This is a sponsored post but all thoughts are my own.
When our kids are little we know everything that they do. We know what toys they play with, what they had for breakfast, what they watch, and who their friends are. Once they start school though, and aren’t with us all day long, we don’t know as much about every tiny detail of their day. Then, as they head off to middle school and high school, we are privvy to even less. This is the natural progression of things as their peers take on a more important role in their lives.
During those teen years we have to give our children some independence and hope that all those lessons we’ve taught them help direct them in their decision making. Will they mess up and not always make the best choices? Absolutely. That’s just a part of growing up. (I’m sure we can all look back and remember things we wish we could have a do-over of!)
And though they need independence, I think that parent involvement and guidance is still so important. Especially nowadays, with social media and everything else, we have to be actively monitoring our children. As a mom of two tweens I can acknowledge that this is difficult and something I struggle with often. Working, taking care of an infant, the laundry, and all the other things I do on a daily basis means I can’t constantly be looking over my kids’ shoulders. And since we can’t physically be around our teens every second, it’s nice to have a network of friends looking out for our kids- from the parents of their classmates to those friends who see our children out and about in the community at their various activities.
This is where the Little Birdy Community comes in. It’s a web app that helps parents stay informed of their older children’s behaviors through a network of trusted friends, or ‘birdies’ keeping an eye out for their children. A huge part of a parent’s ability to help and guide their children through their teenage years is having the knowledge of the issues they are going through and incidents they are a part of and this app helps parents identify things their children are struggling with so they can have a conversation about them before it’s too late.
A great feature of the app is that it lets trusted friends, who care about the wellbeing of the teens in their lives, anonymously share things with a fellow parent. This anonymity gives them peace of mind to report incidents without fear of delivering hurtful information, a confrontation, or losing a friend. And everything is on a one-on-one basis so birdies do not know of each other’s existence, nor do they see messages sent from other birdies.Â
Here’s how it works: Parents select from 10 behaviors they want to monitor (from bullying to drinking to depression) and then they choose at least 5 trusted friends to be a part of their network. If a parent (birdy) in your network hears or sees something going on with your child they can send a private message to you anonymously without having to worry about how to broach the conversation and what you might think of them.
The app costs $29.99 yearly for the parent who signs up and there is no cost to the birdies they add to their network. Parents can add 5 birdies as part of their plan and it’s an additional 99 cents for each birdy added after the initial five. Parents are not charged until they completely set up their network of trusted birdies.
You can visit LittleBirdyCommunity.com to learn more and use the code: Mybirdy to try the app free for 30 days. I’d love to hear what you think about this app and any other ways you have discovered to keep your tweens and teens safe as they walk into adolescence and experience the world around them. You can chat with me on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook.
