime, and approved all apps for quite some time. Told him this wasn’t to punish him (he is the quintessential Good FFA kid), but to protect him from the #######  things his friends were going to do (or their parents could accuse him of) and if his friends gave him a hard time he was free to place all blame on me. Added that if I ever got another phone call like that from a parent things would go dramatically worse.

This girl also had a history of cutting, and would try to get him spun up into her drama, which he managed to do very well at avoiding except when she would talk of hurting herself if she lost him, etc. Best day ever when they moved far away and on his own he came to the realization that her sole goal in continuing to talk to him from hundreds of miles away was to make everything about her and not let him be happy about enjoying any aspect of high school now that she was gone.

tl,dr: No Snapchat = less drama from teens and their parents.

Vanilla Guerrilla said:

Isn't the thing with snapchat that it isn't stored forever?  It disappears pretty quickly?

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People screenshot it and pass around the pics.

I assume your kids know how to "save" the material so it doesn't disappear, right?

Rustoleum said:

Snapchat is a no go for me. I had to field one call from a parent that said they were sure their daughter (maybe 13 or 14 at the time) sent some pictures to my son via chat, not Snapchat, obviously). They said he had not reciprocated (gross that they checked in that level of detail) but wanted me to delete any trace of said pics. Told them I wasn’t even going to look but I would take their word for it and just wiped his phone.

Disabled the camera on it, phone stayed downstairs at bedtime, and approved all apps for quite some time. Told him this wasn’t to punish him (he is the quintessential Good FFA kid), but to protect him from the #######  things his friends were going to do (or their parents could accuse him of) and if his friends gave him a hard time he was free to place all blame on me. Added that if I ever got another phone call like that from a parent things would go dramatically worse.

This girl also had a history of cutting, and would try to get him spun up into her drama, which he managed to do very well at avoiding except when she would talk of hurting herself if she lost him, etc. Best day ever when they moved far away and on his own he came to the realization that her sole goal in continuing to talk to him from hundreds of miles away was to make everything about her and not let him be happy about enjoying any aspect of high school now that she was gone.

tl,dr: No Snapchat = less drama from teens and their parents.

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Big difference between snapchat and porn imo.  We have had kids in my town who had sexual harassment/assault type charges pressed for exchanging pictures with girls.  That is the danger....not what he'll see, but the possible consequences of sexting.

I continue to be amazed that parents let children have phones that do anything but make or receive calls. If I found out they downloaded that after being told no, phone would be gone.

irish eyes said:

I continue to be amazed that parents let children have phones that do anything but make or receive calls. If I found out they downloaded that after being told no, phone would be gone.

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my link

The good news is that at the current rate the company is going, you might be able to just buy SNAP and then kill it so your kid can't use it.  

NutterButter said:

The FFA has a highly disproportionate number of smart and responsible kids.  Way to go.   

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The are all kids of highly successful, intelligent, successful people of the best stock.  Why wouldn't they be smart and responsible kids?

irish eyes said:

I continue to be amazed that parents let children have phones that do anything but make or receive calls. If I found out they downloaded that after being told no, phone would be gone.

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Because you of course did everything your parents told you to do or not to do, right?  

FTR, I allow both of my teen boys to have snapchat.  At first, I said no it wasn't allowed.  They need to just use texts to communicate with their friends, since I had to be aware of their conversations.  It didn't take long for them to learn how to delete texts, so that didn't make any sense.

I agree with what I think Angry Beavers said previously, at some point you have to trust the upbringing you have provided to your kids.  I have given them both the child porn scare story, and let them know they are responsible for any content they send or receive (don't send anything stupid, alert me if you receive something innapropriate).  I'm not certain they would tell me if someone sent them a nudie, but the best I try to provide open lines of communication.

They both are in high school now, and have my trust until I am proven wrong to let them have it.  I haven't been burned yet.  Hopefully in the age of permanent records of their social history, they make better choices than I did.