Am I just being too overprotective?

My 10 yr. old daughter wants a cell phone and a FB acct. I am totally against both because her older sister was older before she got a phone (7th grade), and I just don't think she needs the online drama of FB anytime soon. Of course, I am getting the but Moooommmmm, everyone has it/does it whine. I still think she's too young. Do you agree or disagree and why? Help!!

I should add that her twin brother has zero interest in either, so that helps me I think.

 

Our older kids all got their cellphones the year they started high school, which is grade 8 here. Tess just got hers for her birthday a couple of weeks ago since she is starting high school in September. They walk to school with friends, between 20 and 30 minutes each way, so I feel better knowing they have a phone & I can get in touch with them if they are late coming home. I see no need for most kids to have a cellphone in elementary school.

I think all 3 of them got FB accounts around 11 or 12, with the understanding that we would have their password & be able to monitor their account, privacy settings, etc. We haven't ran into any problems with it.

 

Thanks Tina, I can see your point for your kids having phones. It just gets harder and harder for me to keep saying no, she comes up with reasons why she should have one all the time!

 

Personally my kids don't have FB accounts until they're 13. (So far just Sage) They have to say they're 13 to have it, and we encourage honesty. I think it would seem like a double standard if we said, "We expect you to be honest in our home, but it's ok to lie online." I went to a seminar for parents of middle school girls on keeping kids safe online and this was also a big point the speaker made.

The cell phone issue is a little more dependent on circumstances I think. If a 10-11 year old is often waiting for rides, staying by themselves and needing to contact parents, maybe it would make more sense. Just to text friends? Nope. Sage has one that she can use just to call and text. It was mostly my DHs doing because he was tired of having issues when having to pick her up from activities. Now Trey is wanting one but there's not really a reason to need it. And she was about a year older when she got it. He just wants it because she has one, IMO. I think in the next year we may get him one, but not til he's closer to 13.

 

Fortunately my 10 yr old has no interest in cell phones, ipods, ipads or FB. So no, he doesn't have any of the above. We've already discussed it (dh and I), and we'll probably get him a cell phone when he starts getting into activities that require us to go pick him up. It'll be easier than him trying to find a phone to use, or us just going to pick him up and having to sit and wait for a long time.

As for FB, if it comes up in the next couple of years, we also encourage honesty and he won't be getting an account until he's at least 13 yrs old. And I will have his password so I can keep an eye on what's going on. A friend of mine went and deleted a ton of her daughter's "friends" because of stuff they were posting, and were putting on her daughter's wall along with some other girls wall's. Keeping an eye on your own kid's stuff is extremely important in my opinion.

 

I let my daughter have a phone when she was nearly 10, she was walking by herself to school and I felt it was safer. She lost it a year and a half later and as she had also lost her DS a few months before, she had to go the rest of the year without one. She bought one with her birthday money this year. She started HS this year and catching the bus so i do want her to have it and have put her on a plan. She really doesn't use it very much except. I found when she had it earlier, it wasn't on a lot because at primary school, she had to hand in to the office in the morning and pick it up after.

As for FB, well I let her have an account at 10, mainly because my brother and sister live overseas and her dad is in a different state and I thought it would be good for her to maintain that contact. But last year we had a couple of issues with it (a lot of time on 'chat' with boys) so she doesn't have one now and I have said that I will consider it when I feel she has the maturity to be on it and when she is over 13.

She has her own laptop which she plays games on and is pretty much attached to her ipod so I don't think she misses it that much.

 

No FB or cell phone for my 12 yr old. First, there is a legal reason for FB to limit its customers to no children under a certain age. There is a good reason for the Children's online privacy act. I will not lie for him to get an account. If he really "needed" to speak to one of his friends I would have him call from our home phone or my cell. As far as a cell phone goes it is need vs want. Right now he wants a phone. When he needs a phone we will discuss with him on how he will pay for it and the service. With privilege comes responsibility, he will need to pay for it.

 

I just got my oldest DD a cell phone last month, she will be 12 in Oct. and starting middle school at the end of August. She has been begging for a cell phone for about 2 years now because her BFF got one in 3rd grade....no idea why. We held off for a long time getting her one and the main reason we got her one is she will be walking home from school. We actually walk to all 3 schools (elem. middle and high). But once the kids are in middle school Moms don't walk them to/from school anymore. :lol: So her friend's Mom will drop her off at school in the morning on the way to work and she and some friends will walk home. I am nervous about this, but for me the cell phone was a safety issue. Even though I am home, I want her to text me when she is leaving school to let me know she is on her way home. We decided to give it her to in the summer so all the "fun" would be over by the time school started as well. I knew since her cousin (who is 13) and her BFF and a friend who moved away last summer all have cell phones it would instantly be a social thing and I didn't want that to happen once school starting. Another reason we decided to get her a cell phone was that 3 other elem. schools feed into the middle school she will go to, so when she makes new friends chances are we won't know the parents for a bit or as well as we do her elem school friends and it will make me and DD more comfortable knowing she has a phone and get in touch with us if needed. She has also proven to us that she is responsible enough for one. But she knows there are rules and lots of them with the phone. :good:


As for FB, no way!! There is no way she will be on there before she is 13 and I don't know if she will be on there when she is 13. Cyberbullying is running rampant these days....so I don't feel you are being overprotective at all about FB. I don't know if you have ever seen the ABC Family movie Cyberbully...it was on last summer and I know Red Box has it. It is really good if you have not. DD and I watched it together. Anyway, it was the movies version of FB and the girls BFF was a cyberbully to her. It was really eye opening to my DD about how anyone can be a cyberbully, even a BFF. Kids really have no idea that anything can be put on the internet true or untrue and once it's there, it's there forever.

 

I think this is an excellent point.

My kids aren't in this age bracket yet, but I love what my best friend did for her eleven year old, so I thought I would share. They set her up a fb acct on the main family computer (right in the living room) and the daughter doesn't have the password. She can only log on with the assistance of her parents. They monitor the account very closely.

Even with that being the case, I agree that following the fb rules (13) is a safe way to do things.

 

My oldest DD got a cell phone for Christmas. She was 11 when she got it. She can only call and text. The reason "Santa" got it for her was a safety issue. She had had spinal surgery in September. Whe walks home from the school bus. One day, a few months after her surgery, she slipped and fell in our yard. She could not get up. Luckily she had a friend with her that day and also my DH heard her screaming. We decided that she needed a phone in case something like that ever happended again.

 

You all have great points and make me feel better about my decisions. I work at the elementary school right down the road from the middle school they will be going to, so I will be dropping them off and picking them up, so I don't see a "need" for her to have a phone right now. Sure, the want is there, but she will just have to wait a couple of years.

I have seen the Cyberbully movie and it was so crazy how out of hand it can get. But, I do have a 17 yr. old daughter, so I know first hand about all that already. Girls can be SOOOO catty and mean and they try to do whatever they can to be popular or tear someone else down that they are jealous of. I so dread going thru the middle school drama again with Kimmy and TJ, it was some of the hardest times for my oldest, but she overcame it all to be a beautiful, happy young lady. At the time though, when you are the one being targeted and left out and made fun of, they feel like their life is in turmoil. I think adding another way for girls to "attack" each other either by texting or on the computer is just something I'm not ready to deal with yet with my 10 yr. old.

That time will come and I will help her deal with it, but I am in no way looking forward to it. I know that bullying and girl drama has always existed, but it just seems like in this day and age, they can be "attacked" 24/7 and that's sad. It's like the mean girls have no supervision or guidance because some of the things I've seen and read online between teenage and tween girls has really shocked me!

I may not be the "cool Mom" by any means by doing this, but I've never claimed to be the most fun, popular Mom, just ask my 17 yr. old! LOL

:crazy:

 

I would never say that anyone's child needs a FB account, certainly it is a choice & they can live without it. But, I have found that it has been an excellent way for the kids to learn about internet safety & what is appropriate or not appropriate to do/say/post on the internet. And, even though I am sure it exists, I have never seen any instances of cyber bullying & I monitor their accounts closely.

I have found, however, that once my kids got cellphones, their FB usage fell off sharply. They hardly use it anymore, since they can just text their friends now.

 

I understand what you're saying and I actually run a computer lab at our elementary school and we have to do Internet Safety courses with the students, so they get an idea of what not to do online, but it's still such a big, scary place that they can get sucked into without supervision. I agree that as long as you supervise them and monitor their accounts, it should be okay. I'm just not ready for it yet, but even when I let them do it, they will be watched and monitored very closely. I think it's like anything else, if you are there to walk them thru it and teach them the right and wrong way, it will be fine.

 

I teach 5th graders and had a horrible time last year with my girls and their FB accounts. Even though some of the parents monitored the accounts closely (one of the girls could only access FB through her parents account - but she was still harassed/bullied one time (that I know of) after she identified herself when she was posting to a friends page), once a friend types their comment in, it's out there for everyone to read. The parents that are monitoring the account might find the offensive comment seconds, minutes, hours, whatever, later and delete it, but the damage has been done. That conflict and drama followed these girls to the classroom and made life miserable for the victims (changed weekly) and the bully (also changed frequently). Living through this daily drama has cemented my decision to not allow my daughter to have texting or FB until she's a bit older. (we also had issues with texting with these girls)

As for the cell phone, I would really like to get a track phone for my kids and have my DD be in charge of it. She's going to be in 2nd grade and my boys will be in 1st grade, so they are still pretty young. They will be walking to and from school most days on their own (a total of about 10 blocks, about a 15 minute walk). Even though we live in a fairly small town where nothing exciting ever happens, I would just feel better knowing they had a cell phone with them. My husband doesn't agree, so I'm working on him. I just want a simple track phone, no texting options, where we can program our numbers and grandparents numbers in it. If they weren't walking to and from school, I wouldn't even be thinking of a phone for them, so I think that totally depends on your personal situation.

 

My twins have had cells since they were 9 (DH's idea, not mine). At 11, not many kids don't have them around here. As for FB, they are not allowed until they are 13. My rules, not FB's.

 

My two do not have phones or FB. Phones because I have yet to see a need. I have told them the same thing I told their older sister...'your first car can have a phone, until you get a car, you don't need a phone' And unless something changes in circumstances, I'm going to stick by it. Andrea did get a phone when she went to college, but that was because she did not have a car yet (she didn't get a car unil she was 22)


Facebook is another story. This spring I discovered with a bit of help from one of my friends, who is mom to one of their friends, that BOTH of my girls had FB accounts and were proud of the fact that neither I nor their dad knew about it. One had used a fake name, one had used her real name. Both had created email accounts with out our knowledge as well. Needless to say, it is going to be a LONG time before either of them get FB accounts again. I told them both that I will not even revisit the conversation until they were 13, and at that point they had better have good reasons for them to be allowed to do it. It wasn't even the FB that bothered me, or the email accounts (I could have set them up each one through my carrier), it was the lying and going behind my back when they knew I couldn't check up on them (they did it the day after I had knee surgery in Feb). They also lost their tablets and mp3 players and every other electronic device for quite a while.