to let my 8 year old have a Facebook account?

[goldenteapot]

I'm not sure what to do!

I've just discovered that my dd has been using a youtube account at her dad's house and uploading videoes of herself (doing rubbish) and sharing them with her friends.

Youtube has NO workable privacy settings in this situation. I've looked at everything but it's all impossible to use. I've spent hours on it.

I'm tempted to just give her a Facebook account, because I can then control to privacy settings and she can share stuff with family - who I can control.

She is very creative and is really good at making videos. I don't want her to not have ANY outlet to do this.

What should I do?

Please don't let her on fb until she's older. My dd was 13 and it was the right time I felt. Mostly keeping in touch with old primary school mates. Ds on the other hand is banned from being on YouTube unless he's with me looking something up. Too frequently on the minecraft videos for example there was swearing and the final straw was when he asked me what a clitoris was! He showed me the video and it was someone playing the game commentating that he was so excited he couldn't wait to see his girlfriend later to lick her clitoris in excitement!! Wtf ?? And this was with parental controls on .
Ridiculous and utterly sickening on a video which kids would be watching.

REALLY? My dcs friends are OBSESSED with Minecraft vloggers

Okay, we know different sets of eight year olds. The ones I know (I have DD1 similar age) look at the odd thing, and don't bother again for ages. That's life.

I actually don't think anyone is being naive here - just responsible.

I think she'd manage just fine without a Facebook account at 8 years old.

She already has unsupervised access to internet. Uploading videos (unless her father was supervising this).

I dont think she does need an internet outlet. Can't she just make videos? I did as a child make short films with a video camera without need to share on internet.

I absolutely don't think she should have a FB page.

Get a grip, fgs, and supervise your child properly.

Yes well if you can let me know some ways of doing that for the three days a week she's at her father's, stuck to his ipad or laptop for hours on end, that would be great.

Supervised watching of youtube videos is occasionally done in this house by 7 yr old - angry birds and minecraft related.

Yes her father does give her unsupervised access which I why I was hoping to come up with an alternative idea - completely stopping it isn't going to work, is it? He will just disagree!

What are people's objections to children uploading innocuous videos onto YouTube? DD1 (10) is very into film making and loves to make videos with her dolls. She also does book reviews, doll reviews etc. She begged and begged me to be allowed her own YouTube channel to share these and my first reaction was No. However she came back to me and said she understood the need for safety on the internet and wouldn't show her face, mention where she lives, show her school uniform etc. She understood that people aren't always who they say they are. She also said she understood that some people may be mean but "haters will hate anyway". In the face of her argument I realised I wasn't really sure why I was objecting and let her go ahead. She posts videos every few weeks and has quite a few subscribers now. Perhaps I'm missing something but what is wrong with what she's doing?

For me, it would be the difference between understanding people can be mean and understanding just how mean people can be. I don't know if they appreciate this at all at 8; I doubt it.

I was taken aback myself when I put up a video of our cat playing in the garden with her kittens two years ago - some comments were and you can't get sweeter than a cat and kittens, surely!

My friend was contacted recently by the FBI due to the fact his daughter was engaging in internet chat with someone the FBI considered "a person of interest". My friend had to stop his daughter's internet access for some time and trawl all the past posts and interactions and found she was being groomed.

This is why you shouldn't have young kids sitting on the internet unsupervised for hours - if your ex allows her to do this I would class it as parental neglect.

You're giving out slightly mixed messages OP. You are defending the use of Facebook at eight years old and posting videos online etc. You even go as far saying we're naive for not realising it's the new normal. You also say it's about expressing her creativity, and that it's harsh to not let her do her videos.

You then say it's all your exDH's fault because he will disagree with a complete ban and he's been letting her upload videos.

I think you need to discuss this with your exDH and lay down firm guidelines for him to follow. I agree with Miggsie that I would be bloody furious at unsupervised internet access. I would be focusing on preventing that rather than finding a way of getting your DD to post videos online.

Giving her a Facebook account at eight years old will hardly help.

Yabu, you are a parent and this should be shockingly obvious to you. Do you really think an 8 yo should have fb?

Obviously my relations with my exH are not exactly the sort where I can sit down with him and discuss this. He is going to continue to give her access to laptops/ipads for hours.

I have spoken to HER at length about what's right and what's not right on the internet and have those conversations quite a bit.

It's all very well saying that 'unsupervised internet access is parental neglect' but I can hardly rock up to my solicitors and suggest that the children move in with me on those grounds, can I?!

Can you not agree with her father that there will be an iPad available for her with parental controls etc?

I don't think facebook is the answer to this.

What I am confused about is that my DH often uoafs videos of the DC to YouTube but has controls in place so that only oeople he invites to look can see them. Can't you do that, if the YouTube thing must continue?

Don't give her a Fb account. She is too young.
She is obviously using Internet at dads and as you say you have little control over this but you can make her safer
. Sit with her and have a chat about Internet safety. Newsround website has really good links and nspcc have good child appropriate short cartoons about keeping safe on the Internet.
Use this as an opportunity to start talking and get her educated about some of the risks of social media.
She might then choose to stop posting videos.

Your 10 year old talked you into giving her her own youtube channel by telling you she understands people can be mean but haters will hate anyway, JohnCusack?
Words fucking fail me...

My DC have an obscure FB account to access games on ipad. I keep the tabs.

Floggingmolly, no - she presented me with a series of valid reasons why she should be allowed to upload videos and I couldn't come up with any valid reasons why she shouldn't.

However I'm genuinely interested to know whether there's anything I've missed, taking into account the security steps I outlined above. What am I missing? In what way is my child endangered by uploading vidoes of her discussing books in which she can't be identified?

I'd just create her a FB account and lock it down securely. I think the biggest problems with social media come with kids who have never been taught to use it appropriately. Both mine had FB accounts before they were 10. DS now 12 never goes on FB (he skypes his friends) and DD uses it very little on the grounds that "Facebook is for old people" .

The danger of FB is not random strangers (assuming account locked down sufficiently) but bullying from people she knows. She needs to know how to respond for eg if one of her friends makes an inappropriate or mean comment on a video she shares. Much better for her to learn that now then when hormones are in the mix!

I'm pretty sure you can block the use of certain apps on the iPad, including safari. My DS has my old iPhone, but has no access to the internet, just games and music.

I obviously don't know the situation between you and her dad, but could you not talk to him about it? I doubt he would want his child subjected to the comments of some of the vile people that use YouTube.

It's very easy to stumble across nasty things on YouTube too.

And definitely a no to Facebook from me.

I remember the last year's loom band craze and a lot of children were posting videos. Why not. As long as its no nonsense and you keep the tabs on the account.

No, facebook isn't appropriate for this. I think it's unfair to expect other family members to only comment on, share etc age appropriate things. She is eight.

You can have a youtube setting where the video is only available to people who have the link which means she can email it to whoever and they can comment etc.

But I wouldn't really be that bothered about my child making and sharing public videos on youtube anyway - DH has made a couple of (awful ) "let's plays" with DS in them. (They play computer games - and make comments about them.)

IMO facebook is more of a problem because of what they see, than of what they put up.

kissmethere Do you know the name of that youtuber who made the clitoris comment? DS watches a lot of minecraft videos and we are careful about swearing and have rules about who he's allowed to watch. Just want to make sure it's not one on his allowed list!