One Day You'll Thank Me: ZM's Clint Roberts on navigating social media with kids

ZM host Clint Roberts reveals how he navigates social media and his kids. Photo / Supplied

Welcome to season two of the Herald's parenting podcast: One Day You'll Thank Me. Join parents and hosts Jenni Mortimer and Rebecca Haszard as they navigate the challenges and triumphs of parenting today with help from experts and well-known mums and dads from across Aotearoa.

Whether you littered your Bebo account with duckface shots or that picture of your 21st birthday yardy keeps resurfacing, we've all posted things on social media that we've lived to regret. But for parents using Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat and Facebook, how many of us have also posted things about our children that, in hindsight, we shouldn't have?

From influencers who publicly shame their children over wetting their pants to promote products, to parents who have decided to keep their children off social media altogether, navigating what's right for you can be tricky – and ever-changing.

On today's Father's Day episode of ODYTM, ZM Drive Show host and father of two, Clint Roberts, discusses how he navigates posting about his kids on social media – where he has a public following of over 41,000 on Instagram alone.

"I don't know that there's necessarily a rule book for it," says the dad to Tui, 3, and Maggie, 1. "Because nobody's had kids in an era like this before, where social media is so ubiquitous. Yeah, we've had social media for 10, 15 years. But it's sort of omnipresent, so you have to be conscious of it all the time.

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A post shared by Clint Slight Roberts 🖐🏼 (@clintstagramm)

Roberts shares that he has "a bunch of rules for the way I operate" but says "at the same time, I get it wrong. Because everyone gets it wrong."

He recalls a video he posted of one of his daughters "just after she was born doing a really audible bowel movement, on me. Which is funny because I was trying to film a nice video of this cute moment where I'd just given her a bath. And then this happens. And I just happen to catch it on camera.

"I posted it. Very funny. Everybody laughed. About a year on I saw that video and I thought, 'she didn't ask for that'. She is probably in the most vulnerable stage of life there is and I'm ridiculing her for this."

He's since taken the post down, deciding that while it was a funny video to share with family and friends, it didn't need to be "broadcast to however many thousand people are on my page."

In his years as a parent, he's gone back and reviewed posts and says his "filters have changed over time ... It's the kind of stuff where they didn't ask for it. So, you have to be conscious of that."

Roberts also notes that now an algorithm on Instagram reels means they can be seen by people who don't follow you too.

And despite the fact that the radio host is also a paid influencer, Roberts notes that he and his wife Lucy have a rule that their children are not part of any sponsored content as far as negotiations go.

Host Mortimer, whose son Knox is also 3, recalls sharing a cute video with Roberts of her little boy lying in a drawer.

"You told me, 'Don't share that on social media'," remembers Mortimer, to which Roberts replies:

"It's funny to me because I know you and I know you opened the drawer straight away. I know he's not still in that drawer. But somebody who doesn't know you, and out of context, it's a really bad video. You're opening yourself up to criticism and comments and you'd protect your child from that in real life. You have to think about that on social media as well."

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A post shared by Clint Slight Roberts 🖐🏼 (@clintstagramm)

For Roberts, his number one priority as a parent is to protect his children, which was why he chose to not use social media to help sell his house and instead moved his family out prior to utilising his following.

"To have their best interests at heart and to put them before everything that you do. Also, remember the fact that they haven't asked to be part of your social media."

He says, however, that he's conscious of being "overly cautious" too.

"I don't like to live in a state of constant paranoia or fear. But I wouldn't put up things I think would embarrass them in the future. I have, I have put up things that, on reflection, are not fair."

As his girls grow up, Roberts says he has really thought about the point where they will be allowed to have their own phones and access to the internet.

"Will social media be the thing then? I'm looking at BeReal, which is the app to have. And it's almost like anti-social media. It's back to this tiny ecosystem of friends where you share the most mundane, boring s***. It's quite wholesome. But because I'm an overstimulated millennial, I'm like, this is boring. But maybe there's going to be this revolt against [social media]. That would be nice … "

Roberts says while it "really scares" him to think about what the internet might look like by the time Tui and Maggie are old enough to use it, he believes the key to keeping them safe is to raise them with good heads on their shoulders.

"I think if you do your best to raise smart, sensible people, eventually you've got to give them control of their life. If you raise them to understand what's right and wrong and good and bad, hopefully, you're insuring yourself against that …"

• To learn more about how Clint Roberts navigates social media with children, listen to today's episode of One Day You'll Thank Me.

• You can follow the podcast at nzherald.co.nz, iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.