[Andrea G]

Yes. My almost 16 yr old (special needs son) has instagram, and only this summer, it was quite helpful for making sure the kids didn't forget about him over the summer, and he's loved it. It's his only social media he has, and it will prolly stay that way.

My 11 yr old son asked for an instagram account in May, I was not on, so I told him I would try it for a week and let him know if I would let him do it or not. Turns out, I loved it and I'm totally into instagram now, and I let him sign up for his a week later. We all have our accounts set to private, so we see who is following all of us. (I can't believe the freaky requests I've had and my boys have had a few, too - eek!)

My kids don't have their own phones. My older boy just uses my iphone or ipad when he asks for instagram, and my 11 yr old saved his money and sold a few things to buy a refurbished ipad mini for his birthday, but he doesn't know the wifi password, and only has internet when we are supervising him.

They are not on it every second, which I'm glad. There are definitely kids that like any pictures we post (no matter what time of day or night) in a matter of seconds after it goes up, everytime. That sorta freaks me out that it appears they are on ::every:: second.

I do make my kids show me everything they want to post, and I have to approve it before they do. I'm not a control freak, just trying to protect my kids and making sure they represent themselves well in this one social media outlet they have. I don't plan to let my kids have facebook. I think it's dying out with the teens, at least around here it is. They all instagram, and ignore their fb accounts.