How old for social media?

[Acloserlook]

My child is y6, is this too young for Fb?

Unless you are diligently going through the entire history of your house daily there is little you can do re children joining social media earlier than they should.

Think my ds was 11. They know all the tricks.

Interestingly at 14 he is now bored of the lot and deregistered from it all. His brother is following the same route. Their sister a year younger will I suspect go the same way. This has partly been due I suspect to us educating them in the falseness of it all and following our example.I think many of their friends have got rid of a fair bit.

I got rid of Faceache due to boredom,time wasting and constantly moaning about it. We've had a few laughs as a family over some of the more narcissistic stuff I found intolerable on my feed. I also took the piss out of the kids re "doing their streaks".I now just follow those on Instagram who are involved with my hobbies,nobody really follows me as I don't post much and don't feel the need to.

I honestly think if you are checking/ posting on feeds all day and live for your virtual image your kids will most likely do the same.

So when they start secondary I think letting them join in with everybody else is fine but do lead by example and educate them re how pointless it all is.

My year 6 hasn't got social media but did until recently play Xbox online. The probs we had with that... arguments being taken into school and vice Versa, topics of conversations, swearing, ds getting incredibly angry and my happy little boy over the course of a few months just disappeared.

I've just sold it.

I refuse to allow him to ruin his MH so he doesn't feel left out. I absolutely hated it and the effect on him he's just not able to cope with it. He said to me yesterday 'I feel lighter without the Xbox'

I wish more parents would stop worrying about them missing out and just turn these things off!

I've seen such a change in my son wish I'd done it ages ago.

My ds just texts/group text. Ds has rejoined Snapchat to get homework details now and then,then re deleted it. His brother just has one Snapchat group. Their younger sister has more but as I said her interest is waning.

Banning,stopping just glamorises it. Education and continual discussion over what is/isn't ok is way more important. One of my sons was telling me one his friends who is a girl has had several nude selfie es from boys sent to her. She had no idea this wasn't ok and neither did the boys. Think school has since done a fair bit on it.

Do you remember being 11 a closer look? My issues with pre teen SM

You are finding your way, you fall out with friends etc. Now this all played out on SM for all the peer group to see. Things escalate easily and fast.

Kids josh and tease each other verbally. Fine. On SM there is no tone so it looks mean. Causes hurt and arguments. They not sophisticated enough to go public.

Encourages vacuous air headed culture.

Encourages publicising (boasting) about your life and seeing experiences through the spectrum of how it would look to your audience.

Seeing stuff you not invited to makes you feel shit. Triply so if you are 11.

Yes but that’s the point really, they do all that anyway. What I remember about being 11 was never being allowed to properly fit in.

My niece was posting pics in Instagram that were generally just face selfies. Then she posted one of her in her underwear. She was 12. I messaged her to take it off and messaged my sister. She said that her friends from her class posted worse ones. My sister looked and some were very Kardashian's in nature. I reported it to her school and they did a big e safety project but also talked to the girls about self image and social media as that is a huge problem.

See I’ve just never seen anything like that. I’m not saying it never happens but the kids in DSs class just have photos of them with dog ears. Completely daft and pointless but harmless.

Kerala I'm amazed you let your dd go on Houseparty. Anybody can lie re age and gender.Google Houseparty dangers. Anonymous live feed sites such as this worry me far more as regards teens than Facebook et al.

Staying the fault lies in the parent of that child not educating her re never ever posting such pictures of herself online. Kids need educating continuously from their parents on this and on never arguing online( evrything can be screenshot), giving out details etc.

Banning them is simply not the answer. It's very hard dictating to tweens and teens who are out of the house and away from home all day surrounded by peers. If they know how to negotiate sm safely they are far more likely to do so. Education is key,sometimes access to sm is part of that education.

Just to add secondary schools rely on sm quite a lot. My dc need phones for pictures of homework,house social groups,music on bus journeys,being in contact to discuss joint homework projects,internet etc. Handing a tween a Smartphone and refusing access to all social media is hard and pretty pointless imvho

She only links with her 3 friends on it - I am in ear shot.

It's fucking hard parenting an 11 year old these days!

Dds secondary school does not "rely on social media a lot". We were told in no uncertain terms by the head at the year 7 information evening what the age limits were for the social media sites and that the school expected parents to enforce them.

commander thank you for posting, very interesting reading.

This is very relevant to me as my youngest is in Year 6. Many of her year group have phones now and some have social media accounts. Dd nagged for a while go to on muscial.ly like some of her classmates but I said no.

My older two dds are 16 and nearly 15 and are social media users but they are sensible and I monitor their use, although less so now as they are getting older and I trust them.

Little dd has been begging for a phone but my instincts say no for now, I don't think she has enough emotional maturity.

I wish other parents said no a bit more.

The children's commissioner has been in the news recently, warning parents against their children using Snapchat because of its addictive qualities. And there was an interesting article in The Times this week which said social media is not appropriate for young children. The part of the brain that deals with logic and reasoning doesn't develop until the mid-teens and carries on developing into the twenties.

commander can I ask you about WhatsApp? Is it also considered a form of social media and what are your views on 10/11 year olds using it?

How do parents expect kids to say no to peer pressure for things like drugs and sex, when we cant say no or set limits?

Very true, excellent point.

I am scared for my 8mo. What is social media going to be like in 10 years time?

Actually I think it will be different in the future. This is the first generation of children who are growing up in the huge and fast growth of social media and their parents have no experience of the same when they were young. I think parents are now getting savvy to the dangers of SM. It will be different for future generations because their parents experienced it first hand.

Any 11 year old can lie and be inquisitive.

Yes our secondaries say all that and run evenings supporting this. When everybody else communicates on certain sites and you need to do work together,ask for homework details,exchange info,arrange to meet up etc handing over a Smartphone and saying you cant use all its functions and communicate where everybody else is seems pointless. Far better to give access and educate in the same way I let them travel on the bus and educate.

The problem is that what you see may look ok but many children have extra secret accounts where they post the stuff they don’t want you to see. They think they are computer and sm savvy but they actually don’t see the dangers. They also see people like the Kardashian’s as role models and so compete to look and be like them. So sad.

They are more likely to do that if you ban them.

Am not so defeatist as you fox.

My ds is almost 11 and he doesn't have it. He has asd and is happy playing with his hornby trains, long may that continue .

But adults often have no idea re sites to avoid and the tricks tweens/ teens get up to. You didn't even know Houseparty has risks. It's not about being defeatist but realistic.

Teens are very difficult to control by force. They are mini adults, big and crave independence.

In my experience education,time to chat and open discussion is better than a ban its highly unlikely you will successfully enforce.

It is wrong that schools encourage the use of smartphones and the internet in general for the children to do their work! I can't imagine they will leave school any more educated than those of use who went to school before the internet did!

I think you can combine "education and open discussion" with telling them they have to follow the SM age guidelines. Not changing stance on that one. We take the phone at night so when she's on it she's usually with us. We have explained our reasons to dd.

Looked into it over Christmas with extended family who work in media / education/ medicine. Dd oldest kid in extended family so as a family all new to this. We all came at it from different angles but after thrashing it out we all agreed on what we thought right approach was. But who knows.

I remember my sister being on Facebook far too young. She wasn’t be monitored either (her parents have no shits) and it was just horrifying seeing the stuff she was sharing. I eventually “gained access” and monitored it and she was befriending strangers, and the conversations being had were scary. Even young lads her age spoke disgusting to her.

Also remember the flip side. As adults we can share generally whatever the fuck we want (within reason) and posts go viral and get shared, no doubt accessible to youngsters. I don’t even thing 13 years is old enough.

DSD had insta and Facebook at 11, she runs a personal private account and a page connected to her hobby only which is public. We have the passwords to both and used to check them all the time but there was nothing untoward so we have tailed off- not that she knows that.

Facebook is for old people (!) so she barley uses it but her mum has the passwords for that.

I honestly think it depends on the child. DSD is very mature mentally for her age and actually told DH when she was having girls being mean over Facebook and asked for how to handle it.

As for snapchat- she's the one who told me how to put on the ghost mode so people don't know where I am...she said it's to keep me safe 😄 bless her.