to think that only a total idiot would let a 5 year old have a Facebook page?

[catinboots]

That's it really.

And yep, I'm judgin.

So you can't see that it could be a good way for families (say granparents, aunts and uncles) to interact on a day to day casual way with young children they don't get a chance to see often?

I think it's important to discourage children from using forms of social media for as long as possible, certainly until they at least get into their teens.

My ds has had one since birth to keep in touch with family & friends. It's a way of sharing pics and news without blocking up everyone's emails. His privacy settings are maximum, I update it every 3 months or so. He won't have control of it for a very very long time. I don't have any pictures or reference to my ds on my page as there's people on there I wouldn't want to share them with (who'd also have no interest!). So this way the right people see them.

Since it's the adult setting up the page I am not sure how the 5 yo would even know that it was for 13+

The only children I know on FB are like Ilovepowerhoop's and TheSeniorWrangler's - they only use it to play games, have a very very limited number/range of friends (I don't think they even look at the news feed anyway, just skip straight to the games!) no status updates or photos etc.

I'm not particularly planning on doing it for DS but it certainly doesn't bother me when children use it like this.

Good Grief!

EVIL facebook again.

If you monitor and use it with a 5 yr old there is nothing to fret about.

You lot that think FB is the work of the devil really need to get a grip!

Its common sense. You don't leave a 5 yr old to choose 'friends' you make sure you adapt it for a kid. Its easy.

See I think it's probably more harmless for a young child to get messages from family which is all carefully controlled than teenagers who seem have hundreds of friends and where the nastiness, peer pressure and bullying can kick in.

I'm with can'tbelieveitsnotbutter on this one.
I don't really see what the big deal is if it is used appropriately. My Ds does not have a fb page but I have considered it so that his distant relatives can see pictures etc. It's more of a gimmick really.
Plus I'm sick to death of people tagging pictures of his as me. I want all my pics to have me in them dammit!

Facebook has an age limit for very good reasons.
Also, I don't trust Facebook tbh.
They seem to change their privacy rules whenever they fecking feel like it.

My godchildren have pages, and I now have them in limited profile as I don't want them seeing stuff that other people post that won't necessarily be suitable or appropriate for a child's eyes.

At the rate things a&e going with some children, they will have little to aspire to in life as so many of them have things like fb accounts and mobile phones at a young age,

Once they get to school there's a lot of chat about what's 'allowed' and you can bet some of them know they're not allowed on FB till they're 13 - my DS certainly does, because I've told him!

There's all sorts of ways for people to interact with people. I just tend to believe that respecting age limits will make my life easier with my highly rules-orientated child.

And no-one said it was evil feminine

My cat has a fb page. When DS discovered the world of fb (at 12), I wanted to keep an eye on him without having them on my friends list so created a page for cat. Within minutes of making the page, she was inundated with friend requests from DS' rotten little mates!
Now I can keep track of the lot of them. It doesn't seem to have occured to any of them that it is not really the cat behind the fb page, which is actually worrying!

My 11 yr old isn't allowed a fb account so I have one of her friends on mine and the awful stuff that this girl shares has well and truly put me off ever letting DD use fb. DS is all about footie and f1, whereas this child is all about mangled fingers, deformed faces, demons on your shoulder and "like if you do not want this to happen to you!"

So, for that reason... YADNBU!

It's not that Facebook is the work of the devil or evil (I don't think anyone's actually said that here?), the point is social media isn't a good idea for young children.

When I was about 10 I was allowed supervised access to social media to keep in touch with family. This supervision relaxed over time as i'd been supervised from 10yrs old and apparently knew how to be responsible online. My knowledge of how to use social media obviously increased too. I joined msn messenger to chat to cousins and school friends, but then figured out how to go onto the msn chatrooms without my parents finding out. Then I searched the web and joined different chat rooms, MySpace, face party, bebo, habbo hotel, etc, and had more than one msn account and email account so my parents didn't know. I'd chat to older men, pretend to be older and would learn about sex from my online 'friends' too. I even met up with a few people I met online (luckily they turned out to be young boys the same age as me) and brought friends along putting them in danger too. My parents trusted me and were oblivious to how easily I could access different forms of social media, but I'd learnt from a young age.

Now with my own son I wouldn't let him even go on child targetted sites like penguin chat, nevermind have a Facebook account from a young age. The longer I can protect him the better.

Before DS started primary school, there was a welcome assembly for parents where they had a presentation all about the dangers of social media, the children are taught about the dangers and the teachers all urged us not to introduce our children to social media when they were young.

Exactly senior, I agree.

Surely you can work out the dangers of the Internet for yourself? If he has his own Facebook page at 6 then how much is he (unnecessarily) going to learn about social media in the next 7 years until he turns 13 and is old enough for his own account? As I said, my parents didn't see anything wrong with me chatting to my cousins supervised, but it made me aware of social media and I could work out how to access it without their supervision, and when I was eventually taught about the dangers in school I wasn't interested in listening as I'd already been online for a while before that and decided that I knew everything and could keep myself safe. Now that I'm an adult I realise that I was very vulnerable.

I don't understand why parents wouldn't want to protect their dc for as long as possible, if he's just on fb to play games then there are plenty of other ways he can play games to help his spelling.

catching but your parents taught you about safety surely?

Yes but at that age me and my friends obviously knew better , it was more fun to chat to strangers and get compliments than to listen to the rules.

Hmm, thanks for explaining :)

I haven't read all the thread but I know someone who has a fb page for their......wait for it......six month old

Fair enough senior, I see your point, but we'll need to agree to disagree
. I'd prefer to shield my son (also 6yrs) from social media until he has the maturity to respect the rules and keep himself safe. Based on my experience I think that if I hadn't learnt those skills at a young age and was given the opportunity to explore social media at an older age such as the 13 yrs fb insists on then I'd have respected safety much more.

I also know someone with a fb for their dog spotty! :o

(That looks like a passive aggressive smiley senior but I promise it wasn't meant to be!)

I wouldnt think it was a good idea,