The previous title of this was going to be “When The Social Media Warriors Start To Howl, We All Need To Think” because of a recent flare up of socialmediaitis around our little piece of heaven. But, it’s more than that. It’s more than the social media warriors wading into battle, their keyboards blazing. It’s more than them trying to make the world a better place, one judgment, one obnoxious, profanity-laced, punctuation deficit comment at a time.

#IdlovetostopherebutIcannot

No, it’s also the adults, the parent, when pressed into a situation, who lashes out. The adult who SHOULD know better than to respond to the above nonsense, but does anyway. The parent who fired off Facebook post, talking about how the world should change for little Jimmy because he couldn’t make the football team. The parent who shoots off on social media about how poor little Jane is feeling so wronged about how the teacher didn’t pick her to be class line leader.

#justgettingstarted

And my favorite, when the parent, calls out a teacher or administrator for something without fact-checking! Then, after our social media warriors go to work, they get their social media army all fired up all with them! Comments like, “You go, mama bear,” and “No one messes with your baby,” and “You tell them!”

#ugh #pleasestop

As we try to help our students navigate what it means to use social media and try to help them avoid the pitfalls, perhaps we could offer that same class for our parents.

The class offering could include:

  • “Please Stop – A Guide to Over Sharing Your Life”
  • “You Did What?? – Step by Step Tutorial to Calling Out Your Ex On Facebook”
  • “My Kid is Perfect! – A Book of Words Dealing With Perfect”
  • “Parent First Aid – 5 Simples Steps to Protect Your Child While Trashing Everyone Else”

Yes, this post is dripping with sarcasm, but we’ve had the Social Media Warrior and the Happy Band of Keyboarders all in force a few times this year.

Please, we teach our kids to think before they send. Why can’t that expectation be the same for those who parent them?

As I said to one of my grade partners today:

“Don’t ask questions for which you don’t want the answers!”

#Pleasethinkbeforeyoupost