Bari Municipality wants to update parents’ knowledge of social media

With the aim of having better awareness how it impacts their children’s lives

The increasing commonality of social media in our daily lives has also meant a changing way of relating to the world. Nowadays, apart from our regular personas, we also have virtual ones that exist on our social media channels. The thing is the same goes for our children and minors, too, and that might be disconcerting to many parents.

As a solution, the Italian City of Bari is organizing training courses for parents of minors that will introduce them to the newer social networks that continuously come into existence and that are more popular with youngsters than traditional ones, such as Facebook.

It might be a contentious issue but how much virtual privacy should children have?

A study in the USA determined that more than half of the parents are not aware of their children having accounts on Instagram, Snapchat or Twitter in 2018. And that does not even include newer social networks that have blossomed in popularity since then, such as TikTok.

It is highly likely to assume that the situation in Europe is quite similar and parents do not always have the time, resources or even understanding to stay abreast of the online trends that continuously capture the attention of young people.

The free course offered by the City of Bari is called “A gap in the network” and the gap in the title refers to the lack of awareness about the dynamics underlying the relationship with social networks.

“With this new training course, which is added to the citizen training program for parents and teachers, we try to look closely at the world in which our children and teenagers move,” explained the Councilor for Welfare Francesca Bottalico, adding: “to accompany them to know risks and opportunities related to the use of the network, also involving the adults of reference so that they can learn to better understand their children, with their needs and their frailties”.

“It is a way to rethink intra-family dynamics by creating new spaces for sharing experiences that can bring adults and minors closer together, particularly helping the former both to recognize the risk factors linked to the use of the network and to enhance the deepest emotional needs of children. and adolescents”.

The workshop is held online, twice a month, through the Zoom platform and is conducted by a trained psychologist.