9yo and social media

[iloveyourhair]

DS has a huge interest in Lego, Lego coding, and robotics.

A few months ago, he asked if he could share his builds on social media. I told him no because I believe he is far too young and I explained the dangers of social media. He mentioned that his best friend uses it, and that mum allows him to. Since we are pretty close, I called her to verify this for safety reasons. She confirmed it was true and that she monitors her son's account. She also suggested that my son could add his content to her son's account, essentially proposing they have a joint account.

I thought it was a lovely suggestion, and shortly after our call, she sent me her son’s profile. He has managed to earn over 10K followers.

However, I wouldn't feel comfortable with my son's face being on social media, especially knowing that predators lurk online.

Yesterday, I found out that my son went ahead and created his own profile. Thankfully, he hasn’t posted any videos with his face in them, but he has gained over 1,300 followers in a short time.

I told him that I was very upset with him for creating the account without my permission. I don’t appreciate that he did this. I’m unsure how I missed it, as I check his iPad frequently, I am currently deciding whether to let him keep the account.

On the positive side, he hasn’t engaged with any profiles that comment on his posts, and he is a very sensible boy for his age.

Do you think I should let him keep the account and help him expand it, or should I delete it?

I wouldn't let my 9 year old have access to social media, no matter how much it was as monitored. The fact they went and made one up knowing you didn't want them to do it is another issue and shows they can't be trusted.

There could be paedophiles following him you should not reward him by letting him keep the account after he’s disobeyed your rules. The Internet is a harmful place and there’s no need for it. He doesn’t need to be earning his own money through it. Don’t let him have a smart phone without parental controls.

What social media? TikTok? Instagram? He's 9 and I wouldn't want my own son to be posting on social media. Did he input a fake date of birth?

How is he accessing social media? Phone? Tablet? Take that away from him.

I think he is too young to have unsupervised access to an iPad and this outcome is exactly why.

Why would you let him keep it? You either don’t want him on social media or you do. 9 is below the legal age on most social media anyway. His account is illegal without parental consent.

You should delete it.

The large majority of people who follow children's accounts are adult men. My dd 7 wants to do a youtube video. Not a chance.

He's using his iPad, and I’m still quite irritated with him. I know some mothers are comfortable with their children sharing their hobbies on social media, but that isn’t the case for me. I use social media as well, but I don’t post pictures of the children because my husband strongly against it.

DS didn’t even apologise, I think he assumes it’s acceptable since he didn’t post himself, and his followers can tell he’s a child from his hands.

Absolutely delete it.

First, he broke a very clear and sensible rule. It sends a terrible precedent for his tech use in adolescence if he knows he can get away with this sort of thing.

Two, and I don’t mean this as a criticism, but your monitoring is clearly inadequate if he was able to do this under your nose, so to speak. So you can’t count on being able to monitor his useage if he continued with social media.

Three, have a look at the thread on here just now about a 16 year old boy who fell victim to sextortion on SM. Almost twice your son’s age.

Just no.

Yes, and that’s a major reason I’d rather him not use social media for now, I’ll reconsider once he turns 16.

I understand he simply wants others to see his builds, but it’s not safe.

Yanbu to say no. Many of those 1400 follows will be pedophiles who have heard about your son’s account elsewhere on the internet imo.

I would allow something where you can’t tell how old the account holder is (no hands, no voice etc) and only you can have the password so he doesn’t upload or reply to comments but it’s not going to get thousands of follows and likes which I assume is his motivation. I wouldn’t be against my child learning video editing either but it has to be content where it’s not obvious how old he is eg a stop go animation with say AI voices.

I agree with you, and I’m not sure how I missed it.

I’ve seen the discussion about the exploited 14-year-old boy, it’s heartbreaking to hear such things. I’m relieved that he was able to open up to his mother, since the situation could have turned out differently.

I’ve voted you are being unreasonable because you should have more control over what content your child is seeing and he shouldn’t have been able to sign up for an account in the first place.

There was no need to ring his friends mum, he’s your son and what you say goes.

You should have parental controls on to the max, be checking what your son is accessing and educating him on social media and the internet.

Look at the NSPCC and other websites like they for age appropriate videos that he can watch about the subject.

I will follow the advice and delete the account. DS won't be pleased, I’ll suggest he post his build from his friend’s account, since I’m sure the offer still stands.

Why? He’s disobeyed you, put himself at risk and now you are leaving the supervision to another parent for something he had proven he can’t be trusted with? He’s a young child. You’re a parent so act like one.

At 9??? How is your child even unsupervised online??? Appalling.

He’s far far too young for sm. Be the parent.

Or how about he stays away from social media altogether until he is a.) Old enough to legitimately have an account and b.) has earned back your trust. Passing the responsibility for monitoring this onto your DS's friends Mum doesn't solve the problem.

The answer is his is closed down and you operate one for him on your phone. He never posts directly- he has to go though you. He never reads the messages directly and he only views it when you are with him. You make it clear that the lego is made by 'jeffloveslego' (made up name) and in the bio you note the account is run by adults.

If he doesn't stick to these rules, no more lego posting. I would get something like Family Link loaded onto your devices asap.

This is contradictory.

It doesn’t matter if it’s his account or his friends, you’re letting him put himself out there on the internet when his brain isn’t fully developed and he doesn’t understand the dangers that come with the internet.

Stop time toeing around your son and be a parent. Explain that social media and sharing yourself online isn’t for children and he can do that when he’s older if he so chooses to.

This seems like a reasonable idea, but it would mean starting over and sacrificing all that he has earned so far.

Although I am irritated, I don't want to be harsh, but he must learn to obey me. I’ve tolerated too much from him already and never really punish him.

My 10 year old wanted an account to post videos, so I created one on my phone. She does not have access to it so really it's mine, but with her videos and I just show her the likes or whatever.

I have had a middle aged man messaging the account clearly believing she had access to it. I blocked and reported but also told her about it and explained that's why she isn't allowed her own because of safety issues.

Before that she had complained because some of her friends were allowed on their own phones, but it naturally frightened her that strangers could potentially contact her and now understands why I won't let her have her own and is happy with it.

Can you not just log into the account through your phone and delete it on his?

My 10 year old wants an account to be able to look at social media. I said no because she’s 10 and I’m a parent. She’s too young for social media whether it upsets her or not.