AIBU to not let my 11 year old have Whatsapp?

[thehorseandhisboy]

I've always been of the 'I'm not going to break age limit guidelines' frame of mind, but I'm starting to wonder if I'm going to have to crack re Whatsapp. DD is in Y7, has only had a phone since the summer and can only call and text. She has no unsupervised online access.

A sporting activity that my child does outside school uses Whatsapp to communicate, as a register etc. She is the only one not on Whatsapp, so doesn't want to go to the activity as she feels left out. I get this and as the teachers are in the group, I sort of think it would be okay to let her have it.

Which would open the door to wanting to be in other groups etc.

What - if any - messaging apps to your Y7s use? I'm very mindful of their potential harms, but am wondering whether letting her use them while she's still talking to us is actually the best and safest way forward?

TIA

huffleclaw that's a very good point. I use Whatsapp on my computer, and you're right that I could go into her messages with her phone number.

I do appreciate the concerns about safeguarding, and I know a lot about this area. So of course the clear line is 'no, you can't have whatsapp under 16 and I'm going to raise the leaders messaging you as safeguarding concern with their main organisation'.

Except that it's all a bit greyer than that. The leaders don't 'insist' that children are in the whatspps group, it's the children who want to be. Most of the children involved in the activity are 15/16. By this age, surely they're not communicating with sports coaches and things via their parents in terms of 'sorry, can't make it this week'?

As I said above, my dd is very shy and it's taken years to build her confidence up. I really want her to continue with this activity and so does she. But she doesn't want to feel left out, which I can completely understand. She's already left out of the whatsapping between friends (and there seems to be plenty of it!) which I don't feel bad about as I honestly don't think she's missing out on much, but I do feel sad about her potentially stopping this activity because of this one sticking point.

Surely the solution to this is for you to join the group chat, not your daughter. I don’t allow WhatsApp for my 11 yo

I think it's important to teach children how to manage the world of the internet and having WhatsApp whilst they are 11/12 and can be monitored/guided seems a better idea than waiting for 16 when your ability to interfere is less!!

My two children have it, we have family groups where we send pictures and jokes!

Fatasfook that's exactly what I sugggested to my daughter. She was mortified!

Vegis I think I'm coming round to that idea. That it's part of the world that we live in and and children need support to use these things safely and they'll be more receptive to that at 11 rather than 16!

It's a bit of a culture shock to me. My children don't even have access to the computer without complete adult supervision and then only for homework. My ten year old ds has no idea what Minecraft is, for example. It has been helpful for dd to hear from her friends about the (multiple) problems that Whatspp can cause and think about this without being told by me (being thrown out of a group, not being included, being added to groups with people that you don't even know, groups being set up to bully someone, getting stressed out by being a member of 27 groups and receiving 100s of messages a day etc etc).

I think we'll do some more talking and reading about the problems with Whatsapp and then rethink it. So, a 'yes you can have it once we've done x, y, z approach.'

Thanks all. Good to get a range of views and realise that my clear cut 'no, you're too young' might need to be rethought a bit.

My y6 has WhatsApp. It’s no diffeeefron text messaging.

My 11 year old has WhatsApp. She uses it mainly to facetime her friends. I monitor it and it is fine . The only downside for me is I feel like I have about 10 kids living with us 😂

I think I would be ok with WhatsApp but Snapchat, Instagram and FB I didn’t allow until DC were 13. A free with PP though that easiest thing would be to join the group yourself so you can see what’s added. I know the kids don’t like it but who said they have yo like everything sometimes rules are rules and that’s just how it is.

I've been a scout leader for a long time. Then I moved to the UK and wanted to join wither scouts or guides. I had to quit after a while cause I couldn't deal with the safeguarding rules. I mean, I understand that the association has written the rules and leaders have to follow them. It was such a culture shock to me and honestly so over the top in my opinion that I couldn't take them seriously and removes myself from the hobby. I was thinking how I would probably be stoned by parents if they knew what is totally normal in where I am from and they would never ever let their kids to our stylw camps. I see a similar effect in this group. To be fair the last group I had were 13 year old boys and girls and they wanted the what's app group. I never communicated with the parents aside from permission slips to go to a camp (unless there was a problem). I informed the kids, sent them the reminders and made them take the responsibility of their hobbies.

When moving to UK I was expecting cultural differences, but it's weird to learn that they are totally different than what I expected. Similarly, we were just visiting my parents with my bf in my home country (northern europe). About 7yo kids came to the bus around noon. My bf was confused why they were not in school. I said that it's noon so they probably get off since we don't have set school times. He was wondering where they were going and was very confused to find out that they take the bus and go home. Make a snack and do their homework till parents come home. they do this since they are around 7 years old. Just another cultural difference on how families handle things. Obviously, since I'm not from the UK, the responses here seem way over the top. Several of you would probably find our way of doing things negligent.

If you think scouting in The uk had ott safeguarding rules have a look at Canada....