11 year old acting too old

[Rocco14]

My 11 year old daughter is very mature, both physically and mentally, she is on instagram and I've made sure her account is private and I'm added so I can see what she's posting, I'm not happy with her pouty pictures, one of them makes her look about 18, I don't want her to feel ashamed of her looks but don't know how to talk to her about it, I'm also worried about pics her friends have on there, one of her friends has a pic of her blowing up a condom, Aaarghhhhhh I don't know what to do! If I ban her from social media I'm going to turn her into that wierd kid who didn't have a telly at home, help!!!!

[Dutchess61]

Have no idea why you would allow her to be on instagram.

[TeenAndTween]

Don't allow her on instagram.
Or facebook
and definitely not snapchat.

11yos are not mature enough to use social media safely.

[MrsTerryPratchett]

11 is too young for Instagram. There is a reason it is 13 age limited. And that is too young as far as I am concerned.

[MsJamieFraser]

you have one choice really and that's to stop her from being on Instragram. You cannot control what her friends post

[Mishaps]

I agree. Bin it.

[CocktailQueen]

Today dd received a dm on Instagram from a boy asking for a 'photo of her tits.' She is 12.

Delete Instagram.

[Notcontent]

Agree with the other posters.

Also, where is she getting these ideas from? Does she have older friends?

[Rocco14]

Well everyone her age that I know use it, including much more strict friends of mine, She's not on Facebook or Snapchat

[Fanfeck]

Get rid of it asap

[coffeeisnectar]

I agree that she needs to be rid of Instagram until she's older.

Talk to her. Tell her that she's 11 and that she's not mature enough to be coping with the perils of the internet and peer pressure at her age.

Where on earth did her friend get a condom from? I'd be worrying about her friendship group as well if this person is the same age and at her school.

Have you had the 'not everyone is who they say there are online' chat? Because you need to. And you need to explain that nothing is private online. That whatever she posts will be there forever. And she can't stop things being copied or shared and if she even posts one photo she regrets it will haunt her.

[MrsTerryPratchett]

Well my SIL's 11 yo DD is now banned because her friend was posting bikini pictures publicly. So you can parent according to 'everyone does it' or make your own decisions.

[AnyFucker]

Who is the grown up here ?

[Titsywoo]

My 11 year old is not on Instagram although I know some of the 9 year olds in my DS's class are on it. I won't allow it and think the parents who do are pretty naive to the realities of social media to be honest. DD has a mobile for texting, calling and a few apps. She can contact her friends using that - photos on the internet are not necessary.

[mudandmayhem01]

My 12 year old isn't on instagram, she asked me and I said no. She hasn't become a social pariah. One friend isn't allowed a smartphone yet, they all take turns at dinner time to let the phoneless girl catch up/ play games. Don't automatically believe that every child has everything and is allowed to do everything!

[Rocco14]

Oh wow !! I thought I was in the middle ground of strictness, I feel like a completely irresponsible parent now after seeing all these responses!

[ForTheSakeOfFuck]

In the strongest possible terms, please get her off it. It takes minutes - literally minutes - for things to go irreversibly wrong on platforms like that. As part of my job I deal with online predation. In the last case I dealt with the child tried to commit suicide after being coerced into sending revealing material. She was 12 and from the time of receiving the first message to sending the first compromising picture, it was under ten minutes. Please get her off it immediately.

[MattDillonsPants]

OP don't feel bad. A lot of girls in my 11 year old DDs old class were on Instagram but not ALL. DD luckily had no interest....she said the odd thing was that many of these girls thought that Facebook was the very devil but Instagram was fine.

[MattDillonsPants]

Itsme I agree with you there but really...when you combine peer pressure with hormones then they'll often do silly things. Why not remove the opportunity until they are mature enough.

[NewLife4Me]

It's a nightmare.
Everytime I delete it, dd will just open another account.
All her friends are on it at school and it creates all kinds of problems.
I know the easy thing to do is remove the phone but that's impossible.
You can't control what others post and we have had another message from school today where dd and another had been involved in inappropriate language.
I'm not sure that teaching safeguarding helps that much tbh, they aren't mature enough to be responsible for their actions or see long term consequences.

[MrsTerryPratchett]

Or, alternatively you teach safeguarding and monitor their use. But like everything else, tweens can be foolish, naive or just plain contrary.

[MattDillonsPants]

NewLife what would happen if you just removed her device? That's what I'd do if school emailed me to say inappropriate language had been used.

[Brokenbiscuit]

My dd is nearly 11, most of her friends are 11 already. I'd say that most of the girls in her class are on Instagram, but definitely not all.

I guess I'm lucky as dd doesn't actually want it. She says the other kids just argue about it all the time in school, and often argue online as well, so she can't see the point. If she did want it, I wouldn't allow it anyway - she is too young.

It hasn't affected her friendships one jot. She has always been a very popular kid and she remains so. I'm sure there will come a time when she does want social media, but hopefully not for a while.

If I did let her have an account, id be pulling it pretty quickly if I didn't like what she was posting. Your child is very young, OP. If she is posting stuff that you don't feel is appropriate, then she is proving that she doesn't yet have the judgement that she needs to use this kind of media sensibly.