# Anyone else condone underage social media use?



## moominmamma (Jul 5, 2003)

I'm wondering if there are other parents who have condoned underage use of social media by their kids. My youngest just turned 13, so she's no longer underage, but she has been using social media for several years with my permission.

My stance has always been that social media companies set a minimum age because they are unwilling to take any legal responsibility for ensuring kids are not exposed to inappropriate content. By allowing a 10-year-old to lie and say she is 13, we are in essence absolving them of the responsibility of protecting a 10-year-old.

Sort of like when I signed up for a marathon that said "in-ear audio devices should not be used during the race" but then more than half the runners were using them, and officials said "oh, we have to _say_ you can't use them so we can't be sued if someone gets hit by a car or something." It's just a CYA (cover your ass) rule. By breaking the rule, you're taking responsibility yourself. Legally and morally.

Anyway, my youngest dd has always had friends who are a good bit older. She is two and a half years ahead in school and her friendships have always run old. She has some absolutely wonderful friends from summer arts camps, for example, and they all keep in touch by Facebook Messenger, Instagram and Snapchat. She has siblings who travel and attend college, and two dozen cousins, all older, none within a day's drive, whom she wants to be able to keep in touch with. So I've allowed her to get her own social media accounts gradually and she has behaved 100% above reproach. She has got a lot of guidance both from me and from her older siblings; we talk a lot about social media, not in a fear-mongering way at all, but critically, curiously, open-mindedly and with values and safety in mind at all time. As such, I see that she's more sensible and kind than the average teen, and has developed a real knack for recognizing online crap and reacting appropriately. She's experienced a lot of benefits from being able to maintain relationships and circles of friendship and family over distance.

So I have no regrets. As a parent I tend to err on the side of allowing my kids to try grown-up responsibilities quite young because I can be there to support them and help them learn to handle what they're doing responsibly.

But I regularly come up against more mainstream attitudes and standards in discussions, whether in real life or online, and I am surprised by how hard a line some parents take with this. I've noticed that many of the tweens who are banned from having social media accounts by their parents simply have alias accounts their parents don't know about. I know this because I can see that they are friends with my kids, or sometimes they even follow/friend me. And I always wonder ... where are these kids getting guidance from? Who is talking to them about appropriate online behaviour, about kindness and personal boundaries for disclosure and the intricate details of online safety. I mean, no one, really.

I'm not really trying to start a debate. I guess I'd welcome some respectful discussion from both sides of the issue. If you're a parent who believes that social media is something all 11- and 12-year-olds should be banned from, can you envision a situation that might warrant an exception or is it a black-and-white thing for you? For example, my dd does some online schooling, and her previous school used the Google+ platform (a private Community within it) for their 9th and 10th grade writing workshops. Because she was only 12 last semester, my dd couldn't have a Google+ account, as per Google; the teacher suggested she login on my parent account, but that was nixed by administration who pointed out that we'd signed an agreement saying accounts and passwords would never be shared. So she couldn't take part in the workshop that was part of her schooling without lying about her age. We ended up withdrawing her from that online school for a variety of other reasons, but ... would you have lied about a child's age in that situation?

Miranda


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## chickabiddy (Jan 30, 2004)

I did allow Instagram (no others) when she was 11, but I also told her that if they discovered she was underage I would not intervene to save her account. I still have mixed feelings over whether I did the right thing. 

I do not know what I would have done in your daughter's situation. I think I probably would have signed up for another account myself: I guess I'd rather break school policy by sharing passwords than break Google policy by lying.


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## moominmamma (Jul 5, 2003)

chickabiddy said:


> I do not know what I would have done in your daughter's situation. I think I probably would have signed up for another account myself: I guess I'd rather break school policy by sharing passwords than break Google policy by lying.


Ya, unfortunately that wouldn't have worked because the email addresses to access the community had to be from the school's domain, via some sort of non-profit site account package they have with Google. You had to use the email address the school had assigned you for access.

Miranda


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## Linda on the move (Jun 15, 2005)

moominmamma said:


> I'm wondering if there are other parents who have condoned underage use of social media by their kids. ...
> My stance has always been that social media companies set a minimum age because they are unwilling to take any legal responsibility for ensuring kids are not exposed to inappropriate content. ....


My kids had facebook accounts before they were old enough. We set them up when we were getting ready for a move as a way to facilitate staying in touch with friends. I agree with you about the policies set by companies, and I didn't feel at all bad lying. I feel that I acted in the best interests of my kids, which is my job.



> I've noticed that many of the tweens who are banned from having social media accounts by their parents simply have alias accounts their parents don't know about. I know this because I can see that they are friends with my kids, or sometimes they even follow/friend me. And I always wonder ... where are these kids getting guidance from? Who is talking to them about appropriate online behaviour, about kindness and personal boundaries for disclosure and the intricate details of online safety. I mean, no one, really.


I've noticed the same thing. Because my kids are close in age and my older DD has social challenges, we didn't have the dynamic of an older sibling providing guidance. I talked to my friends who had older teens and got advice from them, and shared it with my kids.
...


> We ended up withdrawing her from that online school for a variety of other reasons, but ... would you have lied about a child's age in that situation?


I'm not sure -- to me it seems like part of the problem is that by the time you understood the policies well enough to know what you need to say to jump through the hoops, you had already disclosed so much information that a lie wouldn't be believable. Lying on anything related to school is tricky because they have so much information about the student.

To me, it seems that the problem was that the administrator was unwilling to accommodate her. The reason that using your account wasn't OK was because you also had the password, and they have a policy that passwords are never to be shared. Right? That doesn't seem like a hill to die on. It sounds like the reason your DD wasn't allowed in the class is because there was no way to password protect it *from you*. That doesn't seem like a very defensible position to take.


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## moominmamma (Jul 5, 2003)

Linda on the move said:


> I'm not sure -- to me it seems like part of the problem is that by the time you understood the policies well enough to know what you need to say to jump through the hoops, you had already disclosed so much information that a lie wouldn't be believable.


It was a weird situation. We would have only been lying to Google in order to activate the social media part of the account, but the school, by not calling us out on it, could possibly have been considered complicit in our lie if anyone had ever challenged them -- not that this would have happened in a closed community, I think. I think they were kind of hoping we would lie and not make a big deal about it, but I was too annoyed by the age-limit issues: they had already arbitrarily excluded her from a grade-level field trip because of her age. And I know there are lots of parents for whom a quiet lie to Google would not have been acceptable.

The admonishment not to share passwords was because the email logins were in the form [email protected] and so all you needed to impersonate someone else was the password. The actual rule was that each user should ensure that they and only they use their account. There was certainly the understanding that parents would know their children's passwords. But because everyone had signed a Technology Use Policy that said they could only use their own accounts, to have this kid using a parent account (associated with my Google profile, which I needed to preserve in order to do all the other things I had to do within their system as a parent) to communicate in a student workshop would have been a direct, visible and ongoing violation of the policy everyone was supposedly bound by. It also would have allowed my dd12 to have access to the rest of my parent account, including her older sister's school record, grades and all sorts of other stuff. Not that I think she would have gone there, but still...

Miranda


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## moominmamma (Jul 5, 2003)

Miley said:


> I use a specialised monitor... I am sure that everything is fine now.


This is imo completely misguided, and I'm not sure what it has to do with this discussion anyway. I suspect this is thinly veiled spam.

Miranda


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## Letitia (Aug 27, 2009)

Well, my kids aren't there yet, but I know how I feel about it. I am in general not very good at following rules that are for my own good if - in my own judgement - the risk is small. I've already found myself teaching my kids about rules that are there for public safety/greater good vs. CYA and how we need to use our judgement to navigate through life.


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## EnviroBecca (Jun 5, 2002)

It sounds like you have made wise decisions. We had a similar situation with needing a Google+ account for a school project, except that our son is in 5th grade so all of his classmates are too young, and the teacher had them sign up without ever mentioning it to the parents! We thanked our son for being honest with us about having the account and told him to use it just for the school project for now, and talk with us about any other ways he might like to use it.

We have held a hard line on keeping him off other social media until he's at least 13, even though some of his friends who are 10-12 years old are on, largely because we know it would be yet another reason for him to want to spend every spare moment glued to the screen! He is NOT responsible about managing his screen time, so we have to set tight limits, and the fewer things he feels he has to keep up with online, the easier it is to quit on time.


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## moominmamma (Jul 5, 2003)

Katea said:


> The only way to a hundred percent prevent them is by taking away all internet access.


Yes, and how would you even do _that_? It would entail banning all school use, somehow preventing access to friends' cellphones at lunch or on the bus, preventing playdates, library visits, sleepovers, etc.

The PAC at our local school worked hard for a ban on all student internet access except directly teacher-supervised LAN access on school computers ... because many had very strict rules about internet / social media access at home and didn't want kids to get access at school. Fine, the school said there would be no wifi, no network ports except in locked rooms or behind teachers' desks. And guess what? Before school and at lunchtime almost every single day I would see the middle schoolers crowded under the awning at the nearby credit union, logging onto the free wifi there, passing around phones, laptops and iPads, presumably madly surfing social media sites.

Miranda


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## EnviroBecca (Jun 5, 2002)

Katea wrote:


> The only way to a hundred percent prevent them is by taking away all internet access. If a kid wants to do it, s/he will do it, regardless of the rules.


I see what you mean, but think about this a minute. I've been reading the book _Get Out of My Life! But First Could You Drive Me and Cheryl to the Mall?_ by Anthony Wolf, about raising teens, and one point he makes is that teens likely will break some of the rules some of the time, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't have rules! He says that you should clearly state that the rule has been broken, that this is unacceptable, and that the rule is still the rule. Although the teen may continue to break the rule, the fact that there IS a rule makes a difference. This rings very true based on my own experience as a teen.

I mean, would you say any of these things? "The only way to be a hundred percent sure your kid will be home by midnight is by never letting her go out." "The only way to a hundred percent prevent your kid from abusing drugs is to never give him any medication no matter how sick he is." "The only way to a hundred percent prevent your kid from buying cigarettes is to never let him go into the supermarket."

Moominmamma wrote:


> Before school and at lunchtime almost every single day I would see the middle schoolers crowded under the awning at the nearby credit union, logging onto the free wifi there, passing around phones, laptops and iPads, presumably madly surfing social media sites.


They were allowed to leave school property at lunchtime?? That isn't allowed at my son's K-8 school and wasn't allowed at any school I attended until 11th grade. While I think it's kind of annoying, I understand why schools want to keep the kids on school property during the time the school is responsible for them. I'm surprised to hear of an exception in this worried era.


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## moominmamma (Jul 5, 2003)

EnviroBecca said:


> They were allowed to leave school property at lunchtime?? That isn't allowed at my son's K-8 school and wasn't allowed at any school I attended until 11th grade. While I think it's kind of annoying, I understand why schools want to keep the kids on school property during the time the school is responsible for them. I'm surprised to hear of an exception in this worried era.


I live in Canada. School hours where I live are 8:50-12:09 and 1:00-3:08. In other words, there is no school between 12:09 and 1:00 pm. While the school offers supervision over lunch time, that is considered a perk and not a responsibility. (I know some districts charge parents for this lunch-time supervision; it's considered akin to daycare.) Our local school is a K-12 school and many elementary and middle school students go home for lunch; high schoolers tend to head to the cafés and the beach or park. At the beginning of the year I think parents of K-8 kids are asked to sign off on whether their kids are allowed to leave school grounds at lunch. This is a tiny rural/remote town, and I think that the middle schoolers are pretty much all given this permission for social reasons even if they don't walk home for lunch. They like to be able to go for bike rides to the beach or to a friend's place or the store. We're a very free-range, outdoor-friendly community on the whole.

Miranda


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## oldsmom (Jul 8, 2015)

I tend to be pretty conservative about social media because my own teens were allowed at their mom's house to have full access and no supervision from grade school age on. Almost every horror you have heard has happened to one of my kids. We tried to discuss things with them, but in grade school, without any supervision...

We even had a ex-con fly from AUSTRALIA because he was "in love" with our 15 year old. Ugh... That's a whole story all by itself.

With that being said, we installed monitoring software on our computers that allowed us to track every page and every key stroke. We warned the kids that anything online is never truly private, but we never told them about the software. We only used it to make sure what they did wasn't unsafe. Twice, we had to have discussions with them about safety based on what we found. But having that gave us some peace of mind. 

We keep the computer in the living room, in full eyesight of everyone, and laptops need to be used in the living spaces. 

I will be honest that I also cyberstalk my kids' social media accounts. I don't make it known, and I don't interfere, but more than once it has proven to be necessary.


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## moominmamma (Jul 5, 2003)

oldsmom said:


> I tend to be pretty conservative about social media because my own teens were allowed at their mom's house to have full access and no supervision from grade school age on. Almost every horror you have heard has happened to one of my kids.


I would certainly not trust my kids if their online behaviour had precipitated the kind of issues you've endured! Wow.

We've taken a very incremental guided approach; not a lot of direct supervision, but a lot of discussion. A _lot_, almost to the point of making a sport of noticing the stupid things other people are doing online and sharing this stuff at the dinner table... lots of Snopes research, eyes rolled over friends' inappropriate behaviour or their lack of personal security boundaries, chuckling over Nigerian prince emails and clickbait scams, questions asked about sites and interactions that seem a little 'off,' basically building pride and confidence in not being taken in, learning the critical thinking and research skills that make you smarter than the people who might be trying to take advantage. Our family conversation at supper time often includes comments like "Did you see that stupid thing that was all over Facebook today?"

We did start it early, in the grade school years. I think that provided you've taught basic online safety rules well, 8-year-olds are very unlikely to get themselves into serious trouble through willful deceit, far less likely than 13-year-olds. That gives you a lovely window of opportunity to help them learn the ins and outs of social media before they are tempted to do sneaky things.

But I think my approach would have been very difficult if there was shared custody and it wasn't being used at the other end.

Miranda


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## lauren (Nov 20, 2001)

I think this is such an important discussion. There is so much peer pressure for kids to be on these sites. And things have changed a ton even between the time my now almost 18-year-old child was 12-13 and now, when my 11-year-old is becoming interested. One thing I know for sure: it is vital to keep an open conversation going about what happens on social media and why it is a concern. Even with texting, I recently had to support my youngest in a drama that involved misinterpretation of words, passing her words on to a third friend, further misunderstanding, etc.! It was much easier when I was little and we were just passing paper notes around!

Also it is hard to keep up with the variety of social media. When my older girl was 13, facebook was more or less the 'go to' place. Now it is pretty uncool to use FB (now that all of us grown ups have infiltrated!!). The place to be is Snapchat, Instagram--I'm not even certain what else. This will keep happening. So teaching strong values about expectations of behavior, how to sniff out a fraudulent 'persona' , never friending people you don't know, realizing that future and current employers can see much of what you do on social media, ETC, are all such important conversations to keep having.


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## Linda on the move (Jun 15, 2005)

lauren said:


> And things have changed a ton even between the time my now almost 18-year-old child was 12-13 and now, when my 11-year-old is becoming interested.


This is so true. My kids are older teens, and I can see how this is a much more complicated issue for parents whose kids are younger. The different types of social media are proliferating at an unbelievable rate, and I think that for a teen bent on keeping off their parents radar, it wouldn't be that hard -- they could just use a medium that the parents are unaware of.

I think that the more grounded and sensible the adolescent is, the easier it is to help them learn to use social media in ways that are in their own best interests.

Sometimes when I watch what parents are going through with their kids due to the actions and hurts caused by the child's OTHER parent, I feel so grateful that my DH has turned out to be a good guy and good father for 20 years. One of my good friends, who is a lovely person and a such a good mom, has been through hell with both her kids, who deeply struggled after a wide variety of crap and drama that their father (her ex) has put them through. My kids have had a much easier time coming of age -- social media, substances, driving, grades, etc. have all just been easier, but their father is nice, boring person who just shows up, loves them unconditionally, and is part of the conversation about *why* certain things are important.


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## moominmamma (Jul 5, 2003)

Yup, parents matter. Values matter. Modelling integrity and compassion matters. These things are probably all more important than whatever rules and practices you have.

This week some social media stuff blew up in our little town. It began among a group of 13-year-old girls in 7th grade, coincidentally the same group of kids I mentioned upthread who hang out at the credit union at lunch pulling free wifi. Something that happened on Snapchat proved to be the tipping point in social exclusion and bullying. The real damage occurred when it spilled off social media: one of the moms got involved defending her daughter, and before you knew it there was a volatile web of antagonism that had infiltrated the school, the arts non-profit I help run, the school staff, the medical clinic, ex-partners of the various parents, one of the officers with the local police detachment, and the ripples spread outwards.... 

Sadly I think that social media aren't "a whole new world" as much as they are an accelerated, amped up platform for all the same social garbage that has plagued humanity for generations. What used to be the screaming of profanity off the porch and telephone gossip is now aggression and shaming through social media. It used to take days for problems to take hold, which allowed some opportunity for diplomacy and equanimity to intervene. Now it is only a matter of minutes when things to explode. And wow, as much as good parenting can help mitigate the problems, poor parental behaviour can sure worsen it exponentially. In our village these internet-savvy apples haven't fallen far from their analog trees.

Because things can go south so quickly on social media, I think grounding kids in values is really crucial. Will you as a parent learn about new apps, the tool that leverage them, the cutting edge hacks that make them more powerful and dangerous, in time to discuss the thousands of possible implications with your 13-year-old? Probably not. So you had better make sure your 13-year-old has been raised to have integrity, compassion, empathy and excellent critical thinking skills. Parents staying abreast of current social media technology and talking about specific issues is helpful mostly in that it provides kids with guided practice at applying those values in the online world. The values are what will help in the heat of a viral moment, when your kid has to make a crucial behavioural choice in new, uncharted territory.

Miranda


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## lauren (Nov 20, 2001)

moominmamma said:


> nentially. In our village these internet-savvy apples haven't fallen far from their analog trees.


I love this sentence.


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## EnviroBecca (Jun 5, 2002)

I totally agree about teaching and modeling and discussing general skills for decent behavior and appropriate cynicism. My parents were always very good with this relating to TV commercials, so I've tried to pass that on to my son and apply it to as many venues as possible. I feel it's working because he often calls me over to the computer to "See this scam email! This is so fake! You can tell by..." and he's even created a couple of annotated emails and webpages (takes a screenshot and marks it up in PhotoShop) that he emails to his friends to show how to recognize a scam. :thumb


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## Kumarg8 (Mar 9, 2016)

moominmamma said:


> I'm wondering if there are other parents who have condoned underage use of social media by their kids. My youngest just turned 13, so she's no longer underage, but she has been using social media for several years with my permission.
> 
> My stance has always been that social media companies set a minimum age because they are unwilling to take any legal responsibility for ensuring kids are not exposed to inappropriate content. By allowing a 10-year-old to lie and say she is 13, we are in essence absolving them of the responsibility of protecting a 10-year-old.
> 
> ...


Not sure but, underage social media use will keeps him busy. Misusing of it might change him. better avoid headsets and restrict porn sites access.:laugh:


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## beanma (Jan 6, 2002)

moominmamma said:


> Because things can go south so quickly on social media, I think grounding kids in values is really crucial. Will you as a parent learn about new apps, the tool that leverage them, the cutting edge hacks that make them more powerful and dangerous, in time to discuss the thousands of possible implications with your 13-year-old? Probably not. So you had better make sure your 13-year-old has been raised to have integrity, compassion, empathy and excellent critical thinking skills. Parents staying abreast of current social media technology and talking about specific issues is helpful mostly in that it provides kids with guided practice at applying those values in the online world. The values are what will help in the heat of a viral moment, when your kid has to make a crucial behavioural choice in new, uncharted territory.


This!:truedat:

I also think it's important to be with your kids on social media. Don't throw them in to sink or swim on their own. Behavior is improved if they know that mom and dad are out there watching. I'm facebook friends with my mother-in-law, y'know, so I've got to bear that in mind when I post.


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## labelyourstuff (Mar 20, 2016)

If I may share, my mistake I allowed my son to use social media who is underage. I taught him the value of honesty and yet lied with the registration. However, as social media is already a part of life, the best that I can do is to monitor and impress on him on how to responsibly use it.


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## sillysapling (Mar 24, 2013)

I've been lying about my age since I started using the internet. Have you _seen_ the restrictions they put on under-12 accounts on neopets? No way was I putting up with that!

I think social media is a necessary skill these days. Whether I like it or not. (I don't)

Unfortunately, it's dangers exist even if we don't let our kids use it. Other people can post photos and information publicly, citing your children by name. I've also seen at least one instance where a child wasn't allowed to use facebook, so some kid in his class made a fake profile and used it to bully the rest of the kids- obviously leading to him getting mistreated in school.

We do need to teach our kids how to be responsible and kind, and as adults try and keep an eye out for problems like that. Unfortunately, these days being able to use social media properly is like knowing how to make a phone call or write a letter.

I do think that we should try to limit their computer use, though, and encourage kids to still spend time face-to-face witht heir friends, actually talking.


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