EDITORIAL: School, parental partnership needed to deal with troubling social media trends

Enid News & Eagle - 12/21/2021

Dec. 21—School districts and parents are rightly getting fed up with having to respond to the various TikTok challenges and threats that seem to be ongoing.

A social media trend related to school shootings swept the nation and the Enid area on Friday just as schools prepared to shut down for winter break. Several schools sent out an email or warning to parents. Some such as Enid Public Schools did not send out a warning, but stepped up security and law enforcement presence at their schools.

This latest incident has many school districts and parents wondering how they can get a handle on their kids' social media usage, especially as it relates to TikTok challenges.

The way to begin is for parents to know if their children are using an app such as TikTok, which has more than one billion users. Particularly, parents of younger kids need to be aware if their child is using this app.

Most parents of elementary and junior high-school age children have some familiarity with social media. They grew up just as social media started to become the rage. However, many parents don't know all the apps that are out there that their children are using and exposed to. TikTok, Instagram and Snapchat skew toward younger users, according to research by the Pew Research Center.

Experts suggest that if your child wants to get on TikTok, the parents should start by sharing an account with them using the app's Family Pairing feature. Parents can then see what kids watch and post.

Monitoring the apps your children use is important; however, as kids get older, they get better at getting around parental controls. This is where communication and talking about social media become even more important. Discussing the trends in social media, particularly the negative ones, is crucial in guiding teens about what is appropriate and what is not on social media.

School districts should also consider visibly placing on their websites current information about social media challenges and trends. Let the parents know where this information is so they can stay aware. School districts may also need to devote some time during school board meetings to discuss trends, and also perhaps send out monthly bulletins to parents about what they are seeing.

It will definitely take a concerted partnership between parents and school districts to stay on top of these trends to try to mitigate the disruptions caused by these hijinks and to keep students, teachers and staff safe.

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