Make your kid's first social accounts private together in 5 min

When your kid finally joins social media, treat the setup like a driving test: they don't take it alone, and nobody skips the safety briefing. Sit down together and do the 5-minute private-first check. It lands differently when it's a team ritual instead of a punishment.

Start with the switch that matters most: flip the account to private on day one, on every app. A mom named Daniela, whose high school freshman kept his posts public, found that strangers — people he didn't even know — could reply to his posts and videos. After she and her son attended a PTA Connected safety session, they learned to restrict post comments to trusted connections and switch on automated screen-time reminders. Programs like that one work: 95% of participating families said they were more likely to use safety and privacy tools afterward.

Why does a five-minute job matter so much? Because the numbers are rough. Pew Research found that 48% of teens say social media has a mostly negative effect on people their age — up from 32% in 2022 — and 45% say they spend too much time on it, up from 36%. The U.S. Surgeon General's advisory warns that kids who spend more than 3 hours a day on social media face double the risk of mental health problems, including symptoms of depression and anxiety.

So here is the checklist, done side by side:

1. Private on. Flip every account to private before the first post goes up.
2. Comments and DMs to people they know only. No strangers messaging or commenting.
3. One-hour reminder on. Set the app's built-in screen-time alert together.
4. A monthly check-in. Agree you'll redo these three steps together every month — the way you'd retake a driving test.

Kids don't remember the lecture. They remember that you sat next to them and locked the doors together.