{"id":228653,"date":"2024-06-05T20:14:10","date_gmt":"2024-06-05T20:14:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/2024\/06\/05\/why-chrissy-teigen-doesnt-want-her-kids-using-social-media-until-after-high-school\/"},"modified":"2025-06-25T17:17:48","modified_gmt":"2025-06-25T17:17:48","slug":"why-chrissy-teigen-doesnt-want-her-kids-using-social-media-until-after-high-school","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/2024\/06\/05\/why-chrissy-teigen-doesnt-want-her-kids-using-social-media-until-after-high-school\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Chrissy Teigen doesn’t want her kids using social media until after high school"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Chrissy Teigen has 42 million followers on Instagram<\/a>, where she\u2019s known for sharing with vulnerable honesty\u2014especially when it comes to parenting<\/a> her four kids. But thinking about them<\/em> using social media? Not her favorite subject.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI know I absolutely want to delay social media,\u201d Teigen, 38, said Tuesday in New York City onstage at the Digital Parenthood Summit, a daylong event focusing on kids and screens<\/a>, from online safety tool Aura<\/a>. \u201cI would say [first] get through high school. That would be my absolute dream.\u201d<\/p>\n

Teigen was interviewed by media executive Jeffrey Katzenberg, whose WndrCo<\/a> counts Aura in its portfolio. He asked Teigen about her fears around her kids and social media considering her own heavy use of it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know!<\/em> Trust me. That\u2019s the hard thing,\u201d she said, explaining that she feels other technology, in small doses, is fine for her little ones\u2014Luna, 8; Miles, 6; Esti, 1; Wren, 11 months. That includes Duo Lingo for her oldest and YouTube<\/a> episodes of Ms. Rachel<\/a> for Esti.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am into letting them have the freedom because of how much they do on a regular basis outside, activity-wise, and I do think it\u2019s OK to give them that break sometimes,\u201d said Teigen, who dove into her own complicated relationship with the internet, referencing a recent post<\/a> in which she expressed frustrations over being criticized and misunderstood by followers.<\/p>\n

\u201cI always try to live very authentically online, and I was getting to the point where I felt so stifled\u2014every single move I was making was so questioned and my character was being misunderstood,\u201d she said. \u201cNothing I was doing was right and \u2026 I am very hard on myself.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Chrissy
Chrissy Teigen and Jeffrey Katzenberg onstage at the Digital Parenthood Summit.<\/figcaption>

Courtesy of Aura<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

To mentally detox, Teigen says she went on a four-day wellness retreat<\/a>, laughing at herself for embracing \u201cthe hippie-dippy stuff that I used to make fun of before I lived in L.A. Now I\u2019m like, \u2018ooh crystals? Set an intention!\u2019 Now that\u2019s like my whole world, and I really kind of believe in it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Especially when it comes to counterbalancing the effects of media overload.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll I know is the way I have been doing it hasn\u2019t been working out for me\u2014overloading myself with podcasts and television and social media and internet, all to not have to sit in silence where I have this ping-pong game in my head of what\u2019s right, what\u2019s not right, what mistake I made \u2026 It\u2019s a constant battle with myself.\u201d<\/p>\n

Teigen says she\u2019s relied on therapy<\/a> to explore her conflicting feelings around social media\u2014including the love for it that was born out of what she calls \u201ca really unstable childhood\u201d due to moving around a lot, her father working a ton, and her mother leaving the family for a time in her adolescence.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy mom left us when I was 12 years old. I just came home one day, and she wasn\u2019t home anymore. She had moved to Thailand\u201d after falling into a deep depression over both of her parents dying, she said.<\/p>\n

As a result, after Teigen\u2019s father bought her a laptop in sixth grade, \u201cI always searched for love and companionship and friendship through the internet. Being connected online was my stability\u2014it was a very stable, safe place for me, which is so weird because it\u2019s not at all now. But now I find myself searching for that same euphoric feeling that I had being online [then].\u201d<\/p>\n

She even took to message boards to find out information about her changing body as she went through puberty and felt those who answered her \u201cwere my people,\u201d she said. \u201cThat\u2019s a world that just doesn\u2019t exist anymore, so I\u2019m kind of mourning the loss of that kind of connection.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now she\u2019s more fearful of how her kids could be harmed online\u2014and she\u2019s far from alone. According to Aura\u2019s State of the Youth Report<\/a>, just released in partnership with Gallup, 86% of parents express concern about their child\u2019s online safety.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s why one thing she doesn\u2019t want for her kids is for them to see social media and think that \u201ceverybody\u2019s lives are beautiful and perfect and filtered\u201d long before they have \u201cthe brain capacity to understand how fake all this bullshit is.\u201d<\/p>\n

For example, she shared, \u201cI\u2019ve gone to dinner with the most wildly popular people in the world and had the most shitty, uncomfortable time on the planet. But you would see a post about our dinner, and you would think it was the most gorgeous, funny, wonderful, hysterical\u2026 I\u2019m like what? I was at that dinner, and it sucked!\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s why when Teigen does share, she said she feels she has \u201can immense responsibility to be authentic,\u201d especially when it comes to her kids.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do share them a lot\u2014I\u2019m the first person to say it\u2014because in so much of my life I feel that people don\u2019t understand me. But being a mom is where a lot of people understand me,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd that communication with other parents is so important to me that it overrides almost anything else.\u201d<\/p>\n

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