To worry that I'm ruining my 8yr old's friendships (Social Media related)

[concernedforthefuture]

DD is 8 and attends a small ish school (only 8 girls in her year group). Over the past year, most of the girls in her year seem to have suddenly grown up and are very much into fashion, make-up, social media (mainly Instagram & TikTok but a couple have Facebook too), YouTube, gaming (Fortnite and Roblox) and watching TV and films that are generally meant for an older audience (such as Friends etc).
I'm afraid that I'm not on board with the social media and don't allow DD to use it. However, it's becoming very apparent that she is very much being left out of social groups because the other girls all chat / share videos outside of school and DD is not part of this. I have also stopped her from going to sleepovers after the last one she was invited to was a to watch Dirty Dancing (a 15!). The parents (host and other attendees') seemed surprised that I didn't want DD to watch it .
DD remains quite young for her age compared to her classmates and it's sad to see - she has very little in common with the other girls anymore and often tells me she's lonely.
Should I go against my beliefs and give in and let her have access to social media / unsuitable films etc so that she can maintain a friendship with the girls that used to love all playing together. Or should I stick to my guns even if it means that DD is left out?

This is very much not the norm! My DD has just turned 8, most of her peers and her! Are still playing with dolls and toys. I don't know any of her friends who have a phone except for 1 and she only has tik tok.

DD is getting a phone for christmas but it is for when we go to the farm when shes out on her pony she can call me if she needs to. She will not be allowed any social media apps

I’d look at moving schools if I was you. More diversity of friends needed! I have older children and social media is a big fat no. They haven’t asked and if they do it will be a standard “when you’re earning your own money and can pay for a computer to download it on then you can have it” we don’t support those type of things in our family for underage children. Mine are allowed to watch age appropriate videos. Mine also have gaming consoles but again fortnite will be something they are allowed to play when they’re old enough to earn the money to buy it themselves. Dirty dancing has sex scenes in it! Those kids are 8! Not appropriate. Good on you for standing your ground.

I would seriously look at other schools. Look at some of the other small schools, they may have a very different culture. This sounds v unusual to me, and to a lot of other posters.

Not RTFT but I was about 8 the first time I saw Dirty Dancing. Tbh I would let my 5 year old watch it.
I dont think you need to do away with all your beliefs, but that you need to relax on a few.

So sad that her friends exclude her and she feels lonely. Only 8 years old too and all over social media. It really isn't normal op! I would call the council and get a list of schools with current vacancies in her year group and both go and visit them. Even if its another small school she only needs a few special friends to grow up with and she will be fine.

Wow. My eldest is nine in year 5 and he hasn’t even mentioned social media, it’s not on his agenda at all. I think my DC are quite sheltered and not too old for their age, there’s no way I would allow them to watch Dirty Dancing .

8 is way too young for social media .
The school does seem strange .
Keep your ground rules, it will be best in the long term.

I do think being the child who seems younger than their peers is very socially damaging.
I think either you move her to a different school where she will fit in, or you relax your rules a bit.
Also I watched films with adult themes like dirty dancing when young, they simply went over my head.

I agree that dirty dancing is totally unsuitable for this age group (although I know when I was at primary school and it was new-ish plenty had seen it. I’m guessing the abortion storyline went right over their heads). I disagree about ghostbusters and avengers. And remember that avengers may be a 12 on dvd (as in you have to be 12 to buy it), it was a 12a at the cinema, meaning anyone can watch it, under 12’s just must be accompanied by an adult.

If it is any help my DD is now 13 and we still haven’t allowed her on anything but YouTube (she watches art and baking videos mostly) and now instagram. She suffered terrible FOMO for awhile because she truly thought ‘everyone’ was on it. I went through my decision very thoroughly. I am very active on SM for work and at the time there was so much porn on insta that I was sickened by it myself. (But I still had friends who confessed that they actually did not think their DC seeing porn at 10 or 11 was a problem ). She then discovered that many girls were either lying or had it but didn’t use it anyway.

It is really hard to navigate this. I think that parents sometimes have no idea what is happening on these platforms. just as everyone seems to think that facial recognition is not going to be a thing.

Either way, work with your DD and keep explaining your reasons, find games and other ways for her to keep up with her friends. Talk with the parents of other kids and you might find it is actually not ‘everyone’.

I am so glad we did because she had a few instances of bullying at school that would have crossed to cyber bullying if she had SM early or had given out her number. Now it all seems to have settled enough and she is quite happy to have missed out on the WhatsApp/Snapchat/FB sheninigans.

It's a difficult situation tbh but I wouldn't be happy with my child watching Dirty Dancing, purely for the fact that it includes a street abortion which isn't appropriate for an 8 year old to know about without prior and after discussion.
As for social media, maybe let her have a facebook account, you set it up, you add her friends and then lock it down. Have the password and check it every single day. Xxxx

Surely most 8 year olds will know about abortions? It is the kind of thing that even parents don't tell them about it, they will hear in the playground.

You reckon @jennymanara ??

Yes I do. I think a lot of parents forget what school playgrounds are like. You only need one child who knows about something for most kids in the playground to learn it. They probably get a scrambled slighty inaccurate version, but I would expect them to have heard about abortions.

Bloody hell jennymanara where did you attend primary if most kids at 8 knew about abortions there.

I think there is a difference between ‘hearing’ about it in the playground and watching the effects or the consequences of one on TV (if they understand what it happening.) One is playground talk, the other is the portrayal in real life played out in full colour.

@jennymanara my 8yo is like a walking talking encyclopaedia sometimes but she absolutely does not know what an abortion is

@missyoumuch I don't think that is unusual. Although obviously the way it is portrayed in some films or dramas may be too vivid.
So Saturday Night Fever is a PG are references an abortion. But you don't actually see or hear what that means.
Dirty Dancing official rating is a 12A which means under 12s can only see it with an adult present. But they can still see it.

I'm a fairly "lax" parent - my 5 year old has seen all of The Avengers films, for example. Anyhow, there is absolutely no way I would let my daughter (or my son!) have any social media accounts. She is allowed to watch some videos on YouTube, but I police it pretty closely. As far as I am aware, none of her friends have access either - she has never mentioned anything about wanting any accounts, so as far as I know, she doesn't even know they exist.

Don't forgot too, that kids have a tendency to exaggerate things - it is entirely possible that her friends have older siblings, and are merely parroting things that they have heard! Dirty Dancing is a funny one - it is seen as a very family friendly film, but everyone always forgets the heavy nature of the storyline! To be honest, I wouldn't worry if someone showed it to my daughter - the abortion references would go over her head, and she would be more likely to try and replicate the lift at the end with her little brother!

@alwayscauseastir I would be surprised if that was the case. Abortion is talked about in lots of things SOME 8 year olds watch such as Eastenders and other soaps. I am not saying most 8 year olds really understand abortion, but most will have heard the word and have some idea it is to do with no longer being pregnant.

Kids talk loads about things that would shock parents. I remember when looking after kids and hearing a 7 year old telling other kids details about her mums hysterectomy. And other kids were asking questions as they were trying to understand it. It was obvious from what the 7 year old was saying that she was parroting what she had overhead, her mum probably thought her 7 year old knew nothing about hysterectomies.

Winealot is your daughter not excluded? Much as I wish it wasn’t so a huge part of my elder dd communications with her friends are via Instagram. We don’t know anyone not on it. She would be terribly left out if she wasn’t. We managed to hold it off until 12.

I was interested in you calling your daughter’s school ‘ smallish ‘. That’s tiny! and may not be helping with the problem really, because there’s not a big enough pond to fish in, if you understand me. My daughter-in-law is having a similar experience with my 7 year old grand daughter, but there’s more choice in a bigger school, so there’s a couple of other parents with the same view as you, and any body else who is normal!! You absolutely stick with it. I used to say to my children, you won’t know any of these people in ten plus years time, and they don’t. If anything happens to your child as a result of her doing something you weren’t keen on, you have to live with that forever. To other people, she’ll be a girl they knew years ago but have basically forgotten about. One of my daughters is 30 now. She’s heard of at least five deaths from her school year, mostly drug related/ suicide. You look after your little girl, there’s plenty of time for her to be grown up when she is. Remember, you can’t go back and do it again. All the best🤗

MsTSwift She felt it at first, but then not really as she was free to text to her friends (she was encouraged to call them, but that was just never done). By the time she got on to instagram, she discovered that hardly anyone was actually on it. So, no. She also looked at some of the WhatsApp sessions with her friend and realised that she was actually not interested as it was mostly emojis and posing pics which she quickly got bored of.

She has a nice posse of mates on there now. But then, last weekend we found that they had got a 'group chat' going and she was getting really involved and started to get stressed by the constant contact. We told her gently that she needed to put the phone down and walk away as it was effecting her. And she did it too. She realised that she was constantly on it or checking it and it was not healthy.

It was the same with the 'trending' TV shows. By the time she finally got to watch them (when we felt it was age appropriate) she could not see why people wanted to watch them. I actually asked her the other day if she felt there were any shows that we been too strict on that we had made her wait to watch until the age rating recommendation or we felt it appropriate. She told me that there really wasn't one that she regretted not seeing earlier and she is always an honest kid.

MsTSwift. She also had an old iPhone which was common amongst many of her friends so they swapped pics that way. We just did not allow platforms that encouraged group interaction, I had seen and read too many instances where it went out of the control.

As I mentioned, when she reached Yr 7 and 8 there were instances where the school had to get involved in the form 'chats' because of bullying. As she was being bullied by girls in real life at school, them having access to her by SM would have been very damaging. So, the way she looks at it now is that she escaped all that drama and maintained the friendships that were genuine and real by doing actual things with them and communicating directly.

Ds would probably be more left out if not on WA, afaik all meet ups are through that. They chat a lot. But Instagram has zero effect. He doesn’t have it. I wonder if there’s a difference between girls and boys in usage.