How to keep kids safer online

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The real spooky season is…flu season. We’ll take ghosts and goblins over the incessant sniffles and nurse’s office visits any day. But flu season is upon us, even if we’re dreading it. And those kids we adore? They’re practically petri dishes for all sorts of icky sickness.

Want to keep the family healthy this time of year? Keep reading for a doctor’s survival kit to fend off the flu. Goodness knows we all need it!

Meta Makes Instagram Safer for Teens

Normally, the headlines about social media and teens are scary. But we come bearing some promising news today! 

Meta, parent company of our beloved Instagram, has announced a new IG feature that aims to keep kids and teens safer online. Here are the details →

• As of yesterday, all teenage users in the US, Canada, the UK, and Australia are separated into two groups: ages 13–15 and ages 16–17.

• The younger group has stricter guidelines, but the goal for both groups is the same: to limit time spent on the app and enact appropriate supervision.

Some of the changes? All teens’ accounts will now require parental consent for certain actions, parents will get a glimpse into who their kids are messaging on IG, teens will be able to curate their feeds so they can see content they’re actually interested in instead of what the algorithm wants them to see, and sleep modes and reminders to log off after a certain amount of time will become automatic.

While this certainly won’t be a magic fix-it for the harms of growing up in the digital era, it’s a step in the right direction. Banning our kids from all social media isn’t really realistic. But these new features allow for some solid compromise. 

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Reclaim Your Calm

That’s a Wrap on Energy Drinks for Teens

Energy drinks are all the rage right now for kids. We get it: Chugging overly caffeinated, sugary drinks is a rite of passage as a teen. But it might be time to put the lids back on these types of beverages…permanently.

Here’s why: In 2023, the number of calls to poison centers in the US regarding children consuming energy drinks increased by a whopping 20%.

These drinks have tons of caffeine—way more than soda. Kids and teens simply aren’t built to consume large quantities of such a potent substance. The symptoms of a caffeine overdose are scary, too—heart palpitations, increased blood pressure, and in severe cases, seizures or cardiac arrest. The American Academy of Pediatrics and the FDA both strongly recommend that kids and teens don’t consume energy drinks of any kind. 

Our POV? There’s no sense in risking it. Our kids will eventually forgive us for depriving them of cotton candy flavored jet fuel.

Big Win for Girls Sports!

We love this. Pennsylvania has officially declared girls’ flag football a sanctioned high school sport. Hell yes! That’s a huge win for young female athletes everywhere. Pennsylvania is the 13th state in the US to enact this measure, and it’s only the beginning. Flag football for girls is growing rapidly in popularity.

And that’s so encouraging. Because now more than ever before, teenage girls have female athletes to look up to as role models, specifically women who play very physical sports that are normally deemed “masculine.” Just look at rugby Olympian Ilona Maher. Strength is feminine. The future of sports is female. And we are SO here for it!

So much of being a parent to a teenager means not understanding a word your kids are saying. We covered that with skibdi toilet last week, but apparently that only scratches the surface. Here are the perfect recs to get up to speed on your kids’ unintelligible vocab.

• “Skill issue” is yet another burn our kids are using against us without our knowledge

• This dad and daughter are doing us all a favor by translating the other language our youths are speaking

• A hilarious (but pretty spot on) take on what it’s like trying to relate to our kids

• A full list of all the teen slang you need to know to keep up with your kids

P.S. Want that doctor’s survival kit to fend off the flu we mentioned before? Look no further.