FB too young?

[Bongo]

I'm feeling awful and need to get this off my chest.
My daughter is 9 and has a FB account, not in her actual name but a pseudonym. She has family on there and a few people from school.
I know the age is 13+ for FB, but I told myself that she'd be OK on there, use it for games and it would help her socially (she had a bad time in year 4 with friendships so I thought this would help her).
It is in my email address so I get notifications into my email account, and I supervise her while she's on there.
Well yesterday I got a notification of a message so I went on and had a look. She has been messaging a girl in her class while she was at another friends house last week, and had randomly said to her 'I hate you' a few times.
This is so out of character and weird. I actually can't believe she did it. But she did, and I have now deactivated her account.
I feel so bad for this other girl who was upset and told her mum. I then got a call from the school yesterday while I was out, no message was left - and I just know it must be that the mum has complained to the school.
It's such a mess, and what it boils down to is I was stupid thinking my 9 year old would be OK on FB.
Feeling like a crap mum.
Has anyone else been through similar?

[Minxy]

Aw, bless you. You are NOT a crap mum and I'm sure your girl regrets it. Or she will do!

I'd be willing to bet that on a forum of toddler/baby mums lots of people would think that they would NEVER let their 9 yr old have account, but I can see how it is tempting, particularly if she's struggled socially. I can imagine letting my children, supervised like yours obviously.

It's not a kind thing to have done, but you don't know the full story. The girls might have been arguing, she might have been on the end of some shabby behaviour herself. Look upon any school intervention as an opportunity to sort it all out, not just to berate your daughter.

These things happen, hope it's sorted soon x

[applebaba]

I don't think you are a bad mum at all you have supervised her and unfortunately she did something silly. If you had forbid her from having a facebook account she still might have done something similar at someone else's house with someone else's facebook account you can never know.

The fact that you are upset shows that you are a good mum. x

[Polli]

I agree with the ladies above. My dd is much younger, not even 3 and I am really worried about this already as she watches you tube and knows how to get her cartoons on! But I worry it's too much too young! In future perhaps you could keep the password secret, so she can only log on with you? Still as the others have said doesn't mean she wouldn't have done it under her friends account. Also, she was at a friends house, she should really have been supervised there too I would think.

I think I'd just try to make her understand it's not acceptable or nice, how the other girl must have felt etc and take it as a lesson for everyone.

It's made me think anyway!!

[Dove]

It's better to be responsible and supervise your kids, then to just ban and presume they will obey.

Children can be horrible to each other, always have been... It's just the technology that has been changed. 10 years ago it would have been notes on paper.

[lou89]

Not a bad mum at all I think it takes something like this to realise though that the age restriction is there for a reason, 9 year olds just aren't mature enough I don't think. I can see it being such an urge to say things of there you wouldn't normally and it can escalate and dramatise things massively. My sisters 12 and is no where near mature enough, Facebook has caused no end of problems but hey ho not my daughter at the end of the day but it is very worrying they grow up nowadays so surrounded by technology. I'm sure the school will be understanding i bet It happens a lot

[Polli]

Have you asked your dd about the situation? Was it her/the friend having a laugh not realising with a message in writing you can't tell when someone is joking? (or when something has been taken too far) sure the school must have seen it all before. They probably just want to make sure you are aware of the situation more than anything else.

[LittleIzziesMummy]

You are a not a bad mum, IMO a bad parent wouldn't care that their child did this and wouldn't have deactivated the account. Your daughter will learn the consequences of her actions and hopefully offer a genuine apology. Kids say things like this all the time, children are fickle- the problem is Facebook and other media networking sites and forum leave a record of your actions.

It's been a valuable lesson, yes your daughter has abused your trust but she will probably learn a lot from this incident.

You thought you were allowing it for the right reasons, unfortunately it didn't work out on this occassion. I don't have children of my own that age so can't genuinely say whether I would allow it or not.

[Catia]

what has it got to do with the school if she wasn't at school when she did it?

[75Jules]

Technology now just brings the whole big bad world right into our homes all day every day. It worries me already



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[MrsMiggins]

I'm also wondering why the school would be involved? It's not a school issue surely? If the mum had a problem she should speak to you about it, and consider deactivating her own daughters fbook if it was causing issues.

I don't think you are a bad mum AT ALL. you made the situation as safe as you could and when a problem arose you dealt with it

[fruitshoot]

You're not a bad Mum! You've trusted her, and supervised her as best you can and she's broken your trust. The Internet can be a really dangerous place and often people don't think of the consequences because it's almost anonymous and not face to face. I'm sure you will have a very stern word with her and make her see this really wasn't a kind thing to do xx

[calmdon]

Similar thing happened to me, not on FB but on email.It's imposible to cut off the children from the technology, and you shouldn't. Make sure that she knows that she had make mistake and there is no more FB for her until further notice.

[Flump]

Maybe it was your daughters friend egging her on or even sending the message.
The school will be involved because it could be seen as cyber bullying.
Best thing to do is talk to your dd about it and tell the school her account as been deactivated.

[Yellow]

I know I'm posting a bit late in this thread but I just wanted to add a couple of things.

I also made the mistake of setting up an account for my daughter (she was either nine or ten) as she wanted to play some of the games on Facebook. Over the months she added a few family members and more recently a handful of friends from school. Like you I had her notifications sent to my email address and I know her password. Stupidly, I recently took my eye off the ball with finding out I'm expecting and all the stress that has unfortunately gone along with that (baby's dad not happy), and my daughter has been sending and receiving messages that I am very unhappy about. She hasn't been abusive (although some of her friends have) but she messaged someone she shouldn't have done. When I found out we had a huge chat and I've killed her account. Funnily enough her school ran a 'keeping your kids safe online' mini course last night so I attended and it was quite scary but pretty insightful too.

The whole point of the above was to make a few points...
1) I wanted you to know that you're not alone in feeling bad about what has happened, I feel awful too. We, as parents, don't always get it right. Hopefully your daughter (like mine) will learn from this... as I'm sure we will too
2) Maybe speak to her school about getting someone in to talk about safety online? I know for lots of kids they just don't realise that if they wouldn't say it to someones face then they shouldn't be typing it, and they don't understand the consequences of cyber-bullying.
3) There's a website called 'Know It All' which has a bunch of useful info on for both adults and kids. Might be worth visiting it with your daughter

Annnnnd, I'll shut up