To not let my daughter have TikTok

ordered of

noblegiraffe makes a good point.

My eldest DD in her 20s now and didn't have a smart phone until she was around 14 years old. Her and her peers are turning away from smart phones and she has order a brick phone. She hates them and prefers to use a laptop if need be and tries to limit her tech use as much as possible.

I think some your DC may blame you in the future for being so lax with tech.

There are many more DC with anxiety disorders. My elder DC have friends with anxiety are are glued to tiktok et al...

?SM is mostly a pain in the arse however, it is better for children to learn how to manage this rather than just removing it. I see children who are addicted to their phones and SM often are the ones who have the most restrictions placed on them, rather than a more collaborative learning ie. this is where x leads, is that what you want? Banning everything until an arbitrary age of 16 doesn’t seem very logical to me, it’s not like everything/anything changes at 16.*

That's just not true. The evidence and studies also point to a society that is too reliant on dopamine fuelled apps. The least we can do is try to prevent addiction before the age of 14.

Also disappearing msgs on Snapchat is quite good as it allows you to see if someone has screen recorded or saved a chat. But imo, the wider point is reaching young people how to safely use SM in the first place.

There are plenty of things that are banned or restricted because they can be harmful to children.

Films can be rated as an 18 because they are not suitable for children yet parents are happy for their kids to be exposed to any old toxic shite without restriction?

It’s interesting that parenting today is much more about removing and restricting rather than teaching children how to be responsible and function with the resources (good and bad), available in this current world.

SM is mostly a pain in the arse however, it is better for children to learn how to manage this rather than just removing it. I see children who are addicted to their phones and SM often are the ones who have the most restrictions placed on them, rather than a more collaborative learning ie. this is where x leads, is that what you want? Banning everything until an arbitrary age of 16 doesn’t seem very logical to me, it’s not like everything/anything changes at 16.

TikTok I wouldn’t let a child use - it’s heaving with young women in psychiatric wards - I’m in my 30s, I work in that sector and have lived experience of ill mental health, and find it disturbing at times to see young girls with scars on their faces and marked foreheads discussing anti ligature clothing. Once you’ve watched one video you get 100 more.

Plus it opens you up to bullying - I’ve seen some horrendous comments left on clearly vulnerable users videos.

Banning particular apps makes you look like an out of touch dinosaur to teens sorry - as MesBennett says they all have similar features and teens are constantly getting new apps. It’s the king Canute approach to parenting.

coming out the other side I think best to delay any smart phone as long as humanly possible we made it to year 7 with no phone. Then you’ve had a chance to instill your values keep good communication and work with them to use it healthily. I am pleasantly surprised by how mine monitor their use. Dd1 never posts anything publically. Horror stories about other teens aren’t helpful likely those kids would have got into difficulties in other ways if no SM.

The disappearing messages and the maps functions were amongst my major concerns about Snapchat.

It was my dd who patiently explained that you can turn the Maps function off, and that everyone knew about the dangers of leaving it on, obviously, because school went on about it all the time apparently.

She also pointed out that my concern about the disappearing messages was a bit pointless, given that I had already allowed Instagram, which had introduced its own version of disappearing messages for those who wanted to use them...I thought I had done my research carefully but hadn't been aware of this.

It's almost impossible for parents to keep on top of all the innovations and developments in each app, which is why I think trying to have total control over what your kids do online is virtually impossible. Far better, I think, to maintain an open dialogue so that you can influence what your child is doing.

A so-called "hard no" is rarely the best approach to parenting teens imo. It shuts down discussion and debate, and it damages relationships. Listening to each other, considering each other's perspectives and motivations, and negotiating reasonable compromises tends to be much more effective

FWIW, the streaks thing didn't ever really worry me...dd and her friends never took it that seriously.

I'm happy for her to have other social media & accept that she probably will get snap chat at some point but for now I want to protect her

Snapchat streaks is an issue for sure, it became so huge to my dd that when she got a phone ban a while ago she begged and begged to be allowed to go on for 5 minutes a day, under my supervision, to keep her streaks going. I allowed it but warned that next time I would not, got a ban again this week and to her credit she didn't even ask, let alone beg. I'm hoping that'll help her realise its not the end of the world to lose her streak.

Tiktok is safer than sc

DD13 is not allowed Snapchat. Because of these reasons:

1. disappearing messages which encourage sharing nudes and bullying. A friend's daughter got into all sorts of trouble with the former and police were involved.
2. 'streaks' which link Snapchat messaging to friendship. Something that at 13 I think could get out of hand.
3. maps - all your 'friends' can see where your phone is. Combined with the disappearing messages this makes Snapchat ideal for grooming. Although you can turn maps off, and you can set it so that over 18s can't friend them unless they have a certain number of friends in common. But that's if they sign up with the correct age (13 is the minimum age so you wouldn't be able to do this)

DH has worked in big tech companies for most of his career so this doesn't come from a place of fear & ignorance.

Yeah this is the new equivalent of drinking behind the bike sheds that we kept from our parents. Sorry but I really do eyebrow raise at those that say their teens are not on SM. I never come across such a unicorn rare fabled creature.

Much as I can see how tempting it would be to ban it all, teenagers will always find a way.

They will have secret accounts or devices or something, and their friends will help them. They will decide you are unreasonable, out of touch and don’t care about their feelings (and no matter how much you try to explain it’s for their own good, brain development wise they are very like toddlers and react to their feelings not their logical reasoning powers).

Ever was it thus with the things parents wanted to keep their kids out of… can many people honestly say they never met up with X, drank Y, went to Z, listened to A, tried B etc?

I think it’s important to be realistic about how much influence you have, and to understand that you actually have more influence with your children when you maintain a relationship and connection with them- and that requires give and take and respect, just like any relationship.

I am trying to remove youtube shorts atm from all devices which is proving difficult. I have added extensions to do this but it is still not working. Tiktok is not the only problem. Even whatsapp is morphing into something else. You have to be on top of it all the time.

Absolutely agree.

My two teens use Be Real and Snapchat to be in constant touch with their real life friends. It would be odd and unreasonable for me to “ban” this. That said I suspect Dh and I are posted about as a figures of hilarity so maybe I should!

Yeah, my dd (young adult now so way past the age of me being able to monitor or dictate anything!) has never actually posted much on any of these apps. Her last actual post on Instagram was in September and she has never posted anything on tiktok at all. She mostly uses stuff to access certain content and to message her friends etc.

I agree with @SallyWD that, despite what you see on most of these threads, the vast majority of teenagers do have access to these sites, whether their parents are aware of it or not. I was definitely on the stricter end of things in not allowing stuff in year 7, but by year 8 when I actually allowed her to have Instagram, I could see that virtually everyone else already had it, including some whose parents insisted that they would never allow it. I held off on Snapchat and Tiktok for a bit longer for various reasons, until dd managed to talk me round! I agree with @TheaBrandt that it's not always easy to stand your ground with these things if your kids really care about them, and sometimes it isn't desirable either as you realise that an excessively rigid stance might be doing more harm than good. Is it coincidence that the only kid in dd's year who didn’t have access to social media (with or without their parents' consent) by the end of year 8 was massively socially isolated? Hard to say, but I can't imagine that it helped the situation. I also don't think it was great for the kids who ended up with secret accounts/ secret devices... not only did they end up with no guidance or monitoring at all, but they also acquired the belief that their parents were fundamentally out of touch and unreasonable, which didn't do any favours for their relationships in those crucial teen years. For me, it was far more important to maintain an open dialogue with dd during that period, and for her to know that I could be persuaded to change my mind if she put up a convincing enough argument.

i have no regrets about having allowed social media when we did, or about havimg permitted her to use specific platforms when we did. She always been pretty good at regulating her phone use and she didn't spend excessive time on them - she far prefers interacting with real people than in a virtual environment anyway. She was sensible about what she posted, learned how to manage her privacy settings properly and was judicious about who to follow/ let follow her etc. Never felt that her mental health was at risk or that she was comparing herself to what she was seeing online... in fact, I felt that her awareness around such issues was surprisingly good, and she realised from very early on that what you see presented on SM is what people choose to present, not necessarily the reality etc. Never had any issues around online bullying etc. I think schools cover quite a lot of the potential pitfalls of social media usage in PSHE etc, and dd had clearly taken it in.

So like I say, ultimately I think it comes down to your own individual kid and the quality of the relationship that you have with them. I don't think it pays at all in the long run to be excessively strict simply because you can. You need to tailor your approach depending on your child's maturity, judgement, communication style, self esteem, ability to self regulate etc.

Honestly this has been our most difficult parenting issue bar none. We started out with “absolutely not” and ended up with a sobbing year 8 writing us letters about how our decisions were making her feel left out from all her friends who communicate via the apps. Honestly would you have held firm? We gave in.

Also if you are too hardline they lie and cheat and access in secret then you have zero control. If your teen isn’t that bothered lucky you but that wasn’t the case for us. 5 years on dd1 aced all GCSEs heading for same with a levels offers from top universities and has lovely friends and has never given us a moments trouble. She rately posts they don’t use insta they’ve moved on from that but the teens all communicate with mates via these apps.

Whenever these threads come up most people come on and say things like "My 16 year old has never been allowed TikTok/Snapchat/Instagram etc". So it gives the impression that the vast majority of teenagers aren't allowed these apps.
However, having observed my 13 year old DD and her friends, they all have all these apps. It's how they communicate with each other.
So either these kids have these apps without their parents knowledge, or the parents who allow it don't admit it on Mumsnet!
Well, I'll admit I do allow these apps. I keep an eye on what she's watching but obviously she can see things when I'm not there. I don't know if I'm too laid back but I just feel that unless you deny access to the internet as a whole then they're going to be able to see all sorts of stuff.

honestly the fact you still refer to yourself as mummy to her suggests you infantilise her a bit. She's, what, 12 or nearly there?
I'm sure she doesn't really believe you can see everything she's doing on her phone, otherwise she wouldn't have offered for you to review it if she did get it.

all the issues posters are raising about getting sucked in, time spent etc. is what the monitoring function is for - you can set daily limits, see what she's watching etc. It's called family pairing, it does require you to have it too though.

I'd understand telling her you want to wait until 13 given that's the age you're supposed to be to use it, so you're not encouraging lying about your age to get something you want, and at least then she's got something to look forward to, rather than 'maybe never' which will only encourage her to just add and then delete it. At least then you're encouraging good communication, doing things at the right time, and problem solving (she's meeting you in the middle with the monitoring offer). If you just go in with a flat 'no' you're just showing her you don't care what she's interested in or that she's feeling left out, and that the only way to get what she wants is to directly disobey you, and lie/hide it.

Ah didn’t know the kids weren’t using instagram anymore, I’m only in my 20s now I feel old 😂