Online Family Safety

How Young Is Too Young for Facebook?

By Kim Boatman

If you’re the parent of a preteen, no doubt you’ve been subjected to all the arguments about Facebook access. “All my friends are on Facebook.” “The age limit doesn’t matter.” “I’ll have no social life without it.” “Kids will think I’m weird.”

While Facebook officially limits accounts to ages 13 and up, it’s estimated that millions of kids under 13 are indeed active Facebook users. And how do these preteens and socially-savvy youngsters access Facebook? They lie about their age, often with parental consent.

So how young is too young for Facebook? Should you budge and allow your under-13 child to open a Facebook account? Should you let them fudge about their age? Don’t make the decision lightly, say parenting and social media experts. What might seem like an innocuous activity could actually lead to real problems, they say.

 Why Your Preteen Shouldn’t Be on Facebook
“It is harmful to kids to be on Facebook below age 13 because they are not developmentally ready to understand the implications of what they click and post,” explains Dr. Deborah Gilboa (AskDoctorG.com), a board-certified family physician, a mom of four kids, and a parenting speaker.

Your preteen also might not understand how much he or she is revealing through social media, says Ilana Jacqueline, editor in chief of TodaysTeenOnline.com, a website for teens between the ages of 13 and 21.

“While kids and teens today are more Internet-savvy than any generation before them, they’re still developing their personalities and values,” says Jacqueline. “Facebook is a great way to connect with friends and family, but it’s also a very open platform. Your name could be searched by anyone, including future employers and Internet predators.”

You also shouldn’t take too lightly the idea that you’re setting a poor example by allowing your child to break Facebook’s age limit rule, cautions Gilboa. “Preteens need to learn to follow rules before they learn the later skill of which rules are appropriate to break in life,” she says. “They need to see that rules are enforced, that parents take them seriously and that consequences occur when one lies.”

“Kids ages 10-12 often think they will die if they are not on Facebook with their friends,” adds Gilboa. “It’s up to parents and other adults to show them some perspective so they may learn that this is not the case.”

 What If Your Preteen Is Already on Facebook?
“So what if you’ve already allowed your 11- or 12-year-old to open that Facebook account? It’s important for you to maintain social media ground rules, say the experts. They offer these tips:

• It’s OK to monitor their activity. “Don’t worry about being stalker-ish,” says Kelly Lux, online communications and relationship manager for the School of Information Studies at Syracuse University.
• Friend your kid. Many parents require that preteens and younger teens include them on their friend lists. Often, young Facebook users will friend trusted adult relatives and their friends’ moms. So even when they beg to drop you as they get older, they’ll often forget to drop these other adult friends. This gives you access to information. Having you or other adult authority figures as friends acts as a control, says Jacqueline. “If they wouldn’t want you to see it, then they shouldn’t be posting it,” she says. “This will help keep those bikini pics offline -- and make them think twice before posting.”
  
  
• Check your kid’s friends list. “One of the best ways to keep tabs, without being too intrusive, is to check their friends list on a regular basis,” advises Lux. “Ask who these people are if you don’t recognize them. I did this when my daughter was about 14 and found she had several older men as friends. She told me that all her friends were friends with them so she didn’t think anything of it. We blocked them, had a conversation about it, and they never reappeared.”
  
  One Northern California mom created a fake identity and sent a friend request to her teen son when he dropped her from his friends list. However, while the action might allow her insight into his social media activities, it doesn’t teach him to choose online friends selectively, experts say. And that’s a conversation you should have with your child.
  
  
• Subscribe to their posts. If your kid doesn’t want to friend you, ask that they allow you to subscribe to their public posts, recommends Lux. “Although you won’t be able to post on their wall, you will be able to see all of their public updates.”
  
  
• Limit information. Teach your child to limit identifying information, such as their real full name, their school’s name or any other local identifying information, says Jacqueline.

Above anything else, safety is the most important consideration when deciding if your kid is too young for Facebook and for setting limits for your child’s use of social media. “You have the right and responsibility to keep your kids safe,” says Lux. “Talk to them about online safety and come up with a plan you both can live with.”