If you set a time limit on a snap, it will disappear after it’s viewed

It depends. However, recipients can take a screenshot of an image using their phones or a third-party screen-capture app. A phone screen-capture will notify the sender that the image was captured. For these reasons, it’s best that teens understand that nothing done online is really temporary.

Before sending a sexy or embarrassing snap of themselves or someone else, it’s important to remember that the picture could circulate the school by tomorrow morning

With a Snapstreaks, two users have snapped back and forth within a 24-hour period for three days in a row. Once you’ve established a streak, special emojis and statistics display next to the streakers’ names to show you how long you’ve maintained a streak. Why do they matter? For one thing, they add to your overall Snapchat score (basically a number that reflects how much you use the app). For another, they can occasionally become the most important thing in a kid’s life. Because of the intense bonds kids can form over social media, they can feel that a Snapstreak is a measure of their friendship, and if they don’t keep it up they’ll let the other person down. Teens have even been known to give friends access to their Snapchat accounts to keep a streak going if they can’t do it themselves (for example, if their phone gets taken away for being online too much). This can lead to feelings of pressure, anxiety, and compulsion, so it’s good to know if your kid has streaks going to get a window into why that selfie might feel really important.

But third-party apps don’t trigger a notification

Snap Map displays your location on a map in real time. Only your Snapchat friends can see where you are. If your friends have opted into Snap Map, you can see their locations, too. (You can turn this off or use it in Ghost Mode, which allows you to see the map but not be seen by others.) Snap Map also features news and events from around the world — for example, a political rally in Nicaragua, which displays as an icon on a map of the world. Kids can submit snaps to the Snap Map, and their name and location could appear on a public map. But the bigger risk with Snap Map is a teen having their location seen by all their friends — since some of their Snapchat contacts may not be real friends. Unless there’s a specific event and it makes it easier for friends to know each other’s location, it’s best to leave Snap Maps off or use it in Ghost Mode.

A story is a collection of moments in the form of pictures and videos that, taken together, create a narrative. (After Snapchat popularized the format, other social media services, including Facebook and Instagram, offered story-creation tools, too.) On Snapchat, stories appear as circles, and when you tap them, they autoplay the pictures or videos the user collected. You can create personal stories that your friends can view for a 24-hour period. Or, if you think your Snap is particularly interesting or newsworthy, you can send it to Our Story. Our Stories are kind of like mini-documentaries of events, holidays, game championships, or other things happening in the world on a particular day. Snaps are curated and compiled by the company. While it’s cool to have your story added to Our Story, it’s also very public, so kids should think carefully before submitting one.

When you sign up, Snapchat gives you your own unique QR code. When you meet a fellow Snapchat user and want to friend each other, you can just take a snap of the other person’s code, and they’re automatically added to your friends list. Because it’s so easy to find friends on Snapchat (depending on your settings) or exchange codes, teens may end up with virtual strangers on their friends list. For a variety of reasons, that can be risky, so it’s best to talk to your teen about when it’s safe to add people.