The Internet is Forever

Validation, approval and acceptance matter to kids like golf handicaps, New Balance shoes, and only flipping a burger patty once matter to dads. It’s always been this way. But our competition used to be the twenty-some-odd kids in our class. Now, kids measure themselves against likes, follows, shares and whatever else the internet has invented to keep score.

I didn’t get invited to a lot of events as a kid, but unless I overheard playground conversations, I didn’t know what I was missing. Kids now KNOW. There’s usually video. And when attention is currency, being outrageous can turn into the vault full of gold coins Scrooge McDuck used to swim in.

I’m lucky. “No” has been a perfectly acceptable two-letter answer to social media access in our house. 

Still, my kids watch streamers and MrBeast. The attention economy finds a way in. So we talk. About what they watch. About why phones have limits. About why home should be a safe place to land when the outside world gets loud.

They either pick up what I’m putting down or know how to nod and “uh-huh” until I lose momentum.

But rules are only part of it. Values are what we hope they’ll reach for when we’re not there to referee.

Be honest. Treat people well. Take responsibility. Know the difference between being silly and being cruel. Your worth doesn’t depend on an audience, and someone liking you isn’t worth doing something you know is wrong.

Those lessons need practice, including watching us live them. We can’t preach kindness and then humiliate someone for a laugh. I’m not a perfect parent. Not by a long shot. But I want my kids to know they can say no, walk away, or call me, even when they’ve already made a poor choice.

Someone will put your kid on the spot. Hopefully, it’s eating a chocolate-covered cricket. It could be something dangerous, illegal or filmed at someone else’s expense. And the internet is forever. We won’t control every choice. But the conversations we have now can give them something solid to stand on when fitting in means stepping over a line.

Their favourite YouTuber is already talking to them. Let’s make sure we are, too. 

 

 

Jeremy McCall is a married father of 3, a social services case manager, and known as “The Dadfather”, being the founder and Past President of Dad Club London.