To think girls are growing up too fast!

[muddyduck]

My dd is six and her best friend of the same age came over yesterday. The friend had her dancing to Black Magic by Little Mix on our Alexa. Dd had never heard the song before but the friend was posing and pouting singing "make the boys want more". I must admit I cringed inwardly and felt a tad uncomfortable.

As well as this, one of her other friends has got an instagram account and another puts out YouTube videos. Although the parents closely manage them and control what the children see and put out, surely they're too young to have public online profiles. They may be identified by unsavoury adults and also it makes them concerned with counting likes and followers when they should be just carefree and not caring about the opinions of others.

Am I unreasonable and out of touch with normal six year old girl behaviour?

Public social media page at age 6y - definitely inappropriate

YouTube videos - depends on the content and how well supervised and managed the account is; after all the child in the States is now a multi millionaire off the back of his!

Listening and dancing to pop music, singing along - been happening for years; I remember listening and singing to pop songs when a little girl many years ago. Looking back now hearing the lyrics then those were not really appropriate really, but the words didn't mean anything to us as children. When DD was small we chose radio edits of songs to listen to to eliminate swearing, etc. but didn't stop her listening to mainstream pop.

I think the dancing and pouting is one thing, they're obviously just copying without any real understanding except that it is a bit of fun. But I think it's unusual for a small child to have their own social media account, unless it's strictly for keeping in touch with family and friends abroad. I'd imagine they'd be set as private as possible.

I do think that UK doesn't have a big culture for children's songs for young school age children. music wise kids seem to go from nursery rhymes straight into pop music.

It's not a new phenomenon. I was 6 when the Spice Girls were popular and sang along to 'wanna make love to ya baby' - didn't have the foggiest what it meant.

Little girls are sexualised from toddlerhood nowadays. I think it’s vile tbh, and am shocked each time I see a small child acting out pornified male fantasy crap, as if they are nothing more than compliant little fuck dolls in training. Of course when they reach sexual maturity they’ll be judged for being the little sluts they’ve been groomed to be. We can’t bloody win. It’s not surprising that some parents go along with it given how normalised it has become, but you’d think a bit of common sense would assert itself. YANBU, it makes me feel sick.

Totally agree badstyle, nothing to add.

I felt a bit like this when my DD was 5/6 as the Little Mix stuff was well known and was played at the school disco, alongside 'Bob the builder' for Reception year and year 1's disco. At home my DD was still listening to and enjoying the Julia Donaldson song books but she soon went off those when she heard stuff like that at friend's houses with older sisters or to be fit on the radio as she has an older brother. As the pp said though I enjoyed songs from the Michael Jackson 'bad' album but at the same time played the piano and sang the Animal fair song with full gusto!

My DD is 7 and has moved schools and is rejecting alot of this stuff saying it's OTT, so it may just be a phase

I wouldn't worry too much - my daughter went through a very flirty stage from 6-8 and then it just calmed down.
I remember thinking wtf at the time.

It’s gone on forever and I dare say older generations said the same about my generation 30 years ago. Just roll with it.

As for SM, YouTube etc, DS, who is 11, is constantly giving me grief because his friends have channels and he thinks I’m evil for not letting him have one. Well tough shit. What other kid’s parents choose to do is their business, but I’m not allowing it, even with the privacy set as tight as possible. The internet is a sewer, full of the worst most dangerous scum you can imagine, and privacy settings are not foolproof. He’s got a whole life ahead of him to broadcast nonsense on the internet. A few years to grow up and develop a bit of common sense and perspective won’t do him any harm at all.

The way I see it: a lot of children have SM accounts. Some will encounter horrible grooming bastards, and some won’t. I intend to eliminate that risk all together as far as I can. I don’t care who thinks I’m tight for doing it. My child, my call.

I think this is just one of those things, song lyrics have never been appropriate. Think of Britney spears, Christina, spice girls, pussy cat dolls etc we just didn't realise what the songs meant. Fwiw I'm taking my 6 year old to see little mix later this year and most of her friends went last year.

I agree - there's a massive problem with prematurely exposing young girls to mature content, including innocuous seeming things like pop songs.
I don't think I was allowed to watch TOTP until I was about 8 or 9?
Nowadays parents let their kids watch overtly sexualised music videos. I've seen a 2yo posing and twerking
And then there's the problem with clothes in the 'girl's' sections of the vast majority of shops. Far too tight/small, adult styles, inappropriate slogans etc

My poor daughter will surely hate me when she's a young teen but I'm going to do my best to let her enjoy being a little kid for as long as I can.

Could not agree more. My daughter (11) has friends who have Instagram etc and have done for a couple of years. Putting aside the fact it’s illegal- they’re too young imo. Plenty of time to be a grown up.

Also, just to add, the amount I’ve seen and read about the attempted normalisation of paedophilia and the erosion of the age of consent is giving me cause for great concern. I can’t unsee everything I’ve seen and I view every instance of the sexualisation of children through that lense now. Pornography is everywhere and it’s not happening in a vacuum, and what people see on screen inevitably leaks out into real life. We should all be on our guard. None of this is harmless.

I hate it its horrible. And I hate the fact they they havent got better things to think about like sports and hobbies, pets books, racing around and just.... being little girls, free form other expectations. I wouldnt want my child playing with this one

Can't agree more with badstyle, the sheer amount of totally innapropriate stuff peddled to children nowadays is shocking. Lol dolls are horrifying, as were Bratz when I was young, so sexualised in their styling while still having barely pubescent or prepubescent bodies.

What’s horrifying about lol dolls?

I hate it too..I am an older mum and I have a 7 yr old daughter. I see the young mums at school who have daughters the same age and they act like they are the childs best friend,forever shoving mobile videos and facebook posts in their faces,,it makes me shudder.Whilst I have the benefit of being nearly old enough to be their mothers I do question where their boundaries are in terms of their daughters...i.e mum has a manicure and pedicure so does daughter..mum has highlights so does daughter...they are all like mini me's of their mums.....beyond anything else they look ridiculous...they are almost identically dressed like their mums and well I don't know...maybe its me ..maybe I am out of the loop but I would like my daughter not to be exposed to adulthood too soon...

The music thing has always been that way. I was 5 when Like A Virgin topped the charts.

My kids are in secondary (youngest is 12) and in his class people were shocked when some kids got Instagram at 8/9. Despite real incidents like the musical.ly paedo scandals, some parents really need to think before allowing such young kids to have social media.

I'm like you @goldengummybear. I can remember being 6 years old and dancing around the house singing 'Like a Virgin, touched for the very first time's and my parents trying to get me to stop by saying it 'wasn't nice' but this made no sense to me

YouTube is definitely used by some fucking shady characters. As someone who loves Gymnastics I occasionally will get an autoplay video of a very young child in a leo performing a boring skill which inexplicably has 800,000 odd views on it Same on the gymnastics hashtags on Insta...loads of very young girls with accounts...some even made by parents for their 5 year old gymnast! All public! Gives me the heebies.

Another one who sang and danced along to 'Like a Virgin' when I was about 5, not having a clue what any of it meant, so I wouldn't worry too much about music unless it's some sort of swearing gangsta rap stuff.
However I really don't agree that children should be on social media, especially not at the age of just 6.

Little Mix and their pornstar-lite image is so cringeworthy and totally inappropriate for young girls.

This is not new.

When I was 9 I would sing loudly along to "relax don't do it, when you want to come..."

Amongst other seemingly innocent (to me at the time) lyrics.

Having seen the issues social media causes in school kids should be kept off it as long as possible. Often kids get into bother/bully and the school is expected to fix it. I don’t think some parents realise schools have no authority or means to do this.

Whenever we have discussed it (my tutor group were 14) the stuff the look at is vile, and often the girls do 100% think these silly influencers are role models, and that all women have these perfect bodies that the idolise.

LOL Dolls look like a cross between babies and sex dolls, @MyDCareMarvel