Please tell me it's possible to have a teen DD who doesn't post pouting selfies and

[ASeriesofFortunateEvents]

responds to photos of friends' selfies with comments like "gorgeous girlie" "l❤️v u loads"

I have several goddaughters dotted around the country and look at photos on their twitter accounts (only chance I get to see them theses days!) and they're all HD brows, cleavages, knicker skimming dresses and babyish talk.

Now I know I might sound like Great Aunt Prudish but DD becomes a teenager next year and I need stories from MN about teenager girls who are NOT like my godaughters.

I have 3 teens - DS at 17 and 2 13yo DDs

DS and his mates are a bloody riot on social media. It's all pouty faces - half the time serious and half the time piss taking. The comments are just as bad as the girls with the edge of sarcasm to them.

DD1 is stereotypical. It's all duck face, fingers over mouths or fingers over eyes and "the state of me" comments which get the desired "bb u hawt!!!!" responses.

DD2 posts pictures of cats, trees and about 5500000 memes a day about vapid people who use social media to glean positive comments from people... To which her friends (equally meme-addicted) post positive comments about how different and not mainstream they are

They are all the same. Even when they are different. They'll each be embarassed next year by what they posted this year. Same as everyone who ever went through being a teen ends up embarassed about numerous things they did and said.

OP - tbh I wouldn't worry about it. Judging from DD16 and DD13's instragram and snapchat feed, most (I mean probably 80%+) teen girls do the duck face selfies and the overly enthusiastic comments. So even if your DD does that, she would not stand out in any way. I would be much more concerned with them posting something nasty about a classmate! A friend of DD did that and was effectively kicked out of a team for "unsportsmanlike" behavior!

I can understand teens doing it, but DP's daughter is still doing it ten times or more a day, and she is coming 26!

Since I have already quoted Downton on this thread (and given you all a chance to sneer at my uncool taste in soaps), did anyone see the first TextSanta spoof they made of the series?

The one where the Earl of Grantham has lost all their money again, so he decides to commit suicide but is dissuaded by an angel (Joanna Lumley) who shows him what life at Downton would have been like if he had never been born.

The thing that finally tips the balance for him and makes him decide come back to life is not the servants drinking all his booze and playing strip poker in the servants hall ("No, we don't want Mr Molesley taking any more clothes off"), or his wife swooning in the arms of George Clooney, or his daughters ordering exotic underwear from Mr Selfridge, or even Cousin Isobel's quite ordinary underwear being discovered in the office of Mr Selfridge ("we were discussing how to help the poor of the East End")- it's when Mrs Hughes and Carson and all the other cast members line up for a selfie with George Clooney. It's the end of civilization, we're doooomed, anything would be better than this!

I have one duck face in my Facebook feed who is mid twenties and looks totally ridiculous in every photo. She's a mother, a business woman and the only one of her friends that does it in group photos. I think it's insecurity personally and wish one of her friends would gently pull her to one side instead of encouraging it by writing 'gawjus' etc

Please could you translate? what the hell does 'totes goals bae' even mean??!!

haha, sorry I went out and forgot I'd posted this

'goals' is something to aspire to, so gushing about your friend being 'totes goals' is kind of sucking up really. most young girls have posted a pouty pic to invite said comments

however the receiver is never to graciously accept the compliment and instead reply 'no, that's you bae, OMG have you looked in a mirror totes perf' (totally perfect) and so on

beats being bitchy to each other I guess

'bae' is 'before anyone else' ie: your best pal

Meet DD2 age 4 (just)

Yes she does have a pouty (nearly) teenage sister.

Let them be teenagers,not today's teenagers thanks.

My do is 13 and I've been teaching her to take the piss out of it. Her brother's help too.

The selfie pics with "thoughts" "opinions" ? are just appalling. What are the mothers doing letting them post this shit and rely on other people's opinions on their looks for their wellbeing. I dare my daughter to reply re the amount of make up plastered on and why they need approval.

Then you get the - "you are my everything posts"( girls talking about friends). We laugh at those too and discuss how ridiculous they are.It's worrying,hugely worrying.

Yes we have a non selfie obsessed teen.

Brothers

You are teaching her to seek approval though Green - yours. Why can't she decide what she wants to do for herself? And as for recruiting her siblings to put the pressure on too... I think that's an odd thing to do.

I'm parenting and protecting her mental health.

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/what-teen-girls-are-really-up-to-all-day-92kg9sph3

This article worried me hugely. If we don't teach our girls to ridicule it they won't. They should,it's just awful.

Green

What a horrible thing to do to your teen. It isn't funny encouraging your child to take the piss out of others.

What are the mothers doing letting them post this shit and rely on other people's opinions on their looks for their wellbeing

I don't know, I thought I was just letting my sons be teens while knowing that it will pass while talking to them about not needing other's approval. Next time I will get them to comment about their friends amount of make up though. Trying to show up their friends is much better!

ShoutOutToMyEx Sat 21-Jan-17 19:10:31
"You are teaching her to seek approval though Green - yours."

This really rings a bell with me. Not that I don't think a healthy detachment from the demands of teen fashion does any harm, but the older I grow the more I realise that the independence and "refusal to be a sheep" I thought I had when I was a teen was actually a completely unquestioning following of my parents and siblings. Instead of saying "look at me, aren't I exactly like you want me?" to a group of classmates, I was saying those same words to my own household instead. The anxiety, the willingness to please, the abdication of thought was exactly the same. It gave the same huge importance to the shallow things in life: looking the right way, listening to the right music, making your face fit.

I could have been an obedient child, and they could have performed their parenting well and effectively without this constant anxiety over showing which tribe I belonged to.

I have a 16-yo DD and she and her close friends don't do any of that shite. She uses her Snapchat and Insta account for posting art work and song lyrics. But then she's never been into typical girlie stuff and has always been a bit alternative thank fuck

I have a 20yr old ds, and 18 and 15 yr old dds.

None of them do this pouting business, flash clevage nor bum cheeks.

HTH

Poor kid probably wants to join in but doesn't want to disappoint her mum.

My post was lighthearted but

Next time I will get them to comment about their friends amount of make up though. Trying to show up their friends is much better!'

That is bullying. I would be more bothered about that then a few pouting selfies.

If I saw that posted on my DD's or any of her friends selfies I would report to the school. If I then found out this bully's mother was forcing her to make such comments I would seriously question that child's home life.

I'd rather DD be a sheep then a bully.

Mine doesn't tend to do pouting and duck faces mostly because I am always laughing at the girls in her year who do. The same set of girls also have been known to pose on line in their Victoria secrets underwear (why 12/13 yo) seem to think that they need fancy underwear and what on earth are their parents thinking is beyond me.

I think the main example given in that Times article is quite extreme - the girl it focuses on is a) dealing with loss and trauma and b) obviously very wealthy and high achieving, with all the other pressures and expectations that can bring. I don't think it's a reflection of most teenagers, certainly not the ones I know, and anyway I think it's pretty biased and not very well written. Even the poor kid's homework was an unwitting and tragic reflection on social media.

Everyone parents differently of course, but I'd rather my girls learn how to navigate social media and the internet while they're under my roof, while I can still guide them and while they still (mostly) listen to me.

It's not like social media is going to go away, in fact the role it plays in our lives is probably going to grow exponentially. We already have an intranet at work where we can tag pictures and like each others' comments, for example.

I want young people to be able to make mistakes safely, even if those mistakes are cringey selfies and comments fishing for compliments, rather than venture out into a brave new world they have no clue how to live in.

I started using social media as a teenager - Bebo and MySpace from about 14+, Facebook from 16+. I put up selfies, tagged for likes, put up pictures asking if I was ugly , etc etc etc. I'm now a confident woman in her mid twenties with a good job, a healthy relationship, lots of friends, a wide range of interests and hobbies. Not to blow my own trumpet of course! But what I'm trying to say is, they're all just being kids, and kids grow up.

And as for the TOWIE lovers and the PJ Harvey fans - as my mother wisely says, for the most part, they all turn out the same in the end

What's an aspie??

Dd just reminded me of a friend of hers who did her special subject presentation at college on a comparison between 18th/19th century practice of commissioning self portraits and the modern practice of taking selfies. If I understood it correctly, her main conclusion was that it was a question of class and status: if you are rich enough for the thing you do to be out of reach for most people it doesn't cause the same moral panic. Apparently it was a very well presented and thought-provoking presentation. Teenagers of today, eh....