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My first encounter with kids on Facebook happened a year ago when one of the boys in my daughter’s class sent me a “friend” request on Facebook. He was nine years old. I’m Facebook “friends” with one of his dads, so I accepted the request. A few months later, a friend of mine posted something very personal and upsetting about issues her son was dealing with. Uncomfortable with a nine-year-old seeing this, I called his dad and explained that I would be “de-friending” him.
I later found out this classmate of my daughter’s was bragging to her and other kids at school that he was on my Facebook page. I had unknowingly embarrassed my daughter.
I like the digital age, smart technology, and the zillions of gadgets out there, and so do my kids. My daughter has email, and she can email a list of approved friends.
However, I have no interest in being Facebook friends with kids, and it has me wondering: are you guys Facebook friends with kids? — Christina Simon
Are you “friends” with any of your children’s classmates or your friend’s kids?
I have triplet siblings who are 16 years younger than me. They have all been my facebook friends for years (although they are just turning 13 today).
I don’t use special privacy settings, I just make sure that my facebook is relatively clean. I am also friends with my dad, stepmom, aunts and uncles, cousins and coworkers, so rather than making things complicated, I just keep it simple and don’t post anything I wouldn’t want them to see.
I have definitely stopped myself from posting dumb things while drunk, and I’ve untagged myself from pictures, but haven’t come across any problems.
I actually really like knowing what the kids are up to and I’ve definitely called them on things they shouldn’t be putting on line. It’s a nice safeguard for them to have their older relatives online with them.
Kacie, I think you make a good point about how you keep your FB page “clean”. But, “clean” for your 13 year old siblings is different than for a 9 year old…I think it’s great you have your triplet siblings on your page. I just couldn’t handle my daughter’s 9 year old classmate on my page! Thank for the comments!
yes, i am friends with kids on facebook.
but ONLY because facebook you can categorize and specify who sees what.
i created a group called ‘kids and family’ and put all my sensitive family members and all minors on that list. then i have a custom posting set to include who i want to see everything and exclude everyone who i don’t want to see everything. family and kids, that is. a lot of people don’t know you can do this with facebook, but i’ve found it to be very useful. so i only post to ‘all friends’ when it’s something safe for kids and delicate grown ups.
however, i don’t comment on my daughters friends walls. i don’t let my daughter have facebook so i don’t hang around her friends walls.
I am a youth group director. I am friends with many of the youth because that is seriously the only way to keep in touch with them besides texting (and then they text me back during school hours and my blood boils a little). Also, if a teenager friended me and I didn’t accept, it would be hurtful to some of them.
I do have rules. Because of what I do, my account is without rebuke. Pictures are clean, political statements are few and far between, and any drama is kept off my page. I also don’t get involved with their life on their page. I don’t mention to parents what’s on there either. Youth friend me; I don’t friend them.
Honestly, Facebook isn’t what it was 5 years ago anyways. Considering that mother-in-laws and concerned uncles are on, it’s not like uploading drunk pictures and pulling pranks is all that common anymore.
Noooo. I’m not even friends with my teenage brother or my parents. Here’s my rule: if I don’t want them to know how often I say “fuck,” I won’t accept the friend request.
Actually, that’s an oversimplification of the rule. It comes down to whether I feel like I’d need to censor myself if I was friends with this person. Do I think this person will tell me swear less/be upset by my politics or opinions*/disapprove of my activities? Then we will not be facebook friends. AND, here’s the important bit: Will seeing this person swear/put up drunk pictures/behave in an unexpected way make ME uncomfortable? Then we can’t be facebook friends.
That’s how I decided I couldn’t be friends with my family, but I could be with my boss. My facebook is a space for the people in the sphere of my life where I’m comfortable, and the boss is in that sphere. Aunts, uncles, cousins, and kids — not so much.
*This doesn’t mean people who disagree with my politics; it means people who would be upset that I’m ardent in my stances. For instance, my mom is constantly telling me that it’s not ladylike to voice my opinions so strongly, and I should be careful to not offend people by being so opinionated. Yeah, no.
I absolutely am not, do not, will not, be friends with any of my friends children. Even tho I love them very much. This also goes for my nieces and nephews. The main reasoning is that I’m still lewd, crude and unacceptable at times on FB, as I can be, because my children are until 13. Once my children hit 13 and want to be on FB (oh yeah, they already want on and they are all only 9!), then I will clean up my potty mouth, and have very little FB time. 😉
I’m friends with my niece and nephew, who are 13 and 11. It really depends on how close I am to them as to whether or not I’d add my friends’ kids – I have one friend whose kids mean the world to me, and if they were older, I’d add them. Other friends, no, I wouldn’t.
Honestly, I don’t even like being friends with my nieces and young cousins on FB. I post a lot of adult shit on there and I consider it an adult site, or at least a late-adolescence through adult site. I don’t censor what I put out there, and since I am friends with all the parents of these kids, I know their parents are seeing the content their kids are seeing from me.
I have a few teacher friends who are friends with their students on FB and I don’t know how they navigate that… I think I would just have a policy to explain that I keep my facebook limited to family and adults. Ultimately, though, this will probably be one of those areas where I can’t really foresee how the social media world will be when it is enough of a problem for me to have to deal with it so it is a lot of speculation!
Thank you so much for posting this and I sooooo completely agree. I had a friend’s 9 year old twins try to “friend” me today and my immediate reaction was “Heck NO!”. I love these two kids but I do not want to have to remember to censor everything I do on facebook because of these two children who in my opinion should NOT be on facebook. I would never let my two children do this and I don’t want any other kids seeing what I post about any topic from Santa to sex to whatever my kids did today. Then there are also the frequently inappropriate for small ears things some of my friends say that may appear on these kids news feeds if I respond to them. There are plenty of social media sites for kids that contain tons of filters and are more appropriate. Leave facebook to the grownups.
I don’t “friend” children on FB, period. If they offer, I write to them explaining that I only have adults on my facebook because I think a lot of the content I post is for adults and I don’t want to worry about monitoring things.
I’m friends with kids that are family or practically family, but I watch what I say, and I customize my “audience” on posts, so that certain people, including the 1 work-person I’m friends with there, do not see anything but the most wholesome shares. I would prefer not to have kids as friends at all, but I do love some of them and like to show support for them online and see what they’re up to, even though they live far away or I never see them.