Letting Girls Under Thirteen-years-old on Facebook

My (older) daughter is 8, and she does have an fb account. BUT....The only reason is so she can talk to family that lives far away. She has no pic on her profile, and she has ONLY family on her 'friend; list. She does not get on very often, maybe once a week. Sometimes even less. I'm not aware of any of her friends having an account. When she is older 10-12-ish, we will revisit this issue. She has never asked to have anyone else on her list, so I don't think she's ready. That's a good thing! :)

Totally opposed. Send them outside to play instead of sitting around in front of a computer or walking around with their nose to their cell phone. Get a life, kiddos!

I am extremely opposed to my daughter having a Facebook account before the age of 13. The internet is not a place for a child to be and honestly I feel 13 is still too young. My daughter would not go behind my back because she knows she would be in big trouble! There is no need for my 10 year old daughter to have an account on any social network! Whenever she does get a Facebook account, I will monitor daily and I will have her user name and password . I want to make sure there are not any personal messages going on that I can't see. I am very strict with this kind of thing because I feel it my responsibility to protect my child. She will be under very strong rules until she is about 16 or 17. She will NEVER have a computer in her room, and the only one she can use will be in the living room. This is one area she will not have privacy! You may think I'm crazy, but I will do everything in my power to protect my girls!

My daughter just turned 11 and is in the 6th grade. She is not on facebook, nor will she be until she is 13, because those are the rules. I don't plan on letting her get a license until she's 16 or vote until she's 18... because those are the rules.

She does have a couple friends who are on facebook. Mostly they have older brothers/sisters so they have been around it. Also her cousins (who are younger than her) all have facebook profiles.

My daughter understands that she doesn't get to do something just cuz other kids do it.

I will let her be on facebook at 13. At this point facebook is an important social networking tool and it is a great way to communicate and keep up with her family (I am divorced from her dad, who lives in another state). My family lives throughout the country so facebook would be agreat way for her to keep in touch with everyone. But we talk about online stuff when she plays other games and she understands about privacy issues and the computer is ONLY allowed at the kitchen table or in the living room on the desk so I can pretty much see what she's doing all the time.

To say that kids don't need to be on facebook it to say that social acumen isn't important. It actually IS important, and therefore it's important that I am the one that teaches her how to be responsible with that tool.

My 9 year old has an account. We have the security settings such that nobody can see anything (not even her profile picture) unless they are already her "friend" and that people cannot send her friend requests. Her only friends on Facebook are family members.

The reason she has an account is so she can keep up with her cousins (who live in Europe - so Skype is hard because when they're awake, we're asleep and vice versa), her grandparents (who live 2 states away), and aunts and uncles (from all over the place). I love that she can talk to them almost every day, share photos with them, links to youtube videos, etc, even though they live thousands of miles apart!

Also, we allow her to use Facebook only when her homework is done, chores done, etc, and she is on the laptop in a place where we can supervise her. My DH and I are the only ones who know her password (she doesn't know her own password), so she can't get on Facebook if we aren't there (for instance, she couldn't get on there from the computer lab at school, or a friend's house). We are conscious of the fact that the internet can be a scary place, but it's also a useful tool in our society, and it's not going to go away. I think by allowing kids to take these (supervised) steps toward responsible internet use, we can better prepare them for a future that will include social media.

To me their still kids . . . let's let these kids be kids and enjoy the time outside playing and enjoying life as a kid. Let them laugh, be goofey, pretend play and just be who they should be at that age. We grow up too fast these days and although I might seem old school I just feel social media, cell phones, internet, etc has just become overwhelming. We will survive and did survive without all this technology. My daughter is only 5 and who knows what the world will be at age 10 so I will wait until and hope that I stick by the beliefs I have now.

My daughter is 10 and currently has a fb. However I set up the account and created the password. Obviously she knows the password so she can log in but she also knows she is not allowed to change it. I am able to monitor what she is doing and make sure that the creeps are not getting to her. If something is done that she hasn't talked to me about I will ask her to change it. If she doesn't she knows I will. It is a trust thing. She also is respectful and asks me anytime she gets a friend request if she can or cannot add them. I'm also friends with her on fb myself.

My daughter will be 11 in two months and I am absolutely opposed to her having a facebook account for several reasons.

I think it over exposes her, even with the account settings at super private settings. I have had friends who let their daughters have them and then took them back because they started accepting friends without their mom's knowledge and they were people the moms didn't even know.

I think she has better things to do most of the time. She has actual living friends that like to do actual things. I want her to live an actual life instead of a technological/virtual one. I want her to ride her bike, play with her friends, read, draw, learn to cook and sew and right now she wants to do all of those things. If she wants a farmville, she can play on mine for a little while.

I think girls (and kids in general sometimes) can be mean and there is something about the anonymity of facebook that gives these kids courage. An altercation happens at school and, before you know it, nasty things are being sent back and forth online for all mutual friends to see and it gets bigger exponentially. I won't have her exposed to that. She isn't ready. She's not mature enough.

That's just my opinion.

L.

thank God facebook wasn't around when my daughter was a tween!!!

No....there is a reason for the rule - there is too much bullying (look at what happens on here for goodness sake!!) and other things that kids under 13 are not ready for...

heck there are things on there that *I* am not ready for!!!

My granddaughter has an account, she plays a couple of the games. I am the one who selects her friends, she is only friends with family and my personal friends that I know, or a friend personally knows. Such as one of my high school friends plays FarmTown, his mom plays FarmTown and I know her. I don't know her sisters but since my friends know them I feel they are okay, plus his mom was friends with my mom. I also have let her be friends with some of my college friends kids. They are not personal friends but their mom vouches for them.

So, back to what I was saying.

I have my granddaughter completely hidden from being searched. I can go on an alter account and type her name in the "search for friends" box and her name will not show up, she is hidden. A lot of celebrities use this type of account setting so that they can't be sought out by fans and they want to play games with their friends.

The computer is in the main part of the house, there is no need for it to be anywhere else, if someone needs privacy to surf the web then they are somewhere they should not be.

I feel confident that she is safe, she is allowed to chat with friends but has not really shown an interest yet. She does chat with her siblings that don't live here and her other grandparents occasionally.

No facebook. I dont even have an account.

Updated

No facebook. I dont even have an account.

My stepdaughter is 12 and has always been an EXTREMELY good kid... but this summer she secretly set up a facebook account - she friend requested me, my husband and our families and told us her mom allowed her to open an account... then a few days later, when my husband talked to his ex, the truth came out - his daughter never asked her mother. Her mom didn't know anything about it. Bottom line - she missed her friends and that's why she opened an account (most of the middle school kids in her very small rural hometown have a facebook). Every other week in the summer she spends with us an hour away from her mom's house (where all her school friends live) and when she was at her mother's house i guess she didn't see any friends at all. So I do understand why she wanted one, just not happy about the way she did it.

Both sets of parents punished her in our own ways and it's led to us deciding we really need to "co-parent" more and communicate during her teen years - so that's one good thing that came out of it, because overall we haven't really communicated well with his ex and her husband.

I can already see how the peer pressure and bullying can creep into any online socializing, so overall i'm not extremely happy about it. But we allowed her to keep the account open, because we'd rather have access to it and monitor it than her open another account behind our backs again. She has NO photos of herself (just a cute polar bear as a profile pic) and we made sure everything was strictly private. Her only friends are people she knows. She's also VERY restricted as to how much time she gets on there. Now that she's back in school & sees her friends all day she barely even goes on it anymore.

My daughter is 12 and has had a fb account for about a year. Her dad and I both have her passwords and we monitor it often. She knows the rules and consequences. We know all of her friends (both on fb and in person). However, she only looks at her facebook about once a week anyway or if she has a specific question for her friends like "what time is cheer practice?". My boys are 12,10 and 8 and have never even asked for a facebook account.

I have legal guardianship of my 9 year old granddaughter. She does see her mother daily and stays there after school until I get home and goes over most weekends. Her mother (my daughter) just informed me that she set up a Facebook account for our little one. She promises to monitor it carefully, but I am still concerned. I don't have a Facebook, never have, and think that social networking sites are totally lame. Sorry, just my opinion. I think people get too carried away and are too quick to write unkind things. It's easier for people to be mean and snotty in writing than face-to-face. So, to answer your question, we are torn. Mom thinks it's okay as long as she monitors; I am adamantly opposed!

I am very opposed to children that young on facebook. I have a 13 year old on it and have already had one issue with it. My 12 year has had issues with using youtube where a 20 year was sending her messages. There are way too young to understand the implications. It is hard enough getting the 12 and 13 year old to understand, I really think Facebook should be 18 and over!

I'm not sure why this has to do with girls. My daughter was 14 when I allowed her a facebook page. She is now 16. My son is 12 - plenty of kids his age, both boys and girls, have had FB pages for a year or two. I don't feel it's necessary so young for either gender of kid and he can get one when he starts HS like my daughter did. I'm curious why your article would focus only on girls - what is the difference in the issues between girls or boys in the tween group doing online social networking?