What age should kids be allowed on Facebook?

[Jedt]

what do you think? the official age is 13 that kids can join facebook but I know loads of parents who allow their 10 and 11 year olds to join.

My son has been asking about it but he is only 10 and I think he is too young. He cannot possibly be able to handle that kind of social media at that age. I want him to wait until he is around 15 but not sure if he’ll be cool with that and I may have to give in before then.

I worry about bullying – it is rampant on some website and I wonder if we can monitor him to make sure he is not being mean to anyone or vice versa.

its a minefield – what do ye think??

[rossylisa]

My dd is 13 next month and she’s not on it.

[lemonB]

My 3 sons, 15, 12 and 11 have been on facebook from the age of around 9 I think. My 15yo only gained more interest in it when he was in 2nd year in secondary school, my 11 and 12 yo rarely go on facebook. I let them join because I didn’t want them to join behind my back and not know if anything wrong happened on there. I check their accounts probably once a month as I believe the only privacy a child should have is when they use the bathroom. 😆

[Yvonne]

I think secondary school at least.. my daughter has been asking, because a girl in her class is on it, she is only 9..

I do know of younger children who have profiles.. but they are used to get lives for games and stuff like that!!

[munchin]

I’m inclined to think secondary school too – that’s the plan in our house anyway 😉

[munchin]

I’m inclined to think secondary school too – that’s the plan in our house anyway 😉 but we’ve a way to go yet

[Jedt]

Secondary school sounds about right. Its a big bad world out there once kids get on to facebook – I’ll be monitoring our kids accounts.

I know they’ll not like me for it but gotta do it!!

[mammycool]

I would go with Secondary school and even at that I would not be happy!! I would make friends with them on Facebook so that I can see everything that is posted. The one thing that you cannot see or monitor is the messages that others send to them privately.

Cyber bullying is becoming a big issue but I would be more concerned with the amount of perverts out there that use facebook to find children.

I would also insist that they do not accept friend requests from strangers or send friend requests to people they do not know. Facebook appears to be like a popularity contest to see how many friends you can make but in reality if you met half these people on the street, you would not bother stopping for a chat.

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