Preteens/teens and social media!

Ok, both older boys 13 & 12 have iphones (my old castoffs ) They can only text and talk on them unless at home on wifi as they are supposed to be for contacting me & DH if needed at school.

They have obviously downloaded instagram & snapchat at somepoint (against my wishes) as they have accounts. So i have now said if the eldest wants any accounts (as hes 13) he has to add me so i can monitor what he's doing.

He thinks i'm invading his privacy but he doesnt talk to me about anything so wouldnt be forthcoming to tell me if he was in trouble. DH and i do spot check their phones to make sure they arent doing anything they shouldn't.

So those of you with children of similar ages to mine, do they have phones? do they have social media and how do you 'police' their social media?

13 yr old is making me feel like I'm being too overprotective

[clothmama]

I think we did do that initially when he was your ones age with Josh but now I do tend to respect his privacy as he chats with he GF and all his mates in Oz, alot of the time he is doing it in front of us and I don't think he is up to anything dodgy and that he would tell us if there was something worrying going on if that makes sense. Obviously a big difference between a 13 and 15 year old (so I have discovered!). Josh has only just got a sim card this last term (although should have got it a bit earlier) and he only has texts and calls on it so he isn't doing other stuff while not at home and we have it for exactly the same reasons as your boys.

Louis has no social media accounts at all and has a phone that he can do You tube / play games / read his books on. He knows to tell us if he sees anything dodgy and they are both uber aware of security ect as dh is so passionate about cyber security.

Sam is coming up 11 he has the use of an iPhone when he goes out, it's not his it's actually the spare phone. He has some data allowance on it so he can FaceTime or whatsapp me if he wants. I have told both of mine no Facebook, snapchat or YouTube channel until they are 16.

Sam is coming up 11 he has the use of an iPhone when he goes out, it's not his it's actually the spare phone. He has some data allowance on it so he can FaceTime or whatsapp me if he wants. I have told both of mine no Facebook, snapchat or YouTube channel until they are 16.

They have whatsapp as they do jobs for their uncles so contact them with that and texting. Def no fb, they just dont need to be on it. Apparently 'everyone' has snapchat and its the only way to contact some of his friends.

I asked eldest to delete instagram off his phone when i realised he had it but he is accessing it elsewhere because he has put a recent girls name on it so i've told him he needs to follow me or delete his account properly til hes older.

If he was truthful with me i think i may be more lenient but he isnt helping me trust him at the moment.
Over the weekend he asked to go to the outlet, i asked who with (like anyone would) and he said 'friends' so i asked which ones and he was so cagey about it we figured they must be meeting girls.

I dont want my children to hide things from me but i need to know they are safe online and away from home.

I have a friend who's 13 yr old girl was lying about Facebook accounts etc in the end her mum took all her technology off here and replaced it with an kindle with no wifi and an old phone with no internet on it and she was only allowed the ever changing wifi password under supervision to say she was pissed was an understatement but her mum said until she could trust her she would take all temptation away.

I think I'd be tempted to come down quite hard now so that the behavioural expectation is set high at the beginning.
I would tell them that they either allow you access to prove you can trust them or they lose the privileges (e.g. downgrade phone to an old school phone).

[clothmama]

Forgot to say we have banned a FB account but they seem to not use it anyway, he does have an instagram and a you tube channel but that is used for his music (not some weird vlogging that so many seem to do!) so I'm fine with that. It is such a mine field with these big kids!

Sorry not fully read all replies. But thought this night be of interest

https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/chi ... igital-age

Jacob has a Facebook account, which I set up. I took the tack that I'd rather know about it that have him set it up secretly, and this way I have the password so can check if I want. Mostly he uses it for his rugby and triathlon updates (team pages).
His school uses Twitter for various updates and team activities, which I'm not ecstatic about, but he goes g use it for anything else as far as I can see.
I know that he is perfectly capable of doing all these things on computers st school etc, so I'd rather let him and monitor.