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?

So would you let them have one registered to their own email, but keeping parent as friend?

Umm... yes. I would - I'd have the password to the hotmail account to though as there is a lot of unsavouriness that goes on on MSN and I'd want the threat of spot checks looming over the whole thing

On reflection I wouldn't have my DD's facebook registered to my email account in a zillion yars - I wouldn't want to be bombarded with all that rubbish all day long.

Nor would I (want the emails). Just be a friend.

Girls are a mare really. Ds said to me yesterday when dd was talking about some petty disagreement 'why don't you just punch each other in the playground and afterwards you can just forget about it' lol. Not quite the life lesson I want him learning but it's all very simple in his eyes!

OK! I agree, I get enough spam from my own FB, never mind hers too!

My best friend has allowed her daughter to use FB since about yr6. I never agreed with it, however her mum monitored it for a while, as she would have set it up anyway. Now a couple of years later, she has blocked her mum from seeing anything. I don't think this is too bad for her or her mum. Her mum is her mum and not her friend. I monitor it for her mum. If I think anything nasty is going on, I get in touch with my goddaughter first and check everything is ok. I tell her mum if necessary. We have trust between us and my GD knows she can come to me in confidence, knowing that I may tell her mum if I have to. I try to think like the age she is and I once was and try not to gasp too much at what is written, but she knows I'm there watching over her just in case.
This works fine for my GD and is perhaps a suggestion when yr daughter's rightful punishment has run its course. As a mum you would panic at some of the stuff that is written, but perhaps an aunt or a close friend monitoring her page, would be more objective and allow yr daughter some social freedom like her friends.
It is very hard these days to keep tabs on everything teenagers get up to, but what were we all like? I am sure after a frank discussion with your dd, she will understand yr reasons and perhaps you could then trust her.
Sorry if this seems a bit disjointed.

Having a rule that the kid must be 'friends' with a parent is pretty pointless. FB settings work in such a way that a kid can still hide most activity from a selected 'friend'.
So whatever one decides, one needs to actually understand how FB works - I think a lot of parents have a false sense of security, thinking that since they are 'friended', they can see what is going on.

The only way to know what is happening on your kid's facebook page is to have access to their password and check it yourself (using your child's own log-in) or minimally to insist on random, unannounced 'spot checks' (looking over their shoulder).

Personally, I would not let my DD have a laptop, net-capable phone, or social networking accounts until at least 13, and then with monitoring and with shared access. I think it is not feasible to give a teen/pre-teen open access to the internet and not expect them to set up 'secret' facebook accounts - but to me, giving up and saying "well, everyone else does it and it's difficult to prevent, so ok" is not an option. Sadly, part of parenting teens is about outwitting them and anticipating their sneaky tricks. It was true for my parents, too, way before Facebook.

I wasn't allowed make up on for school until I was 16. I just took some to my friends and put it on on the way. Kids will find a way. We did.

I wasn't allowed make up on for school until I was 16. I just took some to my friends and put it on on the way. Kids will find a way. We did.

And quite possibly, your parents were aware that you were doing so. As an arrogant teenager, I thought I was outsmarting my parenst many times when I am sure they were quite aware of my bullshit!!! I know my SCs break some of our rules, and that's just reality. Sometimes they'll get away with it. Sometimes we'll even know they're doing something behind our back. But it doesn't mean we throw out our rules.

It is healthy teen behaviour to break, or try to break, rules.
It is healthy parent behaviour to make rules and establish consequences.

Changing my expectations/values/standards because they are hard to enforce - that just doesn't make sense to me. My kids need to know what's expected of them.

"Question :why does FB stipulate age of joining must be 13, just for fun obviously !"

Actually Kitty, it's to do with US Data Protection law. US law does not apply in this country. That's why you can vote at 18, rather than 18 and 21, for example. Laws are not handed down by God as cultural and historical constants (and Mark Zuckerberg is not some benign chap worrying earnestly about tween cyber bullying).

I don't think kids are crueller online to people they know (pretty sure they are to those they don't - anonymity is the great online disinhibitor). I think it's just shocking to an adult to see how they interact when alone. But looking back, kids were as bad in my own schooldays. There just wasn't any sort of printed record. Some kids are fairly uninhibitedly nasty to one another at times anyway.

In terms of how common it is, I think probably it's like anything else and varies school to school. Those I know at Year 7 have FB, and as some use remarkably creative usernames to avoid detection their parents really don't know unless someone actively grasses. Frankly I'd rather be in the loop (agreed that friending is meaningless - you can set up custom friendslists to ensure only certain people can read certain updates).

Finally I agree on not compromising values and principles due to difficulty in enforcement, but this isn't really a value or a principle, is it? It's a judgement call on suitable age for an online account here, not a core life value. I don't know. I don't think it's appropriate to lay down the law on all issues with teenagers, because you're trying to develop an adult who makes good choices, not try to get someone to obey authority regardless of personal perspective. But I guess as long as parents love their kids and are involved and committed, both ways work fine in the end. It all comes out in the wash, and so it comes down to what feels most natural to you as a parent.

I think that relying on privacy settings or checks by the parents or even software that blocks certain websites is foolish.

The best way to protect your child on the internet is to be open about the dangers and to warn them, in an age appropriate way of what can happen.

Make sure they know that adding friends of friends is not good, and for what reason. They need to know that the "friend" of a friend may actually be someone completely different, that private messaging can be dodgy and that under no circumstances are they allowed to arrange to meet someone they met online in RL.

Being open with your children, and ensuring they can come to you when they feel uneasy about someone online is the best way to protect them.

That GlitteronTwitter thing is a skewed. You cannot ban convicted paedophiles from using the internet in order to protect children - it is not doable, and it does nothing to protect children from paedophiles who have not yet been caught.

Friending is not meaningless at all. I know how Facebook works. I don't particularly like it but have a lot of family overseas so it's quite useful that way.

If you can't trust your child to use it sensibly then don't let them use it. It's quite simple really. If you think your child will deliberately create privacy settings so you can't see what they are up to by being a friend then they aren't trustworthy enough to have an account!

The key is your relationship with your own child.

I don't hear what dd says to her friends and vice versa so I feel no need to spy on absolutely everything she does.

But she is a far more open child than ds for example who I need to keep a closer eye on.

Child dependent like so many other things.

Friending is not meaningless at all. I know how Facebook works. I don't particularly like it but have a lot of family overseas so it's quite useful that way. If you can't trust your child to use it sensibly then don't let them use it. It's quite simple really. If you think your child will deliberately create privacy settings so you can't see what they are up to by being a friend then they aren't trustworthy enough to have an account!

If this is in response to my post - I think that is exactly what I was trying to say - and I go on to say that I would not permit a pre-teen an account at all, since I in fact would not trust the situation (note I have said the situation, and not the child - that's my view of it and I would apply it to any child I had responsibility for regardless of their own character).

But as you say it is up to the individual, so my point was for those individuals who have decided to allow it. My point about friending was directed to parents who are unaware of the range of privacy settings. As many on this thread clearly and understandably are - my own DH didn't 'get' this, in fact - so there are people who has a false sense that they are aware of what goes on. For instance, a post above suggests that another relative of friend can 'keep an eye' on one's child. But most children know that they can stop mum's friend/auntie/etc from seeing anything they don't want seen.

I am 'friends' with both my teenage SCs, but I know that I see only a small percentage of what is posted on their walls. That in itself is not a Bad Thing, but it would be a Bad Thing IMHO if I believed I had the whole picture when I don't.

"people who have", not "people who has", obviously.

I didn't notice the grammar :-). Yes we are saying the same thing then.

phew!
thanks.

got to be honest. no way in hell would i let my dd have facebook. the amount of hours my sisters waste on it as well as friends of mine who pore through people's pictures getting depressed because their lives dont seem as great as everyone elses (due to the sexy/glam pics everyone puts up) its a shitty and pointless waste of time. I detest facebook man.

I don't think you should be "friends" with your child actually. Why should they have their mother over their shoulder all the time? I don't read my dd's diary, i don't go into her room without knocking, I don't listen in to her phone calls and I'm not her friend on Facebook.

She has a life that's separate and independent from mine. She has a right to privacy.

All our family are friends - we use it (as a family) to keep in touch with my overseas siblings/parents etc so for us it's just a natural extension of that. They are friends with all their cousins etc.

My triplets will be 13 in March, and I will be allowing them to sign up to FB then. However, I will have their passwords and will keep an eye on what they're up to.

My niece is 12 and she's on it, on the proviso that my sister has access to it whenever she wants and only uses it when she's in the room. Which I think is a good way to compromise?

I don't think that's a compromise. I think it's controlling.

um, but don't most people say that kids should only use Internet in a public room with a screen easily viewable by all? Pretty much what Jettah said.

I am mulling over what Seeker said about not invading their privacy, I am far from convinced that they need privacy online of all places. Privacy in their thoughts, diaries, and some conversations, yes. But does that extend to all relationships? My gut feeling is no, although I admit I'm still groping for some satisfactory rules of thumb.

Yes, children have a right to privacy, but surely the point is that they need to grow up realising that the Internet isn't private, or at least potentially not private, and having your parents able to see what you are doing, though annoying, is a reminder of that fact. Apart from anything else, it will probably lead to them learning how to use the privacy settings!

There's a very good video made by CEOP that shows a young girl putting a sign outside her house with her photo and email on and then leaving her front door open and a strange man comes in and starts wandering round her bedroom looking at her diary and taking all her photos off the walls it's on YouTube here

My daughter is 13, we allowed her to have FB as "all of her friends had it" I told her I would be checking it periodically to make sure everything was ok
I saw her friends posting pics of themselves taken in the mirror with low cut tops pulled down to show cleavage and boys making comments about them and then one day noticed my DD had done the same thing do we deactivated the account. One of her friends had posted a pic on a page called
"hotspice" where you look as sexy as poss and people rate how hot you are, and another girl of 12 met a boy on Facebook and went missing for 2 days. I really believe even 13 is too young for FB, I don't think kids are emotionally mature enough.