children on facebook

tsoparno

wondering what peoples thoughts are on this what age do you think its ok for your kid to have a facebook page.

Lola92

I think it really depends on the kid and how web wise they are, the amount of supervision you will be doing etc. I personally wouldn't allow my child on Facebook until she was at least 12. But I suppose it is all down to the individual really! I have seen 8/9 year olds on fb and I think it is all a bit ridiculous and completely unnecessary tbh but I would feel the same way about young kids with mobile phones too.

tsoparno

Lola92 wrote: »

I think it really depends on the kid and how web wise they are, the amount of supervision you will be doing etc. I personally wouldn't allow my child on Facebook until she was at least 12. But I suppose it is all down to the individual really! I have seen 8/9 year olds on fb and I think it is all a bit ridiculous and completely unnecessary tbh but I would feel the same way about young kids with mobile phones too.

some of his 8yr old friends have now popped up on FB agree with ya totally bout FB and the phones but i know the question of why can't i do it cause billy/johnny are on it is on the way.

harr

A friend of mine let his 10 year have a FB page but he checks it on a daily basis and he has to approve what photos and friends she has,this was the agreement they came to ether that or no page at all..he will give her the privacy she wants when she gets to 14 or so,but i think he has the right approach to the things for the age she is.

silja

I think FB's official policy is no under 13s, and that seems to be a good age for me.

Moonbeam

"No information from children under age 13. If you are under age 13, please do not attempt to register for Facebook or provide any personal information about yourself to us. If we learn that we have collected personal information from a child under age 13, we will delete that information as quickly as possible. If you believe that we might have any information from a child under age 13, please contact us through this help page."

"Parental participation. We strongly recommend that minors 13 years of age or older ask their parents for permission before sending any information about themselves to anyone over the Internet and we encourage parents to teach their children about safe internet use practices. Materials to help parents talk to their children about safe internet use can be found on this help page."

http://www.facebook.com/policy.php

Abi

I have to say, I'm no fan of it. I know full grown adults addicted to the stupid thing, and I don't think children should be on it, at least up to they're at school leaving stage. It's far too distracting for them imo. Their school years are what is going to set them up for life, and FB is addictive.

That said, I've an account myself but never use it. My sister rarely uses it, but puts up pictures of her her hols etc for the family to see if they wanted to have a snoop, but her page is private so I have to have it to view the pictures.

Even under parental supervision, and watching over the child on the laptop / desktop, you are only seeing what is going on at the time. FB is on phones, their friends computers, and free internet access at libraries - it's almost impossible to monitor 24/7

My friends sister has an account, and some time ago she 'added' me. I have to say, the utter horse-shit that they do write on their walls, I despair for parents today. The text speak and XxXAmyXxXx crap makes my eyes bleed. I highly doubt the girl can write a full sentence without it being in that tripe talk.

Yes, FB is my pet peeve

chloek

Face book is not for children under the age of 16yrs. It is far to addictive. Parents cannot monitor fb or the content that is visible to kids. I know from experience parents will get the usual all my friends are on it but it's not a good idea.

I have a FB account myself but would not allow my children to have one, I let them look at photo's on mine. The thoughts of them on there posting every little thing that happens would drive me crazy.

Ayla

chloek wrote: »

The thoughts of them on there posting every little thing that happens would drive me crazy.

So what about twitter/bebo/texting/etc?

Personally, I think this is the age of technology...kids grow up with it, they're surrounded with it constantly, whether or not the parents want or allow it. It's all about finding a balance & helping kids learn to use it in moderation.

That said, I wouldn't want my kids to have it, not because of any fears of information sharing or inappropriate photos/etc, but because it's just not bloody necessary. Same reason they're not getting their own phone until they can pay for it themselves.

I would allow them to have a FB page, if they ask for one, but only in a moderate dose. If they want to talk to someone, they call them. So much intrapersonal communication skill is being lost because of texting/twitter - people can't even break up with someone to their face anymore

nesf

Is it really that different (if managed properly) from the constant phone call circles we had with friends growing up? I drove my parents nearly mad with the hours I spent on the phone to people when I was a teen.

stacexD

I'm no parent but I was thinking about this recently..
A couple of neighbours and little cousins and the likes added me on facebook recently and almost every time I post a status or comment on something I realise that most of whats said on facebook isn't really suitable for them. More than anything I'd see things that myself and my friends post as a bad influence on them. Just general stuff like things that happened on a night out and quotes, some pics aswell. I'd say most people don't think about what their kids are seeing on facebook and only think of what they're puting up on it.
I'd say 13+ is a good age to be on facebook.

chloek

Ayla wrote: »

So what about twitter/bebo/texting/etc?

I would not allow any of the above, no phones until they are in secondary school. I bring them every where and pick them up, no need for phones.

deelite

My 7 year old asked me could she have a facebook page - I said yes (she can't work the house phone and has the attention span of a goldfish). Turned out to be the best creative thing ever - she got paper and made an actual book and drew pictures of faces - great way of spending a rainy afternoon.

angeldaisy

my niece (12) and nephew (14) both have pages but I refused friend requests from them. I feel that they should only have their real friends as facebook friends. my 6yr old is on moshi monsters but only to play he doesn't know about the chat thing yet and nor will he if I have say. he certainly won't be allowed to chat to people he doesn't know online.

mymo

My daughter is 13 1/2 and has had a page for about 18months, which I set up for her to chat to my friends daughter in the UK, and couple of other long distance friends. I have the password and can access it when I like, she has me as a friend so I can monitor her page. Everything is set to highest security settings and she is very sensible and never posts anything about where she lives, and all the photo's are very innocent.

However many of her friends have shocking stuff on their pages, even their addresses, and the photo's are truely scary as a mum.
I recently had an issue in that three so called friends decided to have a go at my daughter on facebook, they never mentioned her name in the posts, but sent her a text to look at their pages with awful comments on.
She immediately blocked them and told me, which I was glad of, I now know she is able to cope with this kind of thing. She was upset, we talked about it and I reminded the parents to check what their kids are doing online, sadly neither even knew the kids were on facebook.(one didn't seem to care) There appears to be a lot of this going on.

What I am trying to say, is it depends on the age of the child, how mature or sensible they are, and the ground rules agreed on both sides. (one of mine was that she didn't add anyone without telling me, another was the time allowed)

There is a lot of rubbish on there, but its a part of life, kids need to learn internet safety and these things are becoming a part of daily life.

nettie1

I totally disagree with children being on facebook. They're exposed to enough as it is. Children are being exposed to adult themes at younger and younger ages. I just think that the safety of children is more important than parental popularity. Don't put your children at risk just cos you don't want to come across as the mean parent.
I always think of Jessica and Holly when this kind of thing is being discussed. Is it really worth the risk? Maybe your child would be a very savvy internet user, but what could the consequences be while they're learning?
Children also use these kinds of pages as a little bit of a power trip - refusing certain people as friends, removing them as their friend, etc, and it's quite difficult for a young child to handle these indirect situations. Why expose them to it? Let them learn how to socialise face-to-face first.

silvo

I definitely think that Facebook should only be used by older teens. For younger kids there are some kids social networking sites out there that only allow parents to confirm friendships, or only allow 'safe chat' options. I think these are much more suitable for younger children, as they are heavily policed and moderated, and have a greater emphasis on security than Facebook does.

Tayla

I don't really have a problem with it as long as the parents monitor it strictly.
When my OH first set up his account, he was getting loads of friend requests from girls and boys in or estate who were about 9 or 10.
He didn't accept obviously but you'd wonder why parents are not even keeping tabs on what their children are doing, it's scary!

deisemum

My lads are on facebook but they're almost 16 and 14, more so the older boy.

I'm no longer friends with them on it but I've got someone elses password so can view what they're getting up to which isn't much anyway.

They use it to keep in contact with their friends and cousins/family.

cbyrd

My 12 year old has a facebook page, but i have control over it. I've set up the account privacy so i know who can post on her page and who can see the photos. When she's a bit older she can have more freedom on it.. She uses it mostly to chat to her friends and to see photos of her cousins that don't live near us.
I check it regularly, same with her text messages. You can't expect a child to magically know at 14 or 16 how to safely use the internet if they haven't used it before.. My thinking is introduce it gradually and police it heavily

Big Bag of Chips

Tayla wrote: »

When my OH first set up his account, he was getting loads of friend requests from girls and boys in or estate who were about 9 or 10.
He didn't accept obviously but you'd wonder why parents are not even keeping tabs on what their children are doing, it's scary!

Why would you assume the parents don't know about it?! Ever think that it was the parents requesting him as a friend through their children to indirectly snoop at what's going on in his life! Or that some people just don't see anything wrong with it.

I've had friend requests from kids, I ignore them. I can't be reposonsibily for what others might post on my page, and I don't want to be worrying about friend's kids reading stuff on my page that I think is inappropriate for 8 / 9/ 10.. 13 year olds etc!

gems1183

my daughter is 8 and she is definately too immature to have a facebook account as I know she would add anyone and everything to get as many friends as possible! she plays the games under my account like farmville if she chooses but to be honest she isnt overly interested, though I have seen that some of the girls in her class have facebook pages. I know kids need to learn internet safety but i dont think facebook is the place to do it until they are at least in secondary school. I say this as facebook is constantly changing its privacy settings and layouts, just last week my mobile number which had been hidden was visible to all and sundry because of a change that they didnt inform anyone of, it was a friend that told me!:(

lace

Facebook sets the age at 13 and this seems reasonable to me. I know there's a lot of scaremongering going on around the issue of social networking and internet safety now, but studies have shown that Irish children are the safest in Europe when it comes to the internet.

http://sociable.co/2011/04/19/irish-british-teens-safest-users-of-facebook-but-many-breaking-law-to-use-site/

Full report can be found here:

http://www2.lse.ac.uk/media@lse/research/EUKidsOnline/Home.aspx

If parents have access to the accounts and monitor all content carefully then Facebook can be a great way for kids to keep in contact with family and friends.

The only thing that scares me is how little some parents know or understand about the internet, facebook, twitter, foursquare etc. I think schools or family centres really need to start running talks on online safety. If children are allowed to roam the internet, creating accounts as they please they learn quickly and often get far more net-savvy than their parents.

Tayla

Big Bag of Chips wrote: »

Why would you assume the parents don't know about it?! Ever think that it was the parents requesting him as a friend through their children to indirectly snoop at what's going on in his life! Or that some people just don't see anything wrong with it.

No, I reckon it was the kids themselves adding him, maybe out of all of them there would have been 1 or 2 snooping adults but I reckon most of them were just the kids adding him probably just to up their friend account but I find it scary that their parents don't seem to care.

Chuchoter

I don't understand what possible use anyone under 13/14 could have with a Facebook. To be honest, its main purpose is giving people an easy way to be an asshole to be honest. I can't even count the number of times I've seen pictures of my friends out to something I was never invited to and its not nice. Don't expose them to it if you don't have to.

nesbitt

My eldest teen is on FB. It is part of their social communication. I am not on FB it just does not appeal to me. I do not monitor what she messages to her friends. As other posters have stated you cannot monitor anyone 24/7. I do however instill streetwise savvy online. Bullying is rife because it is easy to do online... You have to make sure your kid is ready for FB and therefore 13 onwards only in my view.

cynder

my ladys almost 12 and has had a facebook page for just over a year, most of 4th 5th adn 6th class has one.....

As long as you police, it i dont find it a problem......

Justask

Do you guys check on messages feed and friends etc on your kids account? And up to what age if you do?


(sorry Jaunary didnt see this )

January

Justask wrote: »

Do you guys check on messages feed and friends etc on your kids account? And up to what age if you do?


(sorry Jaunary didnt see this )

No problem .++

Kildrought

Bear in mind that your child is quite capable of creating two accounts, one that you get to see and one that you don't.

For people who have kids <13 with accounts, surely letting your child lie about their age on the internet is the first step towards making them unsafe? It certainly doesn't teach respect for internet policies. Facebook is not for under 13s and under 13s can be reported and deleted via http://www.facebook.com/help/contact.php?show_form=underage.

And no, other kids having them shouldn't make a difference. If other kids are joining chatrooms and talking to strangers on skype, is that ok too? I'm not even going to go into whether or not 13 should be the age an account is allowed, I'm just talking about being truthful and not letting your kids pretend to be above 13 on the internet.