Staying Sane While Raising Your Teens

How Do You Protect Your Gang Connected Kid?

April 12, 2018 at 9:46 am 4 comments

“I would talk to her, take her phone and try to keep her away from it, but it was hard,” said Brown, who believed her daughter was trying to protect herself from people who had targeted her. “You got to put up a tough front. I knew she was scared. She was scared all the time.” 

My heart goes out to this mom as she explains what she did to protect her daughter from gang members, yet in the end, her daughter was still targeted and killed.

I’m reading this article in the Chicago Tribune and thinking about the influence that social media plays in the lives of our kids. Cell phones were important when my children were tweens and teens, but I would confiscate my older child’s phone at night or let her minutes run out. If the minutes ran out before the month was over, her phone didn’t work. Unfortunately there are many cell phone packages and providers, so paying for minutes is no longer an issue.

Kids now take to their social media pages to rant and emote (about pretty much everything). There is no difference between kids who are in or connected to gang members and social media and those who aren’t except for the retaliative violence that they tell their followers they are planning. If I lose a friend or family member to gun violence, I go on Twitter, Facebook or Snapchat and talk about what I plan to do. It’s a form of empowerment that gives our children a feeling of control and power.

The question is, as a parent, how do you manage this type of child? How do you keep them safe and help them feel empowered to make a positive difference? Maybe you send them to live with your family members in other cities where they can go to school and grow into adults.

That could work if you have family members living somewhere else and your displaced kids stay off of social media. These are two big questions and I don’t have the answers. Let’s start a online dialogue and figure out how to save our children.

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C. Lynn Williams, #MsParentguru

Family Dynamics Strategist, Author & Speaker

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Entry filed under: #MsParentguru, adolescents, boys, brother, daughter, Parenting, son, sons, support. Tags: Chicago Tribune, conflict resolution, emotional trauma, fear, gang members, hurt, retaliation, social media, violence.