“Beware of the Crocodiles:” A Fable to Teach Kids About Social Media Safety

Imagine for a moment that you are a thirsty little bird.  Paint the picture in your mind. Can you see your little bird self? To quench your parched little bird throat, you hop, hop, hop to the nearest water hole.  You never consider whether the water is clean, or whether there are bird eaters around. All you know is that you need a drink.  After all, you are just thirsty. Who would want to hurt a nice little bird like you?

You don’t see any harm in hopping about that river. Peck. Peck. You dip your beek in for a sip. But is it safe? Nope. There are hidden dangers.  This river is full of leeches and slime and ugly mud. Yuck! Worst of all, it’s full of crocodiles, just waiting for nice little birds to come for a drink.

Now, think for a moment about social media and all the ways that you use social media to stay connected to your friends or to people you hope will be your friends. Social media quenches your “thirst” to fit in. You often feel “parched” for acceptance, just like a little bird that is dying of thirst for a drink.

Don’t let your “thirst” for acceptance keep you from seeing the “crocodiles” in the social media swamp. Crocodiles can be sexual predators pretending to be our friends, or they can be friends and people we know. The danger of social media is that it seems okay to do things you would never do anywhere else:

• Send  or post a revealing picture
• Talk about sex
• Put your “like” on a picture that is clearly stupid
• Slam someone with a put down

Somehow, in the impersonal muddy waters of social media it seems okay, and more than that, you are so thirsty for that “drink of approval” that you don’t really think about what you are doing.  That is, until you realize that there are “crocodiles” and you’ve gone way farther into the mud than you thought! When that happens, you feel ashamed and embarrassed.

Be a wise little bird.  Don’t share anything on social media you wouldn’t want your mother or a favorite teacher to see. If you have shared something on social media and you are feeling scared to tell someone, its time to ask for help. “Tweet Tweet!”

Here’s a post to arm you with knowledge about social media “crocodiles.”