Dinner Dialogues: The 13 Year Old Wants Instagram

Ahhhh, social media! The bane of my existence with my children! The 13 year old is pitching his reasons why he wants Instagram! We let his sister get Snapchat when she was 13 and if we could rewind, we would NOT have allowed that for at least a couple years later!  

So now Hunter is trying to convince us why he wants IG.  There are very clear reasons why as you will hear in this episode. Adding social media comes with a host of problems such as; more time spent on the screen, arguing about screen time, posting, strangers, fake crap, social pressures, and many more issues.  As Mark and I navigate this discussion, we work on keeping it real and light with low reactivity. However you can tell at the end of the conversation, Hunter is not thrilled with the outcome.  Since we did not receive clear reasons why we did not say "yes", he was not happy about it.  

We even added some teen slang into the conversation to keep it fun and light.

Do you think there were some clear, good reasons as to why Hunter should get IG? Tell us why or why not and how have you navigated these conversations with your teens?

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Transcript

*AI Transcribed*

00:01
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00:15
Hello and welcome to Navigating Joy Together. My name is Lauren and I'm here with my family. Mark. Addison. Hunter and our dog Onnit. Each episode you will hear about our experiences with navigating joy together in our family, as well as tips you can bring back to your family. Thanks for spending time with us. Now let's get to it.

00:48
Hello everybody and welcome back to Navigating Joy Together. Before we get to this week's episode, I just wanted to give you a couple of reminders. If you are looking for a research-based strategy to encourage meaningful conversations with your children, I want you to check out Drive-A-Log. The mission of Drive-A-Log is to provide a vehicle for families across the country to have meaningful and brave conversations. You can order these decks of cars online.

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02:08
We've used them and it's just created wonderful conversations while we were driving. You can also get a 20% discount if you put in NJT in the coupon code box. I'd love to hear what your thoughts are about them and how it works for you. The other thing I wanted to just remind you, if you haven't checked out my book that I wrote, it's on Amazon. It's a memoir called My Dad.

02:33
died of ALS and how I found Joy 30 years later. And it's just my story about my dad being diagnosed with ALS when I was in eighth grade and the four years that followed up until his death and even how life transpired since his death, which has been over 30 years. It's affected me in many ways. And one thing I did learn.

02:54
is that we can still find joy in suffering and in grief. And it took me a while to really find that true joy. And I talk about that in the book. So go and get it, share it with one person, just one person you know who might be struggling with something or has a family member who may have an illness or a terminal illness. There is some value in there. And I would love and be grateful if you...

03:18
checked it out and you shared it with one person. I know that it will impact other people and give them some hope. The link to the book you can also find in the show notes as well. All right, now we will head over to this week's episode. This week on the Raymond Dinner Table Talk, we are talking about the want for Instagram. Hunter brings up his reasons of why he wants Instagram and we talk a little bit about that. And

03:48
Maybe we come to a decision, maybe not. So you gotta listen to the show to see what happens. I want Instagram approved. Thank you. That's it. We're in the order.

04:01
So you want Instagram? Yes. So the other day this conversation started and he said that Facebook is for old people. Well, I said that. Oh, she said Facebook is for old people. And Hunter who is 13 is now almost 40 convince us to let him get Instagram. In six more months. Hmm.

04:30
So cute! Yeah, it doesn't even affect you, Dad. You have to tell us more than just, I want Instagram. Oh, okay. Let's go over those reasons again. First of all, one of my friends...

04:45
I'm not going to say that would be rude. You know, you guys know who? Which of my friends have it? Some, very surprisingly, they have it. It's a good way to, you know, awesome. It's a good way to, you know, awesome? Yes, like, really cool. Excuse me, I have an argument for him. Oh, thank you. Can I say my argument? Yes, go. He could be asking for three apps.

05:14
In my opinion, he'd ask them for the better one. Yes. The three outs are Snapchat, TikTok, and Instagram. Now you see, TikTok, that's a no-no. It's getting banned anyway. Snapchat, you guys don't want it to have it. It's been clear already. Instagram, it's just so much better. I don't see any harm in that one. I agree. All I see is skiing and fishing and seeing those big boy games. They are speechless. They are looking at each other.

05:44
They don't know what to say. I don't think I've been convinced, so... How have you not been convinced? What are you looking for? I want clear reasons as to why you want to see... Clear reason! All my friends have! All of them? All of them. So if I called all the parents... No! Most of them! Okay, just ignore me. Well, she compares me to my friends all the time. I am not comparing you to your friends.

06:12
And that was mean That's not true. Yeah, well Watch it. I'm saying no right now There's been absolutely nothing presented by you. It makes me even slightly sweet. Okay. Okay Let's almost stop you know, but fly and not to me to out there fine But you better come with some reasoning some wise

06:43
expectation, you know, as soon as even if you sell us on a really good proposal, you know, first question is going to be, how much time do you think is too much? Now we're going to have that answer all weaved into this thing. So if you need to take 30 seconds, go click your thoughts. You can, but like.

07:01
Let's sell it. Facts. No, no, I'm ready. Okay, Instagram is a very cool place. It's not like the, like, immature take-tokens, whatnot, you know? It's a cool place where you can connect with your friend. Send them funny videos. Like, you've seen the cameras dog videos, ads and has. Those are just too funny to pass up. You know, we, we, you know, when, when a lot of your friends have this and like,

07:31
There can be times where you feel left out, you know, and you can't do anything about it because You're left out and you don't have it No, and it would be a great way for me to learn too because Mommy, I totally disagree with this because you despise every single thing about the internet. But You know, there is some i've seen luke ral. You know He has some very informative fishing videos

08:00
in those hunting videos and ham what

08:06
Dad's in trouble. He's making background noise.

08:12
Yeah, Hunter started. OK. What did you say about you and your friends? This is a way for you to connect. What's wrong with the texting that you guys do all the time? Well, this is like more advanced than texting, you know? It's like, how do you how do you think of Facebook, Mom? Why do I think of Facebook? I mean, what do I think of Facebook? There's parts of it I like and parts of it I don't like. And I do post Instagram is the parts you do like.

08:41
I'm not even gonna post. There are parts of Instagram I like and there are parts I do not like. Well, let's ignore those. May I ask that you don't like? I feel like, yeah, what do I not like about Instagram? I feel like there's a lot of...

09:03
There's a, there's a perception out there and I am, I am not calling the kettle black. It was the same on the kettle black. Cause I probably do the same thing if you look at my posts, but social media tends to, it doesn't matter what app you have, tends to show all the wonderful things about life, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but it does create competition with people. It does.

09:34
People do feel left out of certain things, especially with teens, because they see their friends posting a lot of stuff and you've experienced that. You experienced something very similar a while back where your friends were posting something and they were out somewhere and you weren't even to go. You didn't know about it. You're very upset. Now my friends actually post anything. I think Luke, Raleigh's posted.

10:03
I know, Sam's made me post one skiing video of him doing tricks, but you know what, my friend, that's just like, it's not how we're like, and we like, they literally don't post. Then why do you want Instagram if they don't, if your friends don't post? Because, there's no, I don't know, I didn't want it for the posting part, you know? But that's what you do on Instagram is you post, so Instagram, people use it to post pictures of things, they post pictures about their life.

10:32
They post pictures and reels about their life and what they're doing. They're basically putting out to the world everything they do in their life. Right. And so to show it off to the world and you might start off being friends with just your friends, but it tends to just grow. And all of a sudden there's people from who knows where that you don't even know that are watching you in your life and doing things, you know, people are getting an insight of your life. So.

11:01
The purpose of Instagram is to post, right? To post for other people. So if you're not posting, not sure what the purpose of having that app is. I have a question. Why would we want him to get Instagram?

11:15
I love how dad's staring and you have to ask, you don't answer that. I do. I think it's, I think 13 is too young. I would not have given you social media at 13. If I could go back. Well, in fact, I'm going to give me Instagram, Snapchat. No, I like the legal age. That's the age the app suggests. It's not necessarily the most beneficial age for young teens. There's a lot of research out there that talks about.

11:43
the negative benefits of teens having social media at that age and the suggestion, not among the apps, but the suggestions in the parent world and psychologist world is 16 where kids can start handling all the different aspects of these apps because there's positive aspects and there's negative aspects. Yeah, but like.

12:11
What is social media gonna do to me that would be bad? It's a good question. All that stuff you just talked about, like the bad reasons is because of some of the stuff teams do when they get that, but you know, that's not why I want social media.

12:33
What do you think is, Addison, do you have an idea what you think the bad things are about social media? Is that what you asked me? What do I think is going to happen to you that's bad? Well, there's definitely an addiction factor that's a concern. You don't need the marshmallows right now.

12:59
How many times do people tell me in this house they don't have time to read? But yet if we added up how much time they're visiting certain apps, I bet we can find 30 minutes. I don't have time to read at night and I'm going to go to a game for at least 30 minutes. I hate you. I'm just trying to say, you're right. Let's have a real conversation. I appreciate it. Oh, no. I'm going to fill out some data.

13:27
nothing fits that facts. That's not facts. No, that you definitely don't get aura points for that. No aura points. Aura. Oh my gosh. Save your songs. Anyways, so we currently right now, Hunter, have a, um,

13:53
a what's the word we currently have a block but a argument, argument constantly about screen time on the phone and on the video game up there. So I will need some very clear expectations of how we're managing screen time and the amount of screen time, what that looks like when we're home together as a family. When take another marshmallow.

14:23
When we're home together as a family, because we're home together in a family, we should not be all sitting around on our phones. Okay, then we don't have to. We should be looking after each other. We don't have to.

14:34
I don't see how like this is gonna give it really a effect. My screen time, you can change up things like we don't have to be on stage when we're home. But you know, you two as you know, leaders to us, you know. You told us that we shouldn't read at night. Like what? You never said you shouldn't read at night, I agree. But that is when you read. When at night, mate, no matter what time and room, you know? So I really think...

15:03
And I think it's been proven that when I find a book I read, like, look at this book I bought, like I'm into it and if like I'm trying to get me to read books that like, I'm interested, you know, it's just not going to happen. I wouldn't read a book I'm not interested in either. Great, so we agree. Yeah.

15:25
I'm still not understanding if you're not going to post anything why you want Instagram. I don't know, because my friends have it and you can do cool stuff. Like what? I don't know. No, I don't know. That doesn't even have Instagram. Consent. Oh yeah, Facebook. No, bring this up. Um, let's, let's, this is a truthful table here. Excuse me, I don't know. Oh no. Oh gosh, it's going downhill. That was bad.

15:54
Hunter, you're losing it. I want it together. Yeah, you better tighten up. You need to go to the bathroom. I don't know what ways you guys are going to go. Oh, yeah. That's right. We're going to have less touching grass. That is so not true. That's not going to do anything. That is just going to be like normal. Like, how am I going to feel? I'm going to be arguing for Hunter. He does go skiing pretty much every weekend. Yeah, like literally. You guys will literally have more screen time than me every single day in like.

16:21
You don't believe that every time we check screen time, you are always the highest. You always say always. Yes, you always have like five words in it. And then you'll be like, oh, I'll fix this. A month later, we check it back at nine hours. You know, I I'm just so like, do you remember that my phone's on? Not even tested it, but my phone does not go off. It counts the screen time. Do you know that happens for everyone? You know, all your phones, you know, I have.

16:50
the time I had high school time on skiing days, because I listened to Spotify where I'm singing. You know what? That skiing, that counting screen time. You chose poorly. That was unfortunate. You know, I have an idea. That's kind of like watching, like one of those little biplanes. It's flying along in some bluebird sky and there's a cloud and that's when you hear, choo choo. Pfft.

17:19
Hunter has one week to keep his screen time lower than you and you give him a certain goal for the entire week. And if he keeps that, like from Sunday to Sunday, and if he keeps that, he gets Instagram. No, I have a better idea. Oh, okay. You were technically saying, you think my screen time might be higher with Instagram, right?

17:48
Yeah. Let's make a deal. I get Instagram and then yes, I go a week and we play what? What do you say, compare screen times or whatever? She said before you get Instagram. Yeah, but you think I'll have more screen time. So if I have Instagram and I don't have more screen time, I proved you wrong. Well, we're not to sign about the phone. You never keep track of how much screen time you have when you're sitting on the computer. No. Yeah. Well, that's part of screen time. Well, yeah, we're not talking about that.

18:17
But that is part of the screen time amount. Yeah, but if everything's going to be equal or less, it doesn't really matter. It does, because if you obviously have two hours up there, yeah, then you've had three hours on your phone. I'm not because you think I'm going to have three hours on Instagram, because no, that's not going to happen. Again, though, I still if you're not going to post, I don't know what you're going to do on Instagram. I don't know why my friends do. They send each other stuff. And that's really it.

18:45
You can't send each other stuff. Yes, you can. Well, just through DM, but... DM, yeah, I'm gonna DM them up. Facts! Well, I'm not convinced yet. I think there's more discussion. How are you not convinced? What do you want me to say? Like... I don't know. What is like going and putting it in the wrong direction? Like, what do you think is gonna happen? I'm like, genuinely confused. I'm listening to the listeners up and down right now.

19:14
Wondering how it is that the person who's most against this also prescribed to using Instagram. I'm not 13. I'm a 51 year old adult. She got you. There's a big difference between that. She just does. I don't know what dad thinks, but I've been wondering and all the talking. What is that thing about this?

19:38
I still don't really get what you guys think. I have a feeling I know what this turns into. I'm not even on the stupid thing. And if I think it's going to turn into this few poor 13 year old boys, like to start following like cool lacrosse shots and stupid fart jokes that happened in Millersville, I think it's going to be about that dangerous. And I think it could be something to execute upon. And by the time you can walk in, you do a little selection. Let me see what he's been doing.

20:04
He didn't stupid 13 year old stuff. I guess right these down. You'll think great But if also he breaks into the 14 year olds, I mean, yeah crush him and take it off the phone That's like the only people that like my friends are like followed to that or our friends like Ryder Hutchinson. There's a crazy skier Like it's not like no Well, I cannot make a decision right now. I will think about it Why are you eating a napkin?

20:33
I have to make it more dense. He won't choose it. He folded a napkin and put it in his mouth. He's like, I'm gonna finish up this down. What is there to think about? I'm just gonna frame it up. That also makes a noise. I'm on the fence. Why?

20:55
You can understand why I'm doing this. What do you think? No! Should you get in the studio? No, no, you're not doing this. I am not waiting. What is there to think about? I haven't made a decision yet, because I don't know. Why? What is, what do you don't know? I'm just torn. Tell me what you're torn about, and I will fix it. I'll make you a... Because it just brings a whole world of frustration and anger towards each other. How? And nagging. Well, how do you think I'm going to have frustration towards others?

21:26
You're gonna be frustrated at me when I now you need to get off your phone. I'm not- oh my god. I'm telling you, you think- you think me putting Instagram on my phone is gonna add like five hours. It's not. No, no, no, no, no. I can't make this decision right now. I don't know. And Dad might have to just stay. My gosh, he hasn't said anything. He's not even on your team anymore. He's just that guy that listens. He just listens. Take this off your chest. It's gonna be like carrying another baby around.

21:56
If you just get it off, there's gonna be no way. No way. And I will prove you wrong. And then I can say I told you so. Wow. Until you despair and say, okay, just no, like, I'm burning you with your hours on Snapchat. So no, I'm trying to help you over here. All right, well, I'm telling you, we should do the experiment. Faux, this is to be continued. No, it's not. Stay tuned for the next chapter in It's not I said yet.

22:25
Yeah. No, guys. Who are you? Me? Hi. No. Here. As you could tell, this episode did not end on a complete 100% cheerful note as Hunter was not happy with the outcome of this conversation. And this is what happens sometimes, right? They...

22:50
definitely are not gonna always get what they want right away. And it's all about still trying to keep the anger and reactivity low if possible. When we stopped recording, we just kind of left it at that. And now that this is airing a few weeks later, we still haven't made a decision, but I'd love to hear what you all think. And when did you let your...

23:17
children get social media accounts. You can reach me at lauren at dailyjoy.us, find me on Instagram, Lauren's Daily Joy, or on Facebook, Lauren Goldman-Reymond. Thanks for listening. Did you enjoy your time with us today? If you did, please give us a review on Apple Podcast. Your review will make navigating joy together much more fun, and we would be truly grateful if you would share this with others.

23:45
who you know would gain value from our podcast. Thank you again, and we look forward to sharing our next episode with you in two weeks.

24:45
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