DD Facebook trauma

[brutusbaldwin]

Hi there,

DD(12) has been going on and on about having FB. I have said no for two reasons 1) you have to be 13 and 2) I think it opens one up to bullying and general nastiness.

All of her friends have it.
Anyway I discovered through a friend that she had started up an account the day before yesterday. I asked her and she confessed straight away. she showed me and she has done everything correctly i.e. used all privacy settings etc.

I was fuming that she had gone behind my back and made her deactivate the account. She of course is not speaking to me and I am of course the 'worst mother in the word'.

She says she is the odd one out, she feels babyish that she isn't allowed it (even one of her friends that has strict parents has it).
AIBU ?

DOn't want to set her apart from her peers, but also don't want to give in now. She says she will be 'friends' with me should she be allowed it so I can monitor it.

She has just started Y7 at a new school, not knowing anyone and is doing well. Does homework etc and has shown she has matured in the last few months.

What would you do?

I only have pre-schoolers, so no direct experience whatsoever.

But your daughter sounds very sensible and level headed about it all. In that situation, I'd trust her to use it sensibly, keep an eye on it and explain that you've reconsidered based on her doing well at school / maturing etc. Anything untowards at all and you'll deactivate her account immediately and she has to take it on that basis.

But then DSs are only 1 and 4 and I'll probably be totally different when my own kids are that age.

Well... DS2 who is in Yr7 has a fb account. He has it on the understanding that DH and I are friends and DH also holds the password and controls to it so at any time uany suitable people can be deleted etc and it can all be monitored.

Personally I think this is a much better way of going about it than saying no.

unsuitable

10 year old DS has an account in order to keep in contact with relatives abroad. Because he's underage we have the following rules:

1 I know his password so can check private messages as well as his wall.
2 He's not allowed to accept friend requests without my approval
3 He's only allowed to use it whilst DP or I are supervising.
4 Any status updates have to be approved by me before posting

I hated him having it at first but it's not caused any problems so far.

I will probably relax my rules by the time he is 12 depending on how responsible he is then.

Totally agree!, with my DD also 12 same thing happened i also deactivated the account three months on she is okay in the mean time my DS17 had some really real nasty bullying on facebook and she saw some of what was happening and now understands why is said no.
we are not the only parents that say no the kids just want it the same as SOME of their friends. I set her up an email account and said if she acted responsiblly with that i would allow her facebook at thirteen,.
Hold on tight to your right to parent your child the way you want to too many parents give in to their children cos they want them to be cool at school. We as parents know more of the dangers out their in the real world.

I'd delete the account, and let her have a new one once she turns 13 and set it up through your email address.

You said no. She did it anyway, and you only found out through a friend. If she has a laptop or something from which she can access the internet other than the home pc, I'd remove that for a set period of time as well.

But then I am quite prepared to be called mean.

My DD who is also in year 7 has also just been allowed FB.

She is on my friends list and i know her password so can dip in and out as it suits

A lot of her friends were on it last year but we held out and i'm glad.

Sometimes a compromise is better than a straight no especially when you are dealing with a generation that spend all of their time on social networking sites.

Make sure she knows what your rules are and the consequences if she breaks them if you change your mind and allow her to have it.

I would deactivate it. FB causes no ends of problems particularly with girls . She has shown that she cannot be trusted as she set up an account behind your back.

They do all have them. I'd insist she only friends people she actually knows - school and home - and that you have the password. Stress that you won't spy on her, but it would reassure you to know she had nothing to hide (and please, please don't spy on her - I think it would corrode trust, and sooner or later you'd let it slip - just test the password is still valid every month). And I'd read up on online safety for children.

Very gently - your daughter admitted it when caught. She's not doing anything unusual in pushing the boundaries with her mum, now she's approaching her teens. Isn't it better that she can talk to you about her Facebook, and come to you if anything worries her, instead of creating a situation where she will be isolated and dealing with things alone, because she's boxed herself into something where she can't admit to the original lie? My memories are that the parents whose kids couldn't talk to them would have been the ones most shocked by what they got up to. They didn't have adult-sounding boards when things were going a little haywire.

Teenagers these days have online lives. You can't stop that. It's scary, but also a source of help and friendship. I know someone whose son is bullied who has made amazing friends online because he's a big fan of Harry Potter and has a whole support network that way. They've even had (contemporary to him) friends visit them, after speaking with the other set of parents. The internet can be an amazing thing - we're all here, after all - as well as a dangerous one, and it's not going anywhere. Maybe the best thing is to talk it all through with your daughter, talk about how easy it is to feel close to a stranger online and how manipulative adults with bad agendas can be, and how your anger is because you love her, and read such horrific stories. You need her to be able to talk to and trust you, after all, so if anything were to make her uneasy she would be able to bring it to you.

Finally, there is a Facebook privacy setting that makes your account invisible to everyone except Friends of Friends. It's not infallible, as she may be friended to less savvy teenagers, who do friend strangers, who can therefore see her account, but it's a good place to start. I'd insist she used that, if she hasn't already. I'd also talk through all my concerns about online vulnerability (and lastly, given the number of intelligent adults on my Facebook who seem to think handing over a slew of personal data and posting a link with I LOVE AMAZON/SOUTHWEST AIRLINES/WHATEVER will mean Santa sends them a free flight/voucher, I'd tell her nobody gives anything for nothing, and that they're all cons).

so you say no and lay down the law, then what your dd goes behind your back to do this and other things?

Is that how you want to live?

Or will you keep punishing your dd if she doesn't live by the rules and keep punishing your dd until she does live by your rules.

then she can go into adulthood and live by the rules and accept them and no comprimise ever.

I would want a child/teen to challenge rules, do it openly and then see whether it is important to their safety etc.

you will not keep your dd safe by her hiding stuff from you, and that is what she will do if you are not approachable

Incidentally, they do all have them - even though many of their parents are firmly convinced to the contrary. (Amazingly creative on the usernames, when they want to be.)

"you will not keep your dd safe by her hiding stuff from you, and that is what she will do if you are not approachable"

Completely agree. She's just going to learn to lie, and that she can't come to you for help if/when she needs it.

Ok. Against the tide here. I would tell her you have thought qbout it, qnd although she was vey wrong to go behind your back, you understand why she did, and you will let her have qn account with all the caveats qbout privacy settings and so on.

It is such an important part of their social lives- she will miss out if she isn't on FB with her friends And year 7 is hard enough without being the only one not in the "gang". And there isn nothing at all wrong with telling her that youi hve had a think about it and changed your mind. Isn't that what we want to model to them- open mindedness, flexibility and the ability to learn?

I don't agree that they all have it and as a teacher with responsibility for year 7 students the ones who do have it tend to be in constant trouble because of it.

Some are in trouble. Most aren't. FB is one of those things the older generation get hysterical about.....".

Well said Kellogg in total agreement of your comments.

Parents should parent friends should be friends.

If you know of accounts because the kids are in trouble with them, surely that skews your sample hopelessly?

Kitty nobody is disagreeing on that one. But equally it's rather hard to parent if you haven't the foggiest idea what your child is up to and zero way of finding out. Personally I'd rather they talked to and with me and allowed me a say and input than said what I wanted to hear while quietly doing exactly what they want - and listening only to their friends.

There has been a particularly nasty case of cyber bullying against the daughter of a friend of mine on Facebook. The daughter is 14 and the bullying has been particularly vicious, not just against the daughter but the entire family. I'm afraid that I read and hear far more negative things about Facebook than positive so I occasionally allow DD to use my (barely used) account for playing some of the games (she is 11, year 7) but I won't let her have an account until she is 13 and that is non negotiable. DD is very aware of how much Facebook is misused and isn't that bothered at the moment. She keeps in touch with her friends mainly by texting. Not many of her friends "do" Facebook yet so I would stick to your guns.

And you know whether or not your child is on Facebook exactly how?

I often deal with printouts from Facebook linked to cyber bullying. Parents are often very shocked by what their children get up to online. Even those parents who think they have been careful.

My dd also opened a Facebook account without permission on my dp's work computer. She now has no unsupervised access to the Internet. We also have strict controls and regular history checks.

I think you're dealing with two seperate things here.

The FB account is one. The lying and sneaking around is quite another! I would have said that it would be ok to allow her to have an account provided all the above was considered (knowing her password etc.)

However, allowing her to have one now is basically rewarding her bad behaviour. I think she needs to be told that as her parent your decisions are made with thought and are final.

Give it a while. See if the good behaviour continues and then revisit it. But to give one to her now will teach her nothing IMO.

I dont think much more goes on with FB than goes on in the playground. Its just a case of parents actually having access to it because its written down and not hearsay.

Most new phones allow access to FB so a lot of parents might not realise their children already have it.