At All Costs

My heart breaks every time I hear about a young person committing suicide because they are being bullied. There are so many stances people take on this, from blaming parents, to even saying that children don’t have thick skin anymore, teasing is a part of childhood. This coming from people who didn’t grow up in the world of social media, where remarks and comments aren’t just forever embedded in our memory, but on laptops and cell phones for the whole world to see with just a click; where unauthorized videos become weapons of blackmail, shame and coercion. So was the case with Tovonna Holton, a 15-year-old Florida teen who was filmed secretly in the shower by her  “peers” who then shared it to Snapchat, a popular social platform among teenagers. Now there is much speculation about whether or not Tovonna, who shot herself in the head actually killed herself because of the incident or because she had deeper issues. In the end, it doesn’t matter at all. She is no longer here but those images of her naked body still linger on the web, or in screenshots.  It’s, for this reason, I offer this advice to parents:   Be all up in your child’s business at all costs!

They won’t like it, as a matter of fact, they’ll be pissed off, but it is your right and it is your duty. If your child has an account on any social media platform, then you need one too! I allowed my son at 14 to have a Facebook account on the condition that he friended me.  Then I friended some of his friends. So easily they accepted my requests, and many those that didn't accept my request had accounts which weren’t private so I could snoop as needed. I remember one day, I had to intervene when I saw that one of my son’s white friends referred to him as “nigga” casually.  I checked him quickly with a comment ordering he removes it immediately and then later had a follow discussion about it. 

  If he ever used my computer and didn’t sign out, I would go Facebook through his messages.  When I saw he hadn't posted a while, I check his friend's pages to see if he created a new page, he had.  When Instagram came about, I followed him and his friends.  I needed to be sure he wasn’t posting pictures with someone’s gun, or puffing weed.  I didn’t want him caught up in the glamour of what he saw on videos, or to follow what he saw others doing. Until he turned 18, he also knew that he was would be subject to a “phone check” at any time. I refused to let my son catch a charge for sexting, so even though we had a discussion about, I still checked for it. Now that he approaches 19, I’m not one bit sorry.  I could have potentially prevented my son from incriminating himself. 

We’d all like to think that we raised our kids right, but the reality is it’s easy for young people to get caught up in the crowd, to join in on what they think is just mere teasing. How easy it is for a careless judgment call on their behalf to have life altering consequences.  That is why I am vehemently for protecting our teens from themselves and others. A couple of years ago one father went into his daughter’s messages to find an older man who started out as friends but quickly began soliciting her for sex. The father set this man up to meet his “daughter”only to show up in a place instead. Thanks to his risky move, that man was arrested.  I, too would go as far as create a fake account to monitor or prove to them how quickly things can escalate.  If we are not hyper vigilant, it can cost us our child’s freedom, safety or even worse their lives. 

I could care less about  children's right advocates or whomever else thinks my child has a right to privacy. I will protect my child as long as they are a child, and I suggest you do the same. It is our responsibility to go so far as to check each other's children , family and friends, after all it takes a village.