By now I am sure you are aware of the pending legislation, due to come into effect in December this year, precluding all children under the age of 16 from holding a social media account. The current plan by the government – though not without some contention – is to include YouTube in the mix. Perhaps you might have seen some media clips, TV articles, or heard radio discussions on this topic. Our college has featured in a number of these, and I have given interviews to many media outlets on the topic. More than one hundred of our students were engaged in the age-assurance technology trial various forms of identification were put to the test, including facial recognition software.

Regardless of one’s personal views on the subject, the fact remains that families will have a task ahead of them in navigating their child’s responses to this new legislation. For some students, it will mean very little. However, for many teens especially, it may come with some sense of loss, and even grief. My estimation is that some adolescents may feel that their connection, communication, and some forms of social outlet have been unfairly ripped from them. Perhaps for some students it may well be accompanied by a sense of anxiety.

I raise this now, months ahead of the December deadline, to gently suggest that the time to start planning for and discussing with your children what this will mean for them, is now. It might be instructive to have conversations about some of the following:

1. How we connect with (and feel connected to) our peers other than through social media.
2. What other forms of social outlet might be employed in real time, with real people.
3. If it is not part of your family routine, re-establishing a dinner time routine with all family members at the dinner table, which is a phone-free zone.
4. Encouragement of outdoor activities including sports, running, walking, a trip to the park, bike riding and so on.
5. Inviting children/adolescents to play board games, cards, play a musical instrument.
6. Becoming a “joiner” – join a group of some sort in the community, including volunteering. Vinnies is always looking for volunteers either in-store or in the warehouse.
7. Managing those times where we feel the “loss” of opportunity that social media presented. For a small number of young people, this could look like withdrawal from an addictive substance.
8. The ways in which some young people may attempt to subvert or circumvent the legislation. Adolescents are creative and industrious!

No doubt there will be teething issues with the legislation, and I accept that for many young people, they use social media as a form of communication and even as a pastime. If we can encourage and build alternatives now, it may smooth the way somewhat come December. Understanding our chidren’s online behaviour, including the number of hours they spend engaging with social media may go some way to getting an insight into the degree to which this will be an issue, or not, for your child.

Sustaining, life-giving relationships, are always best served through getting to know someone over time, in real time, and in real life. If we think of our own friendship groups as adults, these are mostly nourished by wasting time with each other, investing in the lives of the other, and holding a genuine concern and interest in what happens to them. Online encounters will never trump this.

Again, this year, we have invited Dr Justin Coulson to visit our school to work with our students and to provide a parent session on resilience. I have no doubt the issue of social media and technology use will form part of the discussion on the night. The date is Thursday 4 September at 5.00pm. A date claimer has already been sent out through our socials. I know that parents really appreciated the evening we provided with Dr Coulson last year.