..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???

I think the situation is a bit more complicated than first appears. The average age of 1st sexual intercourse is 16 and confidential surveys show that way less teenagers have actually done various things sexually than say they have.

Some kids/teenagers have for decades dressed and acted sexually provacotavily away from their parents.

But I do think porn and its easy access has warped dcs and teenagers ideas of what normal sex is. Things that we would consider extreme or unusual seem to be seen as more common place by dcs and teenagers. And I do think there is more pressure on girls to be "hot" and up for it sexually.

I think all we can do is talk to our kids about these issues and try and make sure our girls are as confident as possible so they can better resist pressure. Sport for teenage girls has also shown to boost self esteem and body confidence - although I appreciate not all teenage girls are interested.

I agree with gotart about not deleting stuff off her profile yourself. She will just hide things from you instead. You need to talk to her about the probles with what she has posted instead.

My friends 10 year old dd ( in yr 6 at primary school ) once told me that all the boys in her class were 'butt ugly' and the girls wished they had a 'hot boy' to droll over. If that's what she's saying to an adult god knows what she's saying to her mates.

rycoller - except lots of DCs her age will say things to adults that I wouldn't have dreamed of saying at her age. And her comment sounds more like one said to impress and be adult like than maybe what she really thinks.

Things I remember from being 11:

Boys at school huddling over porn mags.
Laughing about "bumming" and "bummers"
Dressing up Sindy.
Talking about what blow jobs were.
Stuffing my mums bras with sock with my best friend and running around the street with our big fake sockers (sock knockers!)
Swearing a lot.
Taking polaroid pictures of my friend who was getting boobs without her top on.
Reading Enid Blyton.

I think 11/12 is a funny age because kids that age are so interested in sex stuff and want to play at being older, but really they are just as clueless and naive, probably, as ever.
The thing I would worry about is that these FB pictures are public property now, and I would want to tell the girls parents about them, because there are some sick fuckers out there who could see them as provocative, rather than just silly and harmless fantasising on the part of kids.

Ugh! YADNBU. I think it's terrible.

All this emphasis on sexuality and not a healthy sexuality either. The sort where how you look to others is what matters, not how you feel.

I farking hate all this porn nonsense. It sets ridiculous standards for how women are supposed to look and behave and the sort of things they're supposed to enjoy.

I wonder if the Amish would take me in...

Oh, and make sure her FB settings are ALL set to the highest privacy settings, and make sure her friends do the same.

How bizarre...the person who resurrected this old thread gets deleted on her first post!

Lesley: yes, quite possibly just out to impress (although she seemed extremely sincere )
I fancied boys at that age of course, however I would never have discussed my feelings with anyone. - If my parents had overheard I would have been packed off to the convent!

YANBU, it's a real eye opener, DD had it for a while till I realised and closed her account. Full of swearing, and girls that seem far too knowing and wise for their tender years.

The only thing new about it is the pictures they pose for. But then in my day, they actually wore something more than underwear in music videos.When I was at school at 11 or 12, lots of people swore and talked about all sorts of things that would have horrified their parents.

I agree with lesley33 about sport.
It does sound a bit "cold showers" but actually is proven that if girls are involved in sports it makes them
a)see that their bodies are useful for something other than posing
b) work as a team and
c) all hobbies and interests that involve thinking about something other than yourself are character building.

So few teen girls actually have hobbies and sports stuff past a certain age, and it seems like that age is getting younger and younger, where they just sort of dissapear into themselves and think ONLY about the way they look and what others think of them.
Netball, people!

Sport doesn't stop you fancying boys and wanting to attract them, it's a mild diversion at best.

I find it hard to beleive that girls of 11 really "fancy" boys. They just want to join in with larger societies obsession with sex and attractiveness.
Its not at all a mild diversion. In studies, where girls play sports on a team it has been shown that it really helps to raise self worth, thus reducing unwanted pregnancies.
And surely thats what this all comes down to: Girls thinking that their only worth is sexual.

Absolutely agree that sport is beneficial to girls - in so many ways - but it doesn't stop the natural sexual urges we get for the opposite sex at around that age.

?Really? I didn't even like boys at that age. I think 11 is definitley an age where interest in all things sexual starts, but as far as it being actually directed towards the opposite sex, not so sure.

I was definetly interested at 11! Although I wasn't doing anything about it then. But them my periods started at 11, so the hormones were flowing.