Help Your Child Deal with Being Unfriended on Facebook

A recent study from the University of Colorado indicates that people who are unfriended on Facebook take the rejection much harder than one might expect. They may feel depression, rejection and a loss of self-esteem. According to the study, forty percent or more of the men and women surveyed indicated they would avoid a person in real life if that person unfriended them online, and women were more likely to avoid contact after a Facebook split.

The University of Colorado study didn’t focus on children or teens, but as parents know, kids often have a harder time dealing with rejection than their adult counterparts. Online rejection can be just as hard to take as a rebuff in person, especially if it comes from someone you still have to see every day in the classroom or at an extracurricular activity. If your child has been unfriended on Facebook, and is having a hard time dealing with the situation, here are some ways to help.

Examine the relationship

Was the person who unfriended your child a close friend in real life, or just a casual acquaintance? Talk with your child about how important the relationship was to them, and whether they think they can still be friends offline. If the relationship was close, you might encourage your child to talk to their friend in person and find out why they chose to end the friendship online. If the relationship was casual, it may be much easier to just accept the situation and move forward.

Take a look at your child’s posts

If your child has been unfriended online by someone they usually get along with in real life, the reason may have more to do with what they are choosing to post than with the friendship itself. According to the author of the University of Colorado study, people are most often unfriended on Facebook because they make frequent boring or mundane status updates, polarizing comments or inappropriate posts.

Going over your child’s recent posts with them may help to reveal clues about why they have been unfriended, especially if several people have removed them from their friend list. You can help correct annoying online behaviors and teach your child good Facebook manners if needed.

Teach your child to move forward

Sometimes people will unfriend kids with no good reason, or even for a particularly bad reason. Online bullying is a big problem, and ostracizing kids by unfriending them and convincing others to do the same does happen.

In the end, everyone has the right to choose who they will or will not associate with online and in person. If your child has been unfriended, there may be no way for them to repair the relationship and their only choice is to learn from the experience and move forward. You can help them to accept things as they are by letting them know the same thing happens to everyone eventually, and that new friends will come to fill the places of those who’ve gone.

Rethink Facebook entirely

If your child is having a really hard time dealing with being unfriended on Facebook, or otherwise handling online relationships with friends, perhaps it is time to rethink the whole thing, at least for a while.

Facebook rules state that only people age 13 and older may have a Facebook account, but many people much younger are on the social networking site. Dealing successfully with interpersonal relationships online requires maturity that even many adults do not possess. If your child is under 13, or even if they are a teen and just not emotionally ready for online interaction, shut down their access and reevaluate later.

More by Tavia:

Webkinz Uses Social Media to Hook Entire Families
Moms Earn Cash Through Facebook Garage Sales
Help Your Child Make Friends at School

Reference:

• voices.yahoo.com/webkinz-uses-social-media-hook-entire-families-11405332.html
• voices.yahoo.com/moms-earn-cash-through-facebook-garage-sales-11193334.html
• voices.yahoo.com/help-child-friends-school-11728446.html