DS 13, social medias & blocking me...

[Mysecretgarden]

My DS is 13 and spends more and more time on social media.
Recently I noticed and inappropriate post on his fb (porn) that a friend had posted on his wall.
I told him that it was not acceptable and to ask the friend not to post such things. Apparently it was a virus that did it.
But I have just noticed that he since has removed and blocked me from Facebook. I find it quite upsetting.
I have not been monitoring his use of social media closely. I do not snoop on his phone. This is however not helping to restore my trust.
AIBU to ask him to re-instate me as a friend?

I have all of DDs passwords too & it will stay that way until she is at least 16

She just had a joke and posted using your DD's account. It's happened to us all. You're making out like this was some kind of assault, it's hilarious.

I'm not seeing the humour.

I would have been devastated if someone had done that to me. I'm really glad I was born in the Dark Ages.

No you should not be his "friend" on social media, simply because it's far too easy to block you from certain things so you think you're seeing everything and you're not.

Instead, you should institute random checks of all his social media/phone. He shouldn't at all have free reign. You need to know all his passwords including the passwords to his phone. He's too young to have sole control.

I have a different profile just for being friends with my DS - random DJ type name and obscure picture - so he is not embarressed about having his naff old mum on social media, he knows who I am but his friends don't iyswim.

(And I have his passwords and access to gadgets)

NannyOgg

I don't really find it hilarious either but I'm not 15. My kids find farting hilarious, but I don't. I understand that they do though.

If you were devastated, that's fine. But 90% of kids would just move on and have a laugh about it.

If kids want to keep secrets they will, but it's still wise to monitor what you know about.
It's also worth having an idea of how their mind works - I've found secret accounts and logged into them quite easily.
Obviously no replacement for an honest, secure relationship with them, but I'm for coming from all angles on this one.

Wow. Bowie, if you are a teacher you should be very aware that these incidents are not always a joke and can seriously affect children. The one Francis is describing sounds serious enough to me. I think everyone I know is more careful than you are with their kids devices. I am going to be no devices at night -teenagers need sleep and aren't very good at getting it, and full access. They don't have to be my friend.

Allowing children completely free access to the internet isn't about them being "good kids" though Bowie it's about them being kids teenage or otherwise.

They do stupid shit, they take people at face value, they add strangers, post ill-advised bollocks, and that's just the stuff you can see if you're friends with them.

You seem really bothered that people (most on this thread) don't allow unchecked access to the internet.

Being friends doesn't mean you see their messages etc

Far better to have passwords and check as and when you want

They are kids and need boundaries

Be a parent and do the parenting. Viruses dont post things on FB, their friends do.
You need to control their gadgets and accounts.

Bullying isnt funny. Not finding it funny isnt a sense of humour failure. A funny joke is when no one is hurt, and both people involved are laughing together; not one at the other.

Presumably Bowie doesn't have any pastoral responsibilities at school.

Hopefully not!

Jelly virus's DO post to your FB account, there's been quite a few the last year or so.

I do have pastoral responsibilities actually. That's why I know most kids would see it as a joke. Yes, there are a tiny proportion of kids who would be sensitive about it and we would obviously support them in any way we could. If my own kids were upset about something like that, I'd support them too. But they're not, they understand that friends sometimes do embarrassing things.

As an aside, FrancisCrawford called the person her daughter's friend in the first post, hence why I said it was probably just meant as a joke. Only later on did she make out that the girl wasn't really her daughter's friend and was a bully. Perhaps if she'd made that clear from the start, I'd have seen things differently.

JellyBelli

I do parent my kids. That's why they're well-rounded individuals. Oh, and by the way, viruses do post to facebook.

As for the "nobody should get hurt in a joke" line. Oh come on. I agree there are lines, but I am not one of those people that thinks everybody needs to be wrapped in cotton wool or the time. If someone makes a joke at your expense and you don't like it, you know what you do? You come up with a joke at their expense. You need to learn these things to get on in the world - you can't just go crying to your boss if someone makes a joke about you.

My DSDs were very badly cyber bullied, funnily enough the parents with a lax attitude towards monitoring their kids' online activities were less inclined to do anything about it. It took me printing 50 + pages of the vile comments their little darlings were sending and sending it to their workplace before they'd listen!

FrancisCrawford

No, in a school setting I would have to obviously deal with that. At home, if one of DS's mates posted "I like bumsex" on his facebook, DS would just delete it and move on, realising it was a joke. If he was more sensitive or if it was something truly awful, he'd tell me and we'd deal with it.

Maybe I've been blessed with kids who understand that not everything is a personal attack.

AyeOKThen

I'm not lax. I trust them. If they did something that made me question that trust, they would lose the privilege of unfiltered internet access. If someone came to me and told me they were being cyber bullied by either of my sons, I'd wipe the floor with DS1 and DS2. It certainly wouldn't need 50 pages of messages to convince me, I'd find out for myself.