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?

Absolutely delete the account and change the settings on his IPad so he can’t do stuff like that, he shouldn’t have had the means to do it anyway. Why does he need to share his builds with strangers?

If you have family who are interested I’d download a family photo app and let him share them on there just to close family.

This is so grim. Why are you ok with letting your daughter put herself out there online when you clearly know disgusting creeps are viewing her videos and doing God knows what with them 🤢🤢

When will parents just start putting their foot down and say no and that social media and uploading and uploading of yourself on to the internet for the whole world to see isn’t what kids do.

I've updated his account email to mine, deactivated the account, and took away the iPad.

He will now sulk and be miserable, and probably refuse to eat.

Refusing the eat, that’s very drastic.

Have you had conversations with your son about the internet and the dangers of it and the long term knock on effects of what we upload and share etc?

Well clearly he’s proved he can’t be trusted so why on earth are you even considering it? He’s shown you how irresponsible he is and how temptation made him go behind your back. I can’t believe you’re even describing him as sensible too!

And this boy is meant to be sensible??

You can't see her face but it's child content so clearly a child. No identifying features on it and she doesn't have access to it so I don't see the problem.

My son was a child TV actor where you saw his face and my daughter has also been on a kids tv show, no one has an issue with that so I'm not sure why it's an issue to not see my childs face on an account that no one can contract her on.

You are falling into exactly the trap that sm sets for children!

Must keep the streak or there'll be hell to pay

🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️

Its so unhealthy at any age but especially so at your son's age.

Read the book The Anxious Generation, for his sake.

Sounds suspiciously like you are telling us off for giving you good advice.

He will sulk until he forgets why he's sulking and he'll eat when he's hungry.

You need to realise he's not in charge and his wellbeing is in your hands.

No, not at all, I appreciate the advice. The issue is that I rarely discipline him, and when I do, I tend to feel guilty.

And this is exactly why he went behind your back and set up the account. You've done the right thing in deleting it. Stand firm, otherwise you'll be in for a rough ride when he's a teenager.

I hope this isn’t true or else he’s going to grow up with even more issues than he already has!

My 8 & 10 year olds don’t consume social media let alone post on it. How did he open an account if you’re meant to be 13 these days? Is it just a tick box like when you go on iPlayer and tick that you have a tv license with no verification 😅

You need to change this attitude and quickly before you raise an entitled spoilt not very nice person.

You are his parent. You are meant to teach him right from wrong and discipline him when needed. Even when he doesn’t realise at the time that you’re doing something for his own good he will one day look back and realise you did right by him.

He’s your child, protect him and lead him proper in life. Don’t just let him walk all over you and do what he wants. He’s a child, he has no idea what is best for himself

I thought you had to be 13 to use social media anyway?

You parent well you feel guilty,

You parent poorly you are saving all the guilt for the future.

Either way as a parent you will feel guilty. Rule no 1!

You keep justifying yourself by saying that she doesn’t have access to it but what you should really be disgusted and worried about is who else is accessing it.

You’ve already said grown men have contacted her through her content yet you keep uploading it.

Just because her face isn’t in it means nothing. There are sick people out there who will get off on any footage of children doing the most innocent things. Are you really ok knowing there are potentially men out there pleasuring themselves to your child? Are you really ok knowing footage of your child could have been reshared anywhere on the web (or even worse the dark web) with these same men talking disgustingly about your child. Are you really ok knowing that with today’s technology and AI these same sick men can manipulate seemingly innocent footage of your child and change it into absolutely unspeakable stuff?

Do better by your child.

Well that’s parenting for you, it’s about time really. You aren’t his friend, it is your responsibility to parent him and keep him safe, even when it doesn’t feel nice.

What do you mean, what he has earned?

Is there not some other way he could share his Lego hobby with other children, clubs etc with real life people?
I personally would not allow a 9year old to be posting anything online. He has already demonstrated to you he doesn't understand any risks or respect your boundaries. If you are pressured now by 'my friend is allowed ' surely it is going to get worse and worse as he gets older, you will have to resist peer pressure at some point or just let yourself be ruled by the lowest standards of his friends parents

Why teach him that sharing his hobby needs to be shared with hundreds of random unknown people. Why does he need gratification of followers. It’s a very very unhealthy need

No need to feel guilty. You’re setting boundaries and keeping him safe. He’s shown you he can’t be trusted and he’ll break the rules to get some kind of gratification. That is not ok. Not at 9.

DD did something similar when she was a bit older with the help of a friend, after I had said no. The account was deleted and I told her if anything like that happened again she’d permanently lose her devices as well. The irony is I was thinking about it and would’ve probably said yes with certain limits.

I probably would’ve let him make an account that was private , for the uploading part /memories rather than views /building a fan base, but obviously too late now.

There are parental controls which should be in place so they can't do this, he shouldn't be able to download any apps without your account being asked for permission, it's quite easy to set up if done properly.

Manipulate what to make ai images? Her hands? Or the hairdressers doll had she used to do hairstyles on?

I'm surprised hands bother you but not children on tv where their full face and bodies are shown. So unless you boycott adverts, programmes and films that have children in them then I'm not sure why you're getting so riled up about hands.

If it’s an iPad and you have an iPhone you can re-set up the iPad and control it through the Apple family settings. You have him as a child and then you can do things such as restrict screen time, restrict apps and block websites. My dd has YouTube, TikTok etc blocked and she can’t download apps without my approval. The settings are password protected too. You can control it through your phone even if you’re not in the same place. It’s fairly simple to do.

Delete it. He doesn’t have the capacity to make fully informed decisions about social media at his age. There is a good reason that social media accounts have a minimum age of 13 (many 16).