I often see posts about curating your own online experience that make the point, âcontent creators arenât your parents.â And, yes, that is absolutely true! And I try not to be like âas a parent,â but as a parentâŚ
EVEN PARENTS ARE SUPPOSED TO ENCOURAGE RESPONSIBLE READING/VIEWING BEHAVIOR. NOT filter everything ahead of time for their kid.
When my kiddo was 5, his pediatrician was asking him the usual Well Child Visit questions (âWhat are your favorite foods? What do you do to get your body moving? Do you know what to do if you get lost in a public place?â Etc.) and she asked, âWhat do you do if you see something on TV that scares or upsets you?â
I piped up like, âOh, he doesnât watch TV without one of us in the room,â which was true at the time and is still largely true now. She said, âYes, but that wonât always be the case, so make sure youâre talking to him about what to do if he sees something that upsets him.â
So we started talking to him about that, and the answer is simple: âTurn it off or leave the room, and talk to someone you trust about what you saw and what youâre feeling.â
The answer is NOT âAsk your parents to make sure you never see anything upsetting again,â because thatâs just not possible â and ultimately that would be doing the kid a disservice, since sooner or later heâs going to be out in the world where we canât control what he watches or reads. That doesnât mean we donât try to make sure heâs watching/reading age-appropriate stuff, it just means thatâs not the only safeguard he has â and thatâs a good thing.
So yes, content creators arenât your parents and arenât responsible for making sure you never see anything you donât like â but also, your own parents should have taught you what to do when that happens. So if they didnât, take it from me, your internet mom:
Turn it off.
Walk away.
Talk to someone you trust about how youâre feeling.
And leave the person who created the thing that upset you alone.
