Teens grades dropping because of social media?

[Cheyenne]

I am the parent of two teenagers, one boy and one girl. My daughter just turned 17 and we have just had ANOTHER argument over her use of social media. The problem is that she is on it for hours and hours and hours, into the wee hours of the morning. She is an honors student, her GPA last year was a 4.17, due to AP classes, etc. She used to belong to the MUN (Model United Nations) club, went to UCLA to represent her school, was president of other clubs, but now it seems her grades are dropping, and it feels like I cannot make her see the connection between her overuse of social media, and her slipping grades. She had aspirations of becoming a dentist, but honestly, I do not see how she can possibly go on like this. Everytime I talk to her about such and such class that has a low grade, I get some excuse. Tonite I took all of her electronic devices away from her. She used to spend hours and hours doing research and homework, but not anymore. What advice can anyone give me?
Thank you.

[Sandy]

You did the exact thing you needed to do, which was take away all her tech toys. Tell her she'll get them back when her grades go back up. DO NOT YIELD! This is good parenting.

[Austin]

what you could do is drop the data plan on her cell phone and if you have wifi usually you can type your IP address into the address bar and a box will show up asking you to login the default username is usually admin same as the password and you can block those social media websites such as facebook and twitter and so the only way to gain access is to enter in a password that you created

[Adam]

Good parenting... really? It is not my place to tell you how to discipline your children, but what I can tell you is that you just became a prison guard and not her mother. As hormones progress to dangerous levels, her cognitive behaviors are just not peaking in development. Irrational thoughts will take control. Good parenting my ass. Something is wrong with her. Now many parents this generation are having trouble understanding what the hell is going on with their kids; this is normal. I agree on the revoking electronics and whatnot, but not as punishment. Think about this for a second. Her grades were above par, her life expectations were beyond par, and then there was a change of sorts and now it is nothing, but social media I bet; am I right? She may be experiencing some form of bullying or social deviance. It you are lucky it is probably some idiot she likes at school that doesn't like her, as I bet with her being an honor student; his loss. A more serious matter could be drugs or alcohol. Before you conduct a full scale interrogation understand there is reason behind everything and why it happened. Instead of returning her gadgets and crap when her grades come back up, use this as a bargaining chip for information. Sit down with her, take her out to dinner one on one, anything really. Your goal is to show her that your are her mother, not a parent if that makes sense. Only you know how to conduct this interview so the questions are up to you, but you goal is to find out what went wrong and understand that sometimes your support is the only thing you can do to help, but this hell will not last forever and depending on how things are conducted depends on the outcome of who your baby will grow up to be. Now if I am wrong then I am sorry and I am an idiot.. but I am pretty sure that she needs her mom most at this point in her life. I work for a military contractor over seas specializing in procurement and coercion. I have captured, interviewed, and broken some nasty ass terrorist shit, but in all honesty; high school was the hardest time in my life and all I really wanted was my mom to understand and just be there for me.

[Jay]

Instead of taking away what seems like the problem, why not seek the source of the problem? Maybe she feels lonely and needs the feeling of being connected to some people 24/7. Maybe shes getting caught up with joking with friends/gossip, etc.

Talk to her about priorities, cause seems like the source here.Thats usually the problem with kids because part of being a kid is having messed up priorities. Tell her something like I dont care how much youre on social media, but if your grades are slipping its my job to make sure you catch up so thats why im taking it all away. Try and get her to understand what she should prioritize, and if she truly understands I guarantee she'll stop