Facebook appropriate for 8 year old ??

kerrz

Hi

Not wanting to hijack the previous thread in relation to suitable internet forums for kids .
As the title suggests i'd like to know other peoples views on this .

My 8 year old stepson has a Facebook page/profile .It was set up for him by his mum in January as he wanted to play the games she plays on her FB .It has his name , email address ,pictures and date of birth visible on his profile and visible to anyone that goes looking for him . His date of birth though says he is 18.

My husband (his Dad ) is a legal guardian and has court ordered access every second weekend for 3 days @ a time . My husband doesnt want him to have a FB account as he thinks its totally unsuitable ,also a person must be at least 12 to set up one . He approached his ex partner when he found out and explained his concerns but was told it was none of his business .I have a FB account so became a friend so that we could try and monitor it to the best of our ability .

But we cant monitor his day to day activity as he is not here everyday !We are genuinely concerned about his internet safety and what this leaves him open to .

My husband approached his ex partner again today in relation to this matter . He was especially concerned about why his DOB stated he was 18 . She said she was told to do this by another parent who said it was safer .All his friends on FB are adults and all their conversations , status reports , pics will come up in his live feed and this content may be inappropriate for an 8 year old also.None of his friends have a FB account .

He has unlimited internet use @ home ,its rarely monitored by an adult and he is extremely internet savvy .

My husbands ex partner has refused to take on board the inappropriate behaviour and refuses to cancel his account . My husband contacted our local social services out of desperation to see if they could advise us on best course of action but they were extremely condescending and said , " I'm sure mum is monitoring it ".They advised us to seek our solicitors advise but we feel that is too extreme @ the moment. I understand they are busy and have more pressing situations than ours but if his safety was put in jeopardy due to this we would blame ourselves for not doing more.

Have we any other recourse ?

Do any boards members think an 8 year old with a FB account is ok ?

Would you allow your 8 year old to have one ?

Thanks x

Mimojo

I think it is WHOLLY wrong for an 8 yr old to have a FB page.

You have mentioned that he is 18 years of age on the page, and is friends with adults. As I am sure you are aware there are regular status updates from all other friends on FB, and photos etc are viewable by all friends. There is no way an 8 year old should be able to view photos of adults pictures of nights out etc, he is only 8 yrs old!

Also if the FB page has been set up to play games, then people who also play these games can invite him to become friends on facebook (eg. Mafia Wars, Farmville etc). These are seemingly harmless games, but other adults could befriend him through these games.

I would also pay reference to the recent case in England where a girl was lured by an older man, pretending to be something he wasnt. I know that this is an extreme case, and I am not suggesting for a second that this could happen to you, but I am just making you aware of the darker side of FB.

I myself have a FB page, which I have set to private for friends only. I have a younger brother, and there is NO WAY that I would allow him to have a FB page. I dont know what the right ages is to have one, but I would suggest well into his teens.

I could go on and on, I think there are plenty of agruments against this, and I really think that he is far too young for a FB page, and his mother needs to see this

Superbus

8 is a ridiculously young age to be using the internet in the first place, let alone Facebook, which depending on who your friends with can be hugely inappropriate.

Anyway, I don't see what an 8 year old can get out of the Facebook-specific games like Farmville, and for the flash games you can get them anywhere on the internet, not only on FB.

I attended a lecture on internet safety a couple of months ago and the speaker spoke about a case of a 6 year old setting up a Bebo by himself. That is actually quite impressive, but no parent should let that kind of thing happen. The thought that the parent would consciously set up a FB boggles my mind.

kerrz

Thanks for the replies , at least we know we are not over reacting .

What can we do though ?

His mum has refused to cancel his account , Social Services have fobbed my husband off and his son wont tell his dad the password to his account as his mum has told him not to and we dont want to push him .

Is our solicitor our only option left ?

We have an appointment with district court in May to increase access , if this is brought to the Judges attention can ho do anything ?


Thanks again

I agree with the above.

It is totally inappropriate for an 8 year old to have a facebook account.

Is it possible for you to contact facebook and report an "underage" child having an account? would they cancel it? I really don't know what to advise OP, sorry. Best of luck with whatever you decide to do.

Victor

You might educate the child about internet safety.

Some people do set up account for their young children but the adult retains the password and the child can only use the account with the parent there. Its a useful tool for keeping in contact with extended family.

That said, I think 8 is probably too young to have under-supervised internet access.

Mimojo

I found this, it is a facebook link to "report a child under 13 yrs old"

http://www.facebook.com/policy.php#!/help/contact.php?show_form=underage

Maybe you could report the page and have it cancelled?

With all the bad publicity FB is receiving at the moment I would hope that they would take it on board

kerrz

Re reading my previous post , it may look like Im asking for legal advice thats not the case . Hope it didnt come across that the way .

Sorry Mods !

Ian Beale

You can get the password easily,you can use a program that records all key strokes typed on your pc and it's stored in a text file. There legal to install on your own pc so you could let him log on and bobs your uncle, you could keep an eye out if he gets any unsuitable messages and no one would know about it. As for it being a little underhanded well the kids 8 and his mother won't even compromise by letting you supervise what he sees.

lucy2010

Not a hope in hell I would let my 8 yr old son on FB. He wanted to play the games on my FB which I didnt think were suitable due to the instant chat on it. If as she says she set it up for him to play games there are a million & 1 games available for PC that do not require internet access. If he has a seperate account to mum it would indicate he is using the internet unsupervised. & as for the age being set at 18, im sorry but is this mum looking for trouble ? I think your partner needs to stand his ground here.

But well done & fair play for using common sense on the adding him as a friend - I did that with my friends daughter just to keep an eye & i tell you gobsmacked wasnt the word.

allthedoyles

There is adult content on Facebook - in status shuffle

kerrz

I have reported it but nothing has come of it . His Mum set up his hotmail account and FB account and has retained the passwords for them . So if she thinks that FB is ok for him any email directed to him in regards his age by FB she can just fob them off .

She will not give these passwords to my husband .

Its hard to monitor his internet activity when he is not here all the time . He has access to the internet all the time @ home and its rarely monitored from what he has told us .He was on FB @ 7 one morning! He also uses youtube @ home regularly .

We restrict his internet access here and monitor it when he does.

He has a club penguin account which he loves and we allow him to use that mostly .

Piste

There are ways to reach a compromise over this, but obviously the mum has to agree to it. She should have the password and only log him in when she's in the room. She should also filter out feeds from anyone who he's friends with but whose pictures and status updates might be inappropriate. Maybe she could have the facebook account registered to her email adress so that she gets to vet any friend requests. As long as some of the more adult features of facebook are blocked out and the mum is able to supervise what's going on, the kid should be fine to use facebook.

Nevyn

kerrz wrote: »

Do any boards members think an 8 year old with a FB account is ok ?

Would you allow your 8 year old to have one ?

I don't think it is ok, I would not let my 12 year old have one.

I suggest you set him up a club penguin account, it's a lot more fun and aimed at kids and see how he goes with that and I would be reporting his account to the facebook admins.

Mimojo

Piste wrote: »

As long as some of the more adult features of facebook are blocked out and the mum is able to supervise what's going on, the kid should be fine to use facebook.

I dont agree, an 8 year old is not fine to use facebook, esp with adult friends. Their status updates alone can contain adult content that should not be viewed by an 8 yr old

kerrz

Ian Beale wrote: »

You can get the password easily,you can use a program that records all key strokes typed on your pc and it's stored in a text file. There legal to install on your own pc so you could let him log on and bobs your uncle, you could keep an eye out if he gets any unsuitable messages and no one would know about it. As for it being a little underhanded well the kids 8 and his mother won't even compromise by letting you supervise what he sees.

Hi

Having his password would give us some sort of ability to monitor but we couldnt monitor live chat or what other people post that comes up in his live feed or on any of his friends walls .

His mum has changed his privacy settings to block us accessing certain info on his page like photos etc . and posts on his page by her and her partner .

kerrz

Thaedydal wrote: »

I don't think it is ok, I would not let my 12 year old have one.

I suggest you set him up a club penguin account, it's a lot more fun and aimed at kids and see how he goes with that and I would be reporting his account to the facebook admins.

Hi Thaedydal

He has a club penguin account that he is allowed use here but only if he is sitting with us . As i said he is extremely internet savvy and has no issue accessing youtube etc on his own.

Nevyn

You can restrict the youtube if he has a gmail account which his dob and make that the log in for youtube it will restrict what he can see to age appropriate material.

Why can't he use the clubpenguin account in his mothers?

Also there is a difference between superiving a child online and smothering them.

Piste

boozelerooze wrote: »

I dont agree, an 8 year old is not fine to use facebook, esp with adult friends. Their status updates alone can contain adult content that should not be viewed by an 8 yr old

Did you even read my post or did you just pick out that one line?

Mimojo

Yes I did read your whole post - I just think 8 yrs old is too young for FB thats all. Apologies I didnt mean to offend in any way

kerrz

Thaedydal wrote: »

You can restrict the youtube if he has a gmail account which his dob and make that the log in for youtube it will restrict what he can see to age appropriate material.

Why can't he use the clubpenguin account in his mothers?

Also there is a difference between superiving a child online and smothering them.

He doesnt have a gmail account , he has a hotmail account . He doesnt log in to use youtube either .

Yes we supervise , we dont smother . He does use his club penguin account at his mums house also .

Piste

boozelerooze wrote: »

Yes I did read your whole post - I just think 8 yrs old is too young for FB thats all. Apologies I didnt mean to offend in any way

No worries, you just seemed to miss the bit where I said you can hide updates from certain people, so the mother could hide updates from the adult friends if they were prone to posting inappropriate stuff. She could also filter the friends if her email were registered to the account and she had the password.

Eoineo

First off I agree, a Facebook account for an 8 year old is completely unsuitable but the question is what can you/should you do about it.

If the child is registered as being age 18, there is little Facebook can do as they have no way of proving they have been given the wrong information. I'd knock that one on the head and move on.

As a stepmum myself I understand how intricate dealing with a separated parent is and how hard it is when you have radically different points of view on what is acceptable for a child. I really think that your only option here is to teach the child how to browse the internet in a safe manner, what are acceptable sites and give him a good grounding. Being internet savvy is one thing, being able to browse the internet safely is another.

If you push too hard on this topic, either with the child or with the mother, it could become far more attractive to him to use the Facebook account and/or other accounts without your knowledge. Encouraging openness and honesty in the child is really important.

Acknowledge to him that you have certain rules in your house and he has others in his other home. It's not that hard for him to adapt, after all he will have different rules in school to at home anyway.

Best of luck.

hunnymonster

my stepson is significantly older (14) and has unsupervised FB access. Even though he is a really sensible kid I'm still concerned. We know most of his FB friends but there are a couple (including a 60 year old in the usa who lists "socialising with young christian people" amongst his interests) that we don't know. His mum is not concerned and I guess we just have to trust her.

littlebug

I came across a profile of an acquaintance on facebook and half considered adding her as a friend until I noticed that 2 of her friends were her 7 and 5 year old children :eek:. They're in school with mine and I don't want mine even getting the idea into their heads. There are enough sites with games etc for kids without them getting into the whole online social networking thing at that young age.

smelltheglove

Report the account, he is too young for it. I have a public profile since people visit my page to see my work nut even if he is private he can still gets pm's from strangers.

As you said he will see pictures from other users, I have a lot of models as friends and I know some if the pictures I would see would be inappropriate, never mind the risks of strangers befriending him as with the case in England.

Better safe than sorry!