Facebook and Bebo - should I let my daughter have an account?

[Mortiroloboy]

Visit www.ceop.gov.uk/ This site will give you all the guidance you need regarding keeping your child safe in an online environment. These networking sites are extremely popular with youngsters and sadly in todays society computer savvy Paedophiles will use them to groom youngsters, it is a good idea not to let them have access unsupervised, i.e in their bedroom where you cannot see what they are upto, little tip too if you see POS being used, that's code for Parent Over Shoulder.

 

[gkerr4]

mortiroloboy is absolutely on the money!

I think social networking is an important part of education - lets face it - the internet is not going to go away tomorrow - nor is the shift towards web2.0 tech and the increasingly complex methods kids use to interact with each other and new people.

you do need to try and raise her awareness of the dangers though - and CEOP is a great way to do that. The CEOP site has a lot of info for adults / parents / carers to raise YOUR awareness of what can happen - their child friendly site is www.thinkuknow.co.uk - point her in that direction and it will help explain the danger as well as give her links to a safety button where she can report circumstances which make her feel uneasy or that she thinks might be innapropriate.

i run the education network within the education authority and child protection online is one of my responsibilities. we use the CEOP packs for learners and adults to raise awareness - they are excellent free resources.
PM me if you want to discus any further

 

[Frazer]

I use facebook personally and find it very useful, in the sense that it allows me to contact friends just as easily as email, and share photos, etc. I only ever add people as my friends who I know and speak to regularly.

If your daughter is 13, i believe facebook have set it up so that when you put in your date of birth, under 18s or under 16s have automatic privacy settings to make it more difficult for anyone to see her information. But you can change these anyway. Personally I would let her have the account, on the premise that she tells you the passwords, and that you can check the privacy settings, and also monitor the friends she adds. Set it up so that only friends can see any part of her profile, and perhaps make the profile picture an avatar style picture, as somebody already said.

If you use it right, there really is no problem with facebook, it is very secure. Its just got a slightly worse reputation at the moment because of the idiots who allow the whole world to see their profile details, photos, etc, but this can be easily changed.

I havent used bebo before but believe its more like myspace, which personally I dont think is as secure or useful as facebook.

 

[domtyler]

i'd recommend having an avatar pic (like i do) rather than her own image on facebook.

Hmmm... Well I have always used my own image and never had any problems!

 

[alecstilleyedye]

Hmmm... Well I have always used my own image and never had any problems!

on here too, one presumes

 

[Arch]

I don't really get Facebook either - I say I'll be friends with someone when they ask me to, and then everytime they post a message to me, I get an email telling they've done it, and I think "Why didn't they just send me an email?". But I, also, am old....

 

[Joe24]

Bebo to me, is just some site for young girls/boys to put pictures on of them trying to look good. I think its aload of rubbish, and what really annoys me is some of my friends have bebo sites and i get invatations asking me to join bebo. That really annoys me.
Its when your kid goes on that Habbo Hotel( i know off topic from the Bebo bit). I was on it when i was about 10-11 ish and that is a site you got to be worried about. If your kids go on that site then i think you should block the site, and make it so they cant go on it. It will have gone downhill from when i was last on it, so it will be even worse then i can remember.

 

[Mortiroloboy]

Bebo to me, is just some site for young girls/boys to put pictures on of them trying to look good. I think its aload of rubbish, and what really annoys me is some of my friends have bebo sites and i get invatations asking me to join bebo. That really annoys me.
Its when your kid goes on that Habbo Hotel( i know off topic from the Bebo bit). I was on it when i was about 10-11 ish and that is a site you got to be worried about. If your kids go on that site then i think you should block the site, and make it so they cant go on it. It will have gone downhill from when i was last on it, so it will be even worse then i can remember.

I dealt with a particularly nasty harassment case based on posts made on this site aimed at a vulnerable person. Very unpleasant.

 

[Baggy]

I don't really get Facebook either - I say I'll be friends with someone when they ask me to, and then everytime they post a message to me, I get an email telling they've done it, and I think "Why didn't they just send me an email?". But I, also, am old....

You can switch off "email alerts" but I can't remember how...

I enjoy Facebook. I've caught up with a few people I had lost touch with, and find it a good way of keeping up with friends (most of whom live 200+ miles away ) and getting to see their pictures.

I'd probably have loved it when I was a teenager. The way it asks to access your email account to search through email addresses for people who you know and have registered is a bit insidious though...

 

[Fab Foodie]

My Daughters (almost 13 and 15) both use Bebo, MSN and Facebook to keep 'in' and in-contact with their friends. I think to deny them acces would leave them isolated from their peers (and god-knows, teenage girls can be damn nasty enough as it is). I also have to trust them as I cannot police it 100%, though I do have access all areas to the house computers.
It is also difficult to deny them, when they know that I am involved in a "Chat-room" like activity with complete 'strangers' and worse, I've even met some of them for a beer! They don't see the differences.

It is very difficult, I have no idea whether I have the balance right or not. From what I've seen and knowing their friends I'm fairly comfortable with it, I have no evidence to the contrary. With my eldest at the moment, everything is a potential battle-ground, to be too heavy handed would be counter productive.

We have to accept that our children live in a different Paradigm to the idyll we grew-up in, as parents we need to learn to adapt to that very quickly.