AIBU...? 8 year old on Facebook...?

[simontrowell]

Received a friend request on Facebook from my 8 year old son yesterday... Would you allow your kids of that age access to social media sites that that...?

He lives with his mum and sister and I see him once a month. On looking closely he has ten friends already, mainly family, but a few I do not recognise. Not many photos, yet, but it's in his name and using his photo as profile pic. I live with my wife and three other children, eldest 11, and we do not allow any of them access to Facebook or any other social media platforms.

Haven't accepted the friend request, he sent one to my wife too, they have a great relationship, but like me, she agrees that it is inappropriate for him to have his own account. I haven't spoken to my son's mother yet, but before I do, I just wondered what people's thoughts were...?

Well if he was going to be on Facebook I'd definitely be friends with him but I agree that 8 is a little young. I would speak to his mum and see how his account is being supervised.

No, you haven to be 13 , don't you?

The only young children I know of with their own accounts are where the parents have separated. The idea seems to be that the resident parent can keep the non-resident parent's family updated on what the child is up to. The child doesn't usually have the password and it's mainly the parent who chooses what to post.

It's not something that I personally would choose for my own children. I prefer to stick to the usual age limits.

I wouldn’t allow my 9yo a fb account, not because I think a limited and monitored one is bad, but because I want to be consistent in my messages about her age and SM.

But, I wouldn’t judge a parent who did allow it, if it was limited and well monitored.

Speak to his mother and ask about the account - it may be well controlled. You don’t recognise some names, but you only see him once a month, so there will be people in his life that you don’t know.

Top tip: I would stick to your thoughts when you talk to his mother, no need to share that your current wife agrees with you as you did here!

The only kid I knew who was allowed to be on social media that early had her tablet taken away by the police, as it became evidence in a child grooming case. So no, i wouldn't allow it.

I haven't let my children on social media, despite some of their friends having had it from 8ish years old!

My son turns 12 next week and asked if he could have either twitter or Facebook because all his friends at high school have it. I'm still trying to stall it but think I'll relent over the next year.

I personally are not going to allow my daughter to have social media until she is at least 14. I don't agree with it and eight is far too young I prob wouldn't accept it

I would not as i do not think they are emotionally mature enough to appropriately interrupt what they see.

Our neighbour allowed her 8 year old to have an account and friended us. She then really struggled at seeing our HE children having fun whilst she was at school. She could not rationalise what she was seeing and put it into perspective - and why should she - She was 8.

She started being really nasty to our children and giving her mum a hard time. Her mum actually asked us to stop posting photos. It was a big contributing factor in a big fall out between us all.

We were only posting a tiny amount about our HE life on our personal facebooks of great days out. Our children have a joint account but its private and only friends with us and the grandparents as it's a great way to record our all our routine educational activity and share what they have been up to with nanny and grandad. But they do not use it - we post and make notes.

Its not all about grooming and appropriate content - although thats an issue.

My son (15 now) had a facebook account at that age and used to post his Youtube style videos and game tutorials. He had only friends and family on it (they were the only ones that would show any interest !)
I monitored it carefully and we never had a problem.
However when friends children have friend requested me I have always refused as I don't want to have to censor what I post.

Absolutely not. I wouldn't allow my dd til her 13th birthday. I didn't care that all her friends had them. There's a reason there's an age limit.

I have an 8 year old and definitely won't be allowing Facebook for many years to come. She has an email address to keep in touch with my parents but I log onto that for her when she's about to write an email and make sure her inbox doesn't have any nasty spam in it and check her spam folder too then let her read any that are there for her and reply. I feel that's a better way of keeping in touch with family at this age. X

One of the reasons that the minimum age for joining facebook etc is 13 is because the laws around data harvesting apply to over 13s only - it's worth remembering that the issue isn't just the social media itself, it's all the information that is collected, stored and used.

And to join fb, someone would have had to put it in a fake date of birth pretending he is 13. That means that in 5 years time, he will be recorded as 18, and the relevant filters/ad rules will change to adult ones.