What a dilemna! Your child who is only 8 comes up to you one day after school and asks you "Can I have a facebook page"? First of all what is Facebook to them right? Little did I know some of his friends in his class are on Facebook. Wait a minute! Aren't you supposed to be 18 to join facebook? I know the deal. It's happening everywhere. People are registering with fake names and lieing about their age. I start asking around and most parents are allowing this just because the child is adding only family members and friends. I believe that's where problems begin. I feel that we have a responsibility to say "NO"! Am I the only one who feels this way. I had another parent tell me "Well it's ok because she added me as her friend and I'm going to be monitoring her page, what she does, what she says, blah, blah, blah". His child was being so persistent on it that he just decided to create one for her (yes..lied for her as well) just so he can make her happy. What! How far are we as parents willing to go to make our children happy. There are boundaries and this is one of them. I recently took a poll on one site (not going to mention the site) and I was astonished by the result of the poll. 35% of the poll was for young kids to have a facebook account. There is one thing to trust your kids and express this to them but there is another thing in proving to your kid that you trust them. There are other more significant ways to express to your child that your trust them. One of them I think is letting them walk to school on their own showing them that you trust their responsibility in not talking to strangers and looking both ways before crossing the street. To have your child say to you "Why Not? You don't trust me?" is dead wrong and that reverse pyschology doesn't work with me. It has nothing to do with trusting you. It has everything to do with my responsibility as a parent in treating him as the kid he is and not the adult he wants to be. Please feel free to comment. I would love to hear your feedback. Below you will find a link to a website with this discussion.
http://blackandmarriedwithkids.com/2011/02/25/would-you-let-your-child-get-a-facebook-page/
My opinion... 8 years old is way too young for FB...Has nothing to do with trusting your child, its more about protecting them. My baby is 17 and I tell her NOT to add strangers cause you really never know who the account actually belongs to these days...too many perverts out there preying on our children. Parents need to toughen up and not give in just to please their child, when it comes to their safety you need to be a parent not a friend.
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