..to be absolutely horrified at what I see some 11yr old girls post on facebook?? ...

[nelehluap]

My eldest DD is 12yrs old. A lot of her mates are still 11. These same 'mates' have facebook. like DD1 does. DD1 rarely goes on her facebook because she finds it all rather boring and all too easy to see friends fall out because of comments put on there and she hates being dragged into fall-outs.

Last night I decided to have a look around her facebook (she knows I do this and because she rarely goes on it she's not that bothered that I do, and even asks me to have a look)....

I was SHOCKED.....some of her 'friends' on there (girls she knows from school but not exactly close friends) have photos of themselves (bearing in mind they're only 11yrs old) - somewhere in the region of 200 photos each - of just themselves - taken with the use of mirrors in various rooms (ie photos of them holding their cameras/phones using reflections from mirrors) wearing the skimpiest, shortest, most revealing outfits and standing in some of the most provocative poses I've seen from such young individuals. One girl - she has about 187 photos of just her...wearing really tight extremely low cut tops (she is well developed) with the pictures of just her breasts...pictures of her in tiny short black dresses holding up the hem of her dress (more like a t-shirt) with nothing on her legs....and the make-up is plastered all over her face...

I see photos of girls taken in changing rooms of places such as primark - whereby they choose clothing off the rails, go to the changing rooms, get changed and take photos, only to get changed again with another outfit (you can see piles of clothes in the changing room) and then walk out in their own stuff, leaving the piles in the changing rooms.

The language that is used on facebook between themselves is shocking also....words such as 'biaatch', the f-word gets used a great deal too and is often seen used in 'rofl', 'wtf', 'lmfao'....AND THEY ARE 11? I even saw one girl say to a friend 'oh, did you suck him off then?' ....

I will be talking to DD1 this morning with the view of pressing the delete button a few times on her facebook today...to remove some of these so called friends that she knows at school....but I'm half afraid it'll only leave her with a handful of friends on there...the classic comment that I saw last night was....'hurry up crimbo, I want my stuff'....how rude and disrespectful is that? I'm the least religious person out there but is that how they see Christmas? Clearly it is.

What has happened to the kids in them? What has happened to the nice, sweet, innocent, naive kids? I was too busy out there playing, making dens, having fun, CHATTING to my mates.... Or am I just becoming very old-fashioned???

Hmm Cory - I tend to agree. An awful aspect of this whole FB thing is that these accounts are never fully deleted and can hang around in cyber space forever. These children could be affecting their future prospects.

One of the biggest problems is that this stuff is not tomorrow's chip wrapper. Posts and photos can be copied and saved for eternity. Dramas rumble on ad infinitum. Silly indiscretions become magnified out of all proportion. And it's all so fucking narcissistic. But that's not confined to the kids.

"What has happened to the parents? Do they not care? Do they not check? If not, why not? It is such a dangerous world out there containing some very nasty people...some of these awful photos aren't even kept private..."

Have you considered that with youngsters being quite technologically savvy, and generally as knowledgeable if not more so than many parents, there could be two accounts being used - one that it plain and parent-friendly and another where they post photos and swear ?

Don't get me wrong - I would not encourage it, but when I worked in education we knew that students tried all sorts of methods to take control of other users' accounts so any abuse of services we identified would be blamed on other people...

Teens and twenties (and these days, pre-teens) can be bloody crafty, and can run rings around many parents - assuming, of course, their parents are able and willing to take some interest and not just allow a teen to disappear up to a bedroom for hours on end...

When I was a teenager, no chance of having my own TV (and entertainment was mostly confined to radio), as it was a bit before walkman cassette players were common and cheap (late teens was when I had a personal cassette player, and that was partly to be able to adjust the speed of cassette tapes so they could load into my Spectrum).

I was on placement at a secondary school for my social work degree and the majority of girls had lost their virginity by 14. One I had to take for emergency contraception after she lost her virginity in a bush at the weekend, and by the end of my placement she had slept with another boy. Her 11 year old sister had lost her virginity the year before in YEAR 6. They both had sexy FB photos.

Its not just innocent conversations, or mucking about with photos, they are advertising themselves for boys!! I tend to think that its the media that have caused this early sexualisation, however I went to a Youth conference for teenage pregnancy and the majority of teenagers voted that it was peer pressure that made them feel like they should be having sex.

It is so sad that girls have regressed so much - especially in the last few years - I look aroun and can't quite believe how many girls go for what I call the 'lapdancer' look: tango tan, cheap extensions and drag makeup and clothes

Horrible - I hope my DD doesnt want to dress or act like that when she grows up

oh honestly, we ae fogetting so much - in my schooldays sexual impropriety went in little waves - some girls above my year when I was 8 were 'snogging' and getting fingered on the grass bank at school - the story went around and all of my year were so horrified, no similar activity happened in our year until we were about to leave the school )age 11) one year of 'way too much' resulted in several years of relative prudity. Similarly at secondary school, lots of knicker flashing and stockings (goth!) but when two girls got pregnant at 14/15 after lunchtime shenanigans, the shutters came down until we were 16 and drinking (and even then it was all fingering and wanking off (sorry )

As regards 'future prospect' by the time 11 year olds are bing employed, the senior management won't be dusty ultra conservative white impotent resentful males who never had a sex life (or social life) anyway, it will be a mixed bag of people who went to school in the 80s and were E'd up throughout college, and have been addicted to internet porn since their mid 30s, so a coople of pictures of breasts on a face book page amongst zillions of students at college simulating BJs and going to 'dress as a porn star' parties is hardly going to ruffle any feathers!

after all, we are in an age now where senior management is pre-pill, but one level down is free-love, student revolution, dope parties and germain greer saying 'I'm proud to be called a whore' so we really can't talk!!

:)

"after all, we are in an age now where senior management is pre-pill"

The contraceptive pill became available in the UK in 1961, ie 50 years ago. If retirement age is 65, everyone working today has grown up with the pill and the sexual freedom it conferred.

oh yes.. I meant that they went to school pre-pill...

nelehluap, My 12 year old niece is exactly the same on facebook, to the point of looking completely obsessed with herself. There are so many pics she has taken of herself in her bedroom doing that pout/ duck pose thing that seems to be all the rage. I am talking about 100's of photos of her posing. It makes me very very sad to see this. I made a comment on her swearing and she has restricted me so I can no longer read her wall.

I am so glad I am not her age in this day and age. Honestly, when I was 12 I was dreaming about Simon Le Bon and roller skating. I was NOT obsessed with myself or seeking validation from the amount of friends I had etc. I had a life, you know.... It is a very very sad world.

cupcakebakerer...thank you for the 'stable upbringing and caring mum' comments...we are trying our best!

When I was 12yrs old, 20 yrs ago, there were always girls in our year, and older, who have been described in this thread.

However, and this is the big difference, they were in the minority.

Now, when I sat down yesterday, with DD1, and we went thru most of the girls in her year, now, they are verging on the MAJORITY.

If these kids were say well into their teens - ie 15/16yrs somehow this sort of behaviour would appear more acceptable, but not 11yrs old.

Heroine - you live up to your nickname, in opening my eyes to what girls got up to (I was moved from primary school [with Nuns as majority of teaches, only 1 male teacher I can remember] to a boarding school (for boys) near Watford (after my dad dies), then skipped the 11 plus exams to enter an all boys grammar school (head took Latin and I had studied Latin while away from Sussex)

What "went on" in the comprehensive school adjacent to ours was a bit uncertain and you have spilled the beans

:)

.....that was wishful thinking on my part!!!.....'when I was 12yrs old, 20yrs ago'...oh I WISH!....should've actually read....'when I was 12yrs old, 30yrs ago' !!! ooops!

You're still young, nelehluap :)

(I have been working in IT for 30+ years now)

thank you networkguy....might not feel 'young' sometimes especially when I have friends who are grandparents!

This thread has made some very interesting reading and I'm glad so many posted on it and its been a real eye-opener too...like I said earlier on...I'm still very much learning how to parent....no one tells us how to do it and the job of parenting is forever changing as our kids get older. All I do know is when my DD2 gets to this age atleast I might have a better idea of what to expect, how to deal with it etc...or will I have done a Shirley Valentine by then??

should add my dd is 14 and it wasnt anything crude,but down right nasty and i found unacceptable.it was a remark she had made about another little girl.

I am glad I am not a teenager growing up today. I was bullied as a young teenager and at least I had a safe haven when I was at home. Teenagers today do not have this safe haven as all their contempories are on Facebook all day after school. If someone is the only one who was not invited to a party or only has few friends, then Facebook is a very alienating and awful place to be as a lot of teenagers may not understand the extent to how people on Facebook exaggerate how successful and sociable their life is.

It is easy for things to become the norm. When I was growing up it was "normal" to start having sex at about 17 and having maybe up to 10 partners before settling down. My parents frowned upon this as they grew up in the 1950s. The teenagers today may grow up thinking it is normal to have sex with every boy they go out with from the age of 14 or 15, and may think that porn and group sex etc is the norm.

Have to admit I saw 'porn' (of the Mayfair / Fiesta variety) in about '68 when I was under 10 ... (*) which was clearly far tamer than many other, later, magazines or current internet porn where pretty much anything goes.

(*) at the grammar school a lot of magazines (eg nicked from elder brother's stash of magazines) were shared around our year and probably the others too... and I left in '75.

So perhaps 'soft' porn has been part of many teen boys experience since the 70s, even if it is happily consigned to memory once there's a car and girlfriend / wife...

Anyone see that Channel 4 series about how teens get access, what they have done, and general Q+A about many aspects which teens had not considered/ understood... ?

When the presenter (Anna Richardson born Sept '70) started counting her partners she seemed a little bit embarrassed when she reached 25 (or thereabouts).

networkguy...I also saw a prog on tv the other night (can't remember what it was called or what channel) but it was on your usual stations - not sky...whereby it showed teenagers being sent out to places such as Barbados, the States etc...being placed with very strict families...it was appalling to see their before lives where they didn't work, still living at home, having wads of notes handed to them by their parents, smoking, drinking, on drugs, spending all day in bed, going out during the night, very sexually active....etc etc....my eldest DD sat and watched it...she was appalled herself...it was thoroughly disgusting. Fortunately when they came back home most of them had changed, but for how long..??

Apparently, studies have shown that spending a lot of time on social networking sites is correlated with greater unhappiness in users.
My DD (age 14) claims that she is one of only two people in her entire school year who is not a facebook member. Boy, does she love to text though!

My dd is 10 yo and has asked to go on FB but I wont let her yet, my main reason at the time I have to say was that I didn't want her seeing everything I put on my FB! Since then I've ended up being 'friends' with my mum and 2 of my friends' dds so I watch what I put on there now anyway! Still not letting her have an account till she's at least yr7 though, she's yr5 atm.

My friends' dds that are on there are 11 and 12 but thankfully their pages and photos are still fairly innocent, no posing pouts or skimpily dressed photos. However both of them are friends with their parents and most of their parents' friends so probably couldn't get away with it even if they wanted to!

I was quite concerned the other day when my daughter put a photo of herself on her skype profile doing a 'looking down at the camera and (admittedly only slightly) pouting' pose. I made her change it as soon as I saw it and she now has a photo of her cuddling her hamster! Was rather pissed off that her father (who lives abroad and is the reason she has skype) had commented saying he liked the photo but I guess he was just trying to be nice.

She is growing up far too quickly for my liking though but I'm not quite sure what I can do about it when all her friends are the same.

Children are increasingly desensitized with every generation... its nothing new. The parenting is a huge problem as well as we have just as much difficulty in navigating everything that comes at us. Simply report the images you see, report the girls age, (as there is an age limit of 14 to have a profile on FB) and talk with your daughter and explain your concerns for her. Don't delete stuff off her profile as that will illicit the opposite effect you want... what you want is an open and loving relationship with your daughter. Not one where she will begin to hide things behind your back more and more over the years.

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