9yo and social media

I'd rather give my nine year old a glass of Prosecco every night than let him have a social media account. If I had to choose. Which I don't because my dc are completely used to me telling them no to things.

You have a world of pain coming your way if you don’t grow a backbone. Teenagers are master manipulators. You are not his friend. You are his parent. It’s not meant to be an easy job.

I see what this poster was trying to say.
You don't allow your child to do something in your home, where you can manage/support/control it. So there is no way in hell I would be giving that power to another adult/home, especially given you definitely know their parenting decisions do not allign with your own.
You say you don't discipline him often, time to start. His actions here show he asked, you said no - so he ignores and does what he wants! If you don't stop and make a change now then the teen years will he very interesting for you.
Let him sulk, strop, etc. When he accepts the decision then make a decision that it is either absolutely no social media in your home or you have a page that you control on your phone that he can not access unless you are right next to him.
Time to decide the rules of your home and don't be swayed. Compromises can be reached for some things, but there must be hard lines for the things that matter to you- and no backing down!

Wrong. It was a perfect analogy and social media for a child is just as dangerous.

And actually there is a link to young social
media users more likely to drino

https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2021/apr/heavier-social-media-use-linked-more-frequent-drinking-young-people

The fact that your nine year old can create an account on social media when there are age limits in place should tell you everything you need to know about why this is a terrible idea.

Why on earth would you want to expose your child to danger at this age (and I’m not talking pedos at this point).

The fact his friends parents allow their children to do it shows their naïveté. Absolutely no.

9 is far too young! The guys who run social media companies don't let their kids have social media. That tells me everything I need to know.

If she let her child walk off a cliff would you?

Social media for a 9 year old is insane, actually any unmonitored internet use at that age, which is clearly has, is insane.

One million percent delete and not allow another one.
Also follow Mom unchartered on instagram if you doubt you did the right thing or not in deleting it.

Why on earth would you let a nine year old on social media?!

You’re right. The likes thing is quite dangerous- I hadn’t thought of that.

Can you not have an account in your name where you share his builds and you access it together and delete his account and not show any hands just the models.

There are vast numbers of under 10s with open social media accounts sharing their journey in elite sport / music art etc etc
no privacy at all. It’s so sad. Some with thousands of random followers.

I always think about Breck Bednar. That poor boy and his family.

How did he get so many followers without posting??? That’s an insane number of people following a 9 year old.

You did the right thing by deleting it, as everyone has said there’s the predator aspect but also at that age you don’t want them thinking about likes, and doing something because of strangers validation.

Firm no from me. I dont let my 13 year old have social media let alone a 9yo. My sons friend also has an account and does videos. I hope he has not put my son online. My son hold me that his friend watch someone die on a live feed. That is what they can access online. They are too young to understand the dangers. You may also be unaware of the dangers. The impact on mental health is concerning for a brain still developing at a huge and important rate. The chances ot looking accidentally at something they shouldnt and then the algorythms feeling them inappropriate content. Social media does not have childrens best interests at heart. Additionally it make impressionable children dependent on the likes and admiration of others which is a route towards future narcassim and future MH issues. There are so many issues I could go on. I hope the government bring in the ban on smart phones for kids like Austraila has done.

Op your job is to parent and protect, not care if he’s annoyed about it.
ask yourself the question… why would anyone want to watch it?!
then ask yourself the question… why can’t he just enjoy doing it without needing followers, likes and comments. It’s dangerous in so many ways.

Social media is damaging for young adults… a 9 year old should be absolutely nowhere near it. Delete the account.

I stopped reading when you posted about “some parents are happy with their 9 yr old on social media”

I don’t know one parent who allowed their child on at 9. I do know some who allowed it in year 7, aged 12. We don’t allow ours who are older. I would take their phones away if I found out they had a secret SM with 1300 people. In fact, I’d go batshit.

He didn’t get 1300 followers in one afternoon. He’s repeatedly lied and snuck around. Letting his friends mum manage things is even worse. No means no. Just send pictures of his builds to your friends or the class WhatsApp. Tough others can’t see them. He’s 9. Don’t start him on a life of seeking external validation from people who don’t matter

How did he even download whatever SM app he’s using onto his iPad? Our sons (12 & 14) have iPhones and they are completely locked down and they have to ask and get a parents approval to download any new apps. So either you were letting him look at SM already and he then created himself an account, or he downloaded the app and created the account - either is bad but if you were letting him look at SM, that’s quite shocking. He is 9. My boys who are 3 and 5 years older than him cannot access SM at all, and won’t be able to until they are 18 (although they are already saying they don’t really want anything to do with it ever, having seen what issues it’s caused for their friends).

I would say his underhand behaviour, to whatever degree, has proven that he is far too young for SM. Additionally, you seem concerned that he will lose the followers he has ‘earned’ but in reality probably half of those are adult men with no interest in Lego builds, so he hasn’t ‘earned’ them in any sense. Follower number simply do not matter in the real world and this is a great opportunity to reinforce that message.

"He is a very sensible boy for his age"

Despite doing the exact thing he'd been told he not to do.

Wtaf am I reading. Is this a serious post? On what planet is a 9 year old allowed access to the internet unsupervised to the extent he can create social media account, who knows what else he has accessed you clearly have no clue. As for 1400 followers, are you telling me he knows that many people in real life. Of course he doesn’t so I would be extremely concerned about this.
you need to wise up quickly, take his iPad off him and put parental controls on it, actually just practise parental control in real life. I’m gob smacked at how little some parents care about their children. I’m 44 with young children so I certainly didn’t grow up with social media, but I know better than to let my children on it, and I watch them like a hawk.

The alcohol analogy is relevant because a common teen complaint is that their friends’ parents allow alcohol, sleepovers with people they are dating, vaping etc and you need tonhr able to say no even if other kids are allowed.

I was 8 or 9 myself when I had unsupervised access to the internet, and even back then, in the early 2000s, when social media was not nearly as big and toxic as today, I got access to pornography, morbid death videos, chatted with adults and exchanged phone numbers and ultimately webcamed child predators.

I can’t imagine what it would be like today!

Sounds totally relevant, both totally inappropriate and dangerous for a child at that age