To ask you to be honest about your children and Facebook?

[ClawHandsIfYouBelieveInFreaks]

I've seen my 11 year old niece on Facebook for about a year now she's never been active really...just liked her Mum's posts etc.

Lately though I've noticed a lot of activity because it seems her friends (all in year 6) are on it and they arrange to meet up and also post loads of silly pics of themselves up there.

Is this usual?

My DD is in year 6 but at a different school...she's so much younger than my niece and her friends. She'd never want to share photos in the same way...too shy I think. She has a small group of friends and they all skype one another. Or text.

Am I being naive in thinking that year 6 is too young for facebook? I've already seen a bit of low level bullying and exclusion on my neices posts. They're so naive they don't even think about who can see what they put!

Are your year 6 DC on FB??

girl thing?

my boys are not interested

I said dd had to wait until she was 13, but then overheard one of her year 7 friends offering to set her up a page. That night I set her up a page to share with me, before she had one I knew nothing about. As a previous poster said ... They can do it without parental help and often do, which means security and privacy settings are not checked. I too blocked anyone who said anything nasty.

To set up a fb page is very easy-peasy. Kids certainly are able to do that without parental help, so don't be naive. Also look out for other social networking sites, which are less known and not used by most parents.

My 10yo uses a special impersonal fb account for games. IPad games often ask to login via fb.

Ah, was going to reply re: the ethics of online lying thing, Sallyingforth, but I feel lecherrs has covered it admirably.

Bottom line is that I'm quite comfortable with my U13 dc using social media under my supervision, as I prefer for them to become internet-savvy before I hand them a smart phone at age 11 & chuck 'em to the wolves.

I've made quite a number of calls since September to parents, re: misuse of social media by year 7s. Several of those parents had no idea their dc was even using the website in question.

my son has fb i do keep an eye on it and also couple mums from the school are on his list and family so if see anything worrying they would let me know. I have never seen anything to worry about. hes not overly interested in it hardly ever gos on.

however my daughter who is 17 and meant to be old enough to use it. shes a different matter check her FB friends list every now and then and theres people on there that i know she does not know. she just accepts anyone that sends her a request. a few times i have had to make her remove and block people because of the dodgy things i have seen and fact she does not know them