My son on facebook-Is this good?

Random thoughts — 22 November 2011

With High School now well in full swing for our youngest son – the “F” word cropped up the other day.
“Dad when can I be on facebook” he asked.

Reasons given were twofold

“There are lots of cool games on there” and
“All my friends are on there”

I am not sure he knows EXACTLY what he is going to do on there. Facebook doesn’t have the monopoly on cool games online and I would prefer to wait till he is more than 11 before he spills out his entire personal details online for everyone to see forever. (You see “terms of service” don’t really mean much when “all your mates are on”)

His impending presence led me to think about facebook because having your Dad as a facebook friend isn’t going to be seen as very cool. In fact, having your Dad anywhere near you when you are 11 isn’t very cool.

So I will be trying to make a tactical withdrawal from facebook over the medium term.

Anyways, as far as the young chap is concerned, I have the following plan of action.

He doesn’t actually use his real name – Only a combination of his first and middle names.
His photo is bogus
I personally set his privacy settings (which are likely to be high)
(Probably breaching facebook terms of service) NO personally identifiable information will be available on his profile.
I know his password
His account will be closed (by me) for any breaches of the above.

Not sure if I have missed anything but if anyone has any experience of siblings on facebook, I would appreciate a comment.

Maybe this is overkill – but his learning curve at the moment should be taking the right PE kit to school on the right day, making sure his geography homework is done and has he told his mum that he needs some raw materials for food studies rather than Mafia wars and farm whatsits.

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jonathan

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Helen StothardTwitter: helenstothard
November 22, 2011 at 9:49 am

I’ve been having this conversation with my daughter since she was 8! Yes some of her friends are on there. Whilst I do allow a fair amount of leniency in terms of what she is allowed to access via the internet this is one area that will stay banned for quite some time, I don’t care who is on there.

The old excuses for Facebook such as the cool games are no longer relevant, her iPod touch and her upcoming christmas present both negate the need for Facebook any more.

In terms of keeping in touch with friends I hear enough of her playground exploits without that atmosphere encroaching into the home. Children can be nasty and Facebook is just another weapon in the bullies arsenal.

I don’t believe she is ready for it yet, and whilst we have a good understanding between us of what is and isn’t allowed on Facebook I am not yet ready to let her loose on there.

I will however, follow your experiment with interest. Hope it works well for both of you.
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Maxxy
December 8, 2011 at 11:26 am

We went through this Jonathan not that long ago.

I think your list is a good one.

The twitchy areas for us were nothing related to weirdos or bullying but just more to do with inappropriate comments from family and friends. It’s just too easy for them to see topics of conversation that you would rather they didn’t see! We had to un-friend son from some of our closest friends and family members so I would watch out for that This was more to do with family issues, or people saying stuff about other family members or having conversations that were just to difficult to explain (things like family splits, money, jobs, child custody discussions).

I might be old fashioned but at 11 I still think kids are entitled to a childhood and being protected a bit where possible from some of the more unsavoury aspects of life. They aren’t kids for long and they can go and play games elsewhere, facebook isn’t the only game place on the internet so I’m afraid we delayed it for as long as possible.
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