What age would you let your child have a facebook account?

[Guardianto2]

What's the general age for this?

most of dd's friends have fb and they are 10. She has an account but doesnt use it much. I know her log in details so can check what she has been up to.

DS has had his since age 10 (set up to keep in touch with everyone from primary school as they were all going to different secondary schools, as well as lots of friends and family overseas). A lot of social life was organised via facebook in his first couple of years at secondary school, involving people from his new school as well as his old one.

He's now 15 and we've never had any major issues with it. The first year or two I had his password and kept an eye on it, as well as making sure his privacy settings were well locked down, but these days I just leave him to it.

DD is 11 and has so far shown no interest as none of her friends are on it, but I would let her have an account under the same conditions as DS did to start with.

Bruffin it is a security issue. Min age for Facebook is 13 . NSPCC recommend minimum age 13 because of evidence of posters on Facebook (young and old) concealing true age.

Officially I suppose I'd say 13 but tbh none of dd's friends seem interested in FB - they are 11/12 in y7. It's all Instagram here. Dd does have an Instagram account, since end of y6.

Not before 13, I think its legally that age for a reason.
I have also heard about my niece, who at 13 added a friend of a friend and now CID have all her online presence monitored and have taken most gadgets off her as she was groomed.

The CEO of facebook even wants the age to be lowered

www.zdnet.com/blog/facebook/mark-zuckerberg-facebook-minimum-age-limit-should-be-removed/1506

We let our DC set them up a couple of months before they turned 13, although I think DS had set a dummy one up with his mate before then

it is the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act in the USA that makes the minimum age 13 for facebook as Bruffin pointed out.

We found 13 to be about right. It gives them a chance to settle in secondary school and learn to navigate the pitfalls of real life social communication before being let loose into a medium where mistakes can have much wider-reaching consequences.