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Also: randomparent: Thanks for your suggestions. I need to take a little time to sort through all of them. I'll take a closer look this week and report back.
You're welcome. One more thing: since your daughter has posted her cell phone number and her photo on-line, regardless of what you do with the phone, you need to change her phone number ASAP. Do not delay. Contact your cellular provider immediately and get it done.
Not done yet: please, please, please tell me that you had turned off geo-tagging on your child's cellphone camera before she started posting photos to Stationary and Instagram. If not, you can turn it off using the Privacy settings if your daughter has an iPhone.
Last edited by randomparent; 03-21-2015 at 09:25 AM..
Yes, this laptop is like cotton candy for these kids (terribly addictive). They're going nuts on it because it's their first year with it and they're now the "big kids." I think that I will speak to some of the Tech folks about considering disabling some features for the future. I can't believe they didn't think of that to begin with?
Can you return the school issued computer and buy your own laptop?
Experts have long suggested having a single family computer in a central location for kids to use while at home.
As far as the phone, why not get her a basic phone that doesn't have internet.
Randomparent has awesome suggestions! I would definitely talk with the school IT staff about the controls. You would be surprised about how much they don't know about restricting access to sites. You would be doing them a favor.
Randomparent has awesome suggestions! I would definitely talk with the school IT staff about the controls. You would be surprised about how much they don't know about restricting access to sites. You would be doing them a favor.
This is something my husband and I find absolutely infuriating. In their rush to take advantage of generous grants and their excitement over the newest technology in a time of contracting budgets, some (many?) schools are horrifyingly negligent in making sure these programs are implemented thoughtfully with adequate training, supervision, and safeguards for teachers and students alike. Schools rely on the digital natives and their parents to police themselves. It places an incredible burden on parents, many of whom have neither the time or expertise to do it well. Technology is growing by leaps and bounds, and it's difficult for even the most tech-savvy among us to keep up. Just when we think we've got it all under control, a note comes home from the district describing a verbal threat made against students on YikYak and that the high school has implemented a geo-fence. "Wait. What?" thinks the parent, "How the hell did this happen?" You're not alone. We're all drowning, even those of us who supposedly know what we're doing. That said, it's important not to throw up your hands in defeat. Please keep asking questions and doing everything you can to tame the beast. Your kids will thank you...eventually.
I would take the phone for a set period of time -- 3 months, maybe? -- and tell her that you will be monitoring her usage on the computer in the meantime. If you catch her doing something that she is not supposed to do, tell her that she will not be getting the phone back at all. Tell her this is her last chance. If she knows that you're serious, she might behave herself.
I'll probably lose my chance to ever enter the popularity contest for parents, but I have two 11 year old boys. . . and they wouldn't even bother asking for a phone. They know how we feel.
I saw a young girl (11ish) in Costco today absorbed in her phone and I thought, "no way." I don't see the point.
My best friend from high school gave one to her daughter and I remember her saying, "get used to your kids constantly being on the phone." Mine were four at the time and I didn't think much, but I'm not getting used to anything. Adults have a hard time dealing w/ addictions to the technology -- how are kids supposed to navigate it all?
Btw, you can get her a dumb phone that's good for calling in emergency -- kids don't need anything else. You and I managed. She'll manage.
I'd take it away now. And, yes, I'd spend my life policing her in a positive way.
Can't help with the parenting aspect. Obviously the Internet is out there. But why don't you have her on a family itunes account where you get to approve every app she wants to download?
On Instagram running iOS, geotagging is disabled by default, and requires location services to be on. When an account posts its first photo on Instagram, the switch "Add To Photo Map" is set to off. Sliding it to ON will enable geotagging, but it isn't really geotagging as clicking a location will mark the location as the place where the photo was taken, but NOT where it was specifically taken.
For example, if the daughter takes a selfie in the mall and enables the photo map feature, local businesses / locations, etc., will show up, eg. Auntie Anne's, Dick's Sporting Goods, etc. which can then be set as the picture's capture location. However, the actual location where the photo was taken differs from where the tagged location is, whose data is largely supplied by facebook (I believe).
It doesn't mark the actual, physical location of the phone unless the daughter selects "Use Custom Location", but this feature does not make the geotagged location public, and is only visible to people seeing that exact photo page, or if the account is private, the account owner accepted the follow request of the person wanting to see the photo. The "Use Custom Location" feature does NOT add the location tagged by the daughter to the list of locations that other Instagram users can use when they are near the location where the photo that the daughter took was tagged.
The easy way to discern between Tagged Locations and "Use Custom Location" tags is that the former is in blue letters below the username of the poster who posted the photo, while "Use Custom Location" tags appear in gray letters below the username who posted the photo.
i'm very sorry if that is confusing, i had some difficulty "translating into adult language", so to speak
Thank you for the explanation, Mark. I found it helpful, and I suspect other parents did as well.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MarkMelter
On Instagram running iOS, geotagging is disabled by default, and requires location services to be on.
The part in red is reassuring. The part in blue? Not so much. I will need to research further, since Instagram has been updated since I last looked into this issue.
Last edited by randomparent; 03-21-2015 at 07:39 PM..
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