Even Olympians Get in Tweet Trouble: 5 Teaching Points for Teens
By GalTime Teen Parenting Expert, Barbara Greenberg, PhD
Even before the Olympics officially began we had some negative fallout due to a tweeting blunder.
Greece's Voula Papachristou , a triple jumper, was expelled after reportedly sending out a tweet that said, "With so many Africans in Greece at least the West Nile mosquitoes will eat homemade food." Ouch.
Greek Olympic officials banned Ms.Papachristou from participation. This comment was seen as racist and was unfortunate for so many reasons.
Related: Girls & Athletics: The Impact of Olympians on Our Girls
Although there may have not been Twitter guidelines in place for athletes, this young athlete's behavior and consequences illustrate some important points for tweeting-happy teens and tweens.
There are several messages to be learned from Ms. Papachristou's behavior.
1. The first is that tweets like the rest of messages delivered electronically are not private.
2. Electronically delivered messages can spread like wildfire in a matter of minutes.
Related: 5 Things Parents Should Know About their Sexting Teens
3. A message intended for one person may end up on the screens of many.
4. You are judged not only by your skills but by the quality of your character which is often reflected in the quality and wording of your electronic messages.
5. Sometimes there will be no time to recover from social media missteps.
Although this is sad for Ms. Papachristou we have here 5 teaching points for our tweens and teens. Please use this opportunity to talk to your kids.
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