Should you let your child have a FaceBook account?
by Ron Huxley on December 27, 2009
Over the holidays we visited various friend and families and I noticed two things about this issue: One was that our friends small children are no longer small. They are big teenagers! Second, was that some parents allowed their teens to have FB accounts and some didn’t. What are your thoughts about this? If teens are allowed to update and tweet, etc. what rules should there be about it?
Tweet us a reply @ronhuxley or comment back below…
| 1. You must friend me. Not because I am lonely, if you’ve noticed I have over 500 of my own friends, you need to friend me if you want to be on Facebook. |
| 2. I must know your password. Granted I will also have to write it down and I promise not to show it to your little brother. but you still need to give it to me. If you change it, you must give me the new one. And again, I will not share that information with your brother. |
| 3. For my part, I promise not to abuse my power. I will not sign into your account without your knowledge. |
| 4. Believe me, I know your friends will use language I prefer you not use. |
| With teens I tend to lean toward the “less is more” when it comes to words, yet at the same time I make sure I’m packing plenty of information in what I do say. |
| My one reservation is the issue of the kids not understanding the ramifications of their actions. I worry about impulsive posts and not understanding the weight of what gets posted. |
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Tagged as:
adolescence,
Arts,
child,
facebook,
Kids and Teens,
programs,
social networking,
Television
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
I liked the ground rules, and agree on the issue of efficiency but potency of words. I don't think that one answer is going to be appropriate for every child, or even any one child all the time. I use Facebook with my daughter as a means of always providing fuel for engaging discussions. I have told her for some time that my job is not to tell her what to think, but to teach her how to think. Facebook provides that medium.
I love how you use social media as a way to teach a child how to think. This attitude should be applied to all things when parenting. Thanks for the great reply.
my girlfriend signed up her daughter with a facebook fan page. She is only 7 years old the picture of her on the page is in a cute little cheer leader outfit with a bio about her likes and dislikes. I know that we can adjust the privacy setting etc but we all know that noithing is really private on the internet no matter what you do. I feel this is inappropriate and putting her child at risk, any thoughts?
Thanks for posting your question and your concern about this girl's safety. I think it is definitely a risk that the mom is taking with this. If this were a safer, kinder world, we wouldn't need to be concerned. But it can be a dangerous world and so, I would agree with you that it is an unnecessary risk that I would not want to take.