I've finally joined Facebook and am not happy with daughters pictures. 😡😠😠

[skip68]

I've never been interested in being on Facebook but recently did so to find old friends.  Basically that's all I'm using it for at this point. 
Anyway, I'm looking at my daughters page (13 years old) and see it's riddled with her taking selfIe's of her posing.   
Maybe I'm just being a typical dad.   I know it's what all the kids do now days but it still bothers me.  Any others thoughts on this? 
Any other dads with teen girls?   

[oldcarnut]

My daughters are way past teen now but still do it of themselves, with their kids, or with friends.  That's just what they do now.  I would be more concerned of how they were posing or what they posing in or activity they were trying to project.  Smiling selfies doing fun stuff or at special places wouldn't bother me too much other than thinking they might be stuck on themselves but misbehaving or more adult themes would require a talking to.

[charger Downunder]

If she is using a mobile phone to take pics turn of the location or the gps coordinates will be available. Thats what my 18 year old told me. I don't have face book.

[oldcarnut]

By the way to reply to your post, I had to delete the "Re" to get by the warning of too many characters (80 or less) so you may want to delete or reword shorter 

[reworked]

Yep I have a 14 year old daughter.....and selfies and posting are a way of life these days.....now that she knows you can see lol,she will hide them,best you can do is stay calm an try an educate her on what is on internet stays forever....you will be shocked with what they do on snapchat!.....sometimes its best we don't know!

sorry had to shorten your subject line as it capped replies to 80 characters,my appologies

[b5blue]

Skippy just do like my X wife, start commenting on every other post or pic. Nothing will piss her off more then Friend Requesting all her little buddies and commenting on her posts with parental opinions. Be certain to comment how much you love reading about all there little adventures and post selfies of you, what your eating, new shoes you like, how much you adore Taylor Swift (Ask how to join the "Swifty Army"), pictures of cats (They don't have to be yours or ones you know...just cute, funny or odd.) puppies, posters with sayings like "Sometimes I'm my own worst enemy, sometimes my own best friend" or I need more coffee to deal with that! Share stories like when she first started using the toilet on her own or stopped eating boogers and soon she will hate facebook and have no "friends". (Oh I almost forgot...."like" a bunch of crap also!)     

[myk]

I sympathize with your feelings Skip, but unfortunately this is what we now call life.  Brazen sexuality and the desire to advertise it in an effort to express one's vanity is the norm for social media and it's users...

[cavemanno1]

I have a 14 year old stepdaughter but I won't let her to get a facebook account!Told her when she is 16 she can do what the hell she wants!I know how kids troll and abuse each other and seen how things can turn to bad things rather quickly,so i'm the evil step dad!I'd rather be mean than see her suffer!Teaching her to stand up for herself no matter what and to ignore other people's opinions!There is only one person she has to make happy and that's herself!

I think Facebook should have a 18 and over limit to join!Imo

[stripedelete]

I sympathize with your feelings Skip, but unfortunately this is what we now call life.  Brazen sexuality and the desire to advertise it in an effort to express one's vanity is the norm for social media and it's users...

It's a generation of narcissists.

[stripedelete]

I have a 14 year old stepdaughter but I won't let her to get a facebook account!Told her when she is 16 she can do what the hell she wants!I know how kids troll and abuse each other and seen how things can turn to bad things rather quickly,so i'm the evil step dad!I'd rather be mean than see her suffer!Teaching her to stand up for herself no matter what and to ignore other people's opinions!There is only one person she has to make happy and that's herself!

I think Facebook should have a 18 and over limit to join!Imo

Okay, here it is folks.  The guy IN  the "old country" gets it!!!! 

Good for you cavemanno1!!!

[Dans 68]

Likewise my 15-7/8's year old daughter is not on Facebook. She has never really wanted to - school actvities and horses take up MOST of her time. She is on line, though, with sites like Quizup, Trivia Crack, Dumb Ways, etc, and is close to the top competitor in the state on most of the sites. LOTR, Star Wars, SG1 and SG Atlantis are her best categories. Don't ever play her. Maybe I'm just lucky...or ignorant.   

Dan

[skip68]

I forbid it when she was 10 and found out she had a Facebook account.   I've also said Facebook should be more for adults to find each other and keep up to date and so on.   Somehow she joined again and mom knew.   I didn't read anything or look through her friends and whatnot.   I don't want to but I'm going to just to see what she's putting out there publicly.   Evidently she's blocked my wife so Lisa can't see anything but she doesn't know I can.  I let Lisa look through the pictures and she doesn't think they're out of the norm.    
I'm not going to do anything to humiliate her or embarrass her as at her age everything is over the top drama.      
We got her the iPhone 6s for Christmas and it'd be a shame if we had to take it away for awhile.      
That's going to be the route I'll take If I find undesirable content in her conversations.  
We've been very lenient with her as she's not a bad kid but I'm going to have a look anyway.  

[RCCDrew]

I think it's your job to stay on top of that. You're the parent.

[cavemanno1]

That is our punishmeant as well,taking away her phone!She acts like her phone is the most important thing in her life 
I can't understand why kids are so in love with these phones.
At their age they shouldn't have a phone let alone a smartphone.
Maybe it is just me but i don't get this whole facebook,smartphone posting craziness!I don't think it is a good influence on them when they are so vulnerable and enough to deal with idiot kids at school.Of course they think they are all grown up women and they know everything 
My stepdaughter's school gives out homeworks on fu.king facebook.I couldn't believe it when i saw it

The thing is skip if you "spy"on her and find something you don't approve then what?Are you going to tell her off?Then she will know you have been watching her facebook page and block you and won't trust you again!To be honest i have no idea what would be the best thing to do.The best would be if she hasn't have an account but that ship is sailed,so let her do her thing or take away her iphone and laptop.That would piss her off big time and rebel against you or just accept it and get on with life,only you'd know.
But before you do anything ask yourself this!Have your parents approved your things back then?I know it was different back then but this is now.
If she is a good kid,let her be and accept that this is the norm now.Ask her if you could be "friends" on facebook but no posting emberacing comments.I think trust is more important then some stupid selfies!

[Kern Dog]

I sympathize with your feelings Skip, but unfortunately this is what we now call life.  Brazen sexuality and the desire to advertise it in an effort to express one's vanity is the norm for social media and it's users...

It's a generation of narcissists.

I agree 100%. The bullshit "reality TV" trend fostered the notion that even everyday losers deserve attention. Acting talent and charisma used to be needed for TV fame. I find it pathetic that so many people crave attention like this. These egotists are surrendering their personal information faster than the government could ever hope for.

[tan top]

I sympathize with your feelings Skip, but unfortunately this is what we now call life.  Brazen sexuality and the desire to advertise it in an effort to express one's vanity is the norm for social media and it's users...

It's a generation of narcissists.

I agree 100%. The bullshit "reality TV" trend fostered the notion that even everyday losers deserve attention. Acting talent and charisma used to be needed for TV fame. I find it pathetic that so many people crave attention like this. These egotists are surrendering their personal information faster than the government could ever hope for.

  True   

[Daytona R/T SE]

Facebook sucks.  

[Lord Warlock]

Had one daughter that never used facebook, and another that abused the crap out of it and became addicted to posting on it way too much, and putting pics of herself online which we didn't approve of and then would say the most vile stuff about her parents online. This started when she was 14 when my wife gave her a phone and got worse for the next 4 years.  We would monitor her site and if something came up that was objectionable we'd tell her to remove it, instead she set up multiple accounts with different user names, it got to be a full time job just trying to track her activity.  

Our monitoring of her facebook account informed us when she attempted suicide by taking prescription drugs she had stolen out of our medicine cabinet, and resulted in our rushing her to the emergency room to have her stomach pumped.  While there she was so abusive to us and the nurses, that the hospital sent her to a mental health center against her will and without our approval, she was under mandatory hold for two weeks.  During her stay she had no phone, no facebook and she promised she'd obey every rule at the house and not use facebook, we found that she had set up a different account so we couldn't follow her, and she had blocked us both.  That made us take the phone away for a couple months, she got her "friends" to give her a pay as you go phone and tried to keep it hidden in the room, I found it a few days later and took it away, then we found out she had gone through our bedroom and found her smart phone, took it and then refused to give it to us.  Wasn't until she dropped it into the toilet by accident that we got it back for good.  We caught her using facebook when she was doing her homework on a computer we had moved into the dining room so it wasn't private and we could check on her, I must have caught her 5 times before I got pissed off and finally just blocked facebook from our router by outlawing the IP address and links.  That worked better than anything else did.

What is worse is Twitter, she stopped using facebook eventually and abused Twitter constantly, still does while she is in college, I no longer even bother to read her twitter feed, just ticks me off.  If I find an offensive picture or post on twitter, I tell the wife who then approaches her to get it removed or face college without a phone, or a family funded phone.  I haven't read her twitter or facebook feed in months, she's 19 now and in her 2nd year of college, if she posts something that will bite her on the ass in the future, it wasn't because she wasn't warned.  She got suspended from high school not once but twice for threatening a teacher on twitter and facebook, and she knew they monitored it because she'd been suspended before.  

Giving a phone to a girl is as dangerous to their psyche as handing them a loaded gun.  Multiple times she went through peer punishment based on something she posted, and always blamed others for her mistakes, and refused to accept our authority or guidance, which is why I withdrew paying for her room and board in college after the first two years, if she wants to "be an adult" she can pay her own way and see what life is really like outside the facebook/twitter bubble.

If you know of one facebook page, I'm pretty sure she will have 2 or 3 that you are not aware of, pays to search by first and middle name, or middle and last instead of normal first, last name. Adding a keylogger on the computer you provide her for school work will get you into her secret sites.
 
Facebook is meant for college age kids and young adults, it wasn't meant for 14 to 17 year olds to use, High school and middle school kids should be monitored heavily. The more they abuse it the more it should be monitored.  I would recommend having her log in to facebook on your computer, (and save the password) and refused to allow them a phone if they block your access to their pages. The police department and department of corrections lectured us about facebook, and twitter, and we were instructed to get involved and constantly monitor it or we'd regret it.  I regret that cell phones were ever made, I have one I rarely use, wife didn't have  a smart phone till this year.  Wife never did like reading her feeds, she expected me to do it because my daughter would blame me for getting caught at something. 

When she was home for summer break last year, she sent a text message to my wife that "implied" suicide, and since her previous attempt we acted accordingly much to her dismay.  She then posted the text online on twitter and laughed about how it made us jump and complain or worry, when she did that, she lost her phone for two weeks.  I didn't get mad at the text message to my wife...that was a reach out for mommy attention, but when it went on twitter, I went ballistic and removed her ability to trash us online.  Usually, they will mature in college and stop being so abusive, she's made some progress but still has a long way to go, and we won't be paying for her to party or abuse us online.  I will warn you though, if you have a good relationship with your daughter, following her online will only trash that relationship, and you'll become the source of much of her angst. 

[Lord Warlock]

Her adeptness at trying to avoid me online shows me that she has pretty good IT skills and could get a job in that field if she wanted to.  I am an IT worker myself and do QA Testing on websites and internal applications-when I work, and am adept with online capabilities, but she would stretch my limits and knowledge of sites online.  While I was between contracts and out of work, I found myself spending hours upon hours trying to track her down.  There are sites out there you can pay for that will track all of her online activity, it may be worth it to go that way if you find it too time consuming to track her yourself. 

I also put a GPS in her car without her knowledge (it was my car, and she was only allowed to drive it within our city limits which is about 40 miles in every direction from our house. We caught her driving to Gainesville to party with college boys when she was 17, and while on restriction, she lied and told us she was spending night with friend, but she got a speeding ticket on way to Gainesville, and we started getting the traffic school mailers the next day, which made me search for the ticket, then forced her to pay it herself and attend traffic school. That one trip to Gainesville lost her the ability to have a car at college the entire first year.  Figured we couldn't  trust her while away from us, and have been proven right as she takes lots of road trips now that she has a car at her disposal. 

[MoParJW]

Facebook, or even worse Instagram.

Girls/women posting nothing but (heavily altered) pictures of themselves seems to be a thing these days.
I can honestly say that in some of the pictures my ''friends'' post I don't even recognise them, they look nothing like that in real life!
And all the likes they get... it's ridiculous! 

[DixieRestoParts]

Lord Warlock, I hear so many stories similar to yours. It's sad. Personally, I agree with not allowing a FB page until 16 and then only under supervision, and definitely get a key logger. As far as phones, only non smart ones. Regardless of what they say or what our "culture" says, they don't need a smart  phone. They can do all their school work without it. If they want to communicate with friends, call them on the phone. Easier said than done, I know. I have 2 teenager's and one we don't have a problem with and the other has extremely limited use because they can't handle it.

[69wannabe]

My daughter has had facebook account for several years and also posts selfie's and all that applies. I do check up on her now and then and her mom does too but it really depends on them I believe. If someone comment's something creepy or out of line she unfriend's them or whatever. Most comment's are positive and harmless. My daughter is 21 and a pretty young lady but has only had one or two not serious boy friends since she was 15 so she hasn't just had to have a boyfriend at all times as some have to have. Facebook is just like the internet itself, it can be used in a positive way or misused. If it is used in a positive way it's basically harmless and a good way to stay in contact with friends and family whether they are close or far away. I don't think you have any real worries about your daughter but checking up on them occasionally doesn't hurt either....

[J-440]

 Yeah I'm not gonna be politically correct so I apologize ahead of time so hear goes:  The ages of 14-19 are the "asshole and retard" phases.  Both boys and girls at those ages know everything and are complete dumbasses at the same time.  We used a spying app called "TeenSafe".  You subscribe for $14 a month, grab your know-it-all kid's phone, press a few buttons and you can read all of their texts.  Even the deleted texts you can read.  Oh and if they give you any crap about their "rights" tell them they have none.  I told my then teenager that I was Fidel Castro and my wife was Stalin and our house was not a Republic but a hard core dictatorship and if she didn't like it, please feel free to move out.  Needless to say, she's a dam good kid that works her ass off, goes to school, pays her own bills and doesn't expect help from anyone.  Oh and she loves the Charger!! 

[tcs69rt]

I work in child protection and cannot express enough how you should talk to your kids about internet safety. Let them have social media accounts and make sure they have their account settings on private so predators cannot troll your kids account. Tell them not to "friend" a stranger. Don't try to be your child friend....you are the parent, not their equal. Too many young parents do "electronic parenting", in other words they buy the kid everything and are not involved with raising the kid since they have electronic entertainment. Sad but true. 

[bull]

Likewise my 15-7/8's year old daughter is not on Facebook. She has never really wanted to - school actvities and horses take up MOST of her time. She is on line, though, with sites like Quizup, Trivia Crack, Dumb Ways, etc, and is close to the top competitor in the state on most of the sites. LOTR, Star Wars, SG1 and SG Atlantis are her best categories. Don't ever play her. Maybe I'm just lucky...or ignorant.   

Dan

Same here. Both my daughters (16 and almost 14) are online a lot but neither mess around with social media much.

[Lord Warlock]

Social media is a lifeline to those that believe connections and friends are all that matters so pretty much everyone that goes to high school feels that way.  And if they get involved in certain circles it gets much much worse.  My daughter was a varsity cheerleader in HS, and was dealing with backstabbing females all over the school, as well as guys that would announce to anyone how far they got on their last date.  And not much us old fart parents could do, we explained to keep that info private but she wouldn't listen, and it bit her on the ass multiple times in high school.  Once she graduated and started college, thought it would be over, but she got into a "situation" the first week of school...actually the week before school started, she signed up for a seminar where she got to hang out with other students starting school in a week, doing crafts, and projects and taking field trips etc...only she decided to let one boy enter her dorm room...and needless to say he started bragging who he banged on the social media sites at college (they have their own version at every college) she eventually got her sorority involved, as well as the local police due to harassment and posting crap online, and stalking her online.  Normally I'd say ignore it and it will go away, but she ignored my advice and is still dealing with similar issues well into her 2nd year of school.  Only now she tries to convince us to let her transfer to a new school so she can start all over somewhere else...I told her she can go wherever she can get into that uses the prepaid college program, we aren't paying anything extra due to her social mistakes.  That just meant we didn't care according to her.  Explained we cannot fix every mistake she makes, hopefully she'll learn through education when to step back and when to move forward.  So far it hasn't worked out great for her....other than the fact that she can schmooze her way into any job she wants evidently. 

[skip68]

Well, I actually took the time to read through basically all of her posts and it really wasn't bad at all.  Just never ending talk about boys at school, who's dating who this week and blah blah blah blah and so on.   I felt like I was back in Jr high all over again.   She doesn't know and I'm keeping it that way.   I actually didn't bother to read any more and didn't want to.   The mind of 13 year olds is a scary place.      

[b5blue]

  HA!!! I know what you mean! My daughter was super rebel @ 14...got so bad I tapped my house phone to monitor things. Every day I'd change tapes and play it in my car going to work. Mostly teen jabbering and outlines of high jinks. Hearing her tell her friends how I was wrapped around her little finger and she could get away with doing this or that with my X wife's help was funny.
  One step ahead of her I kept things in balance without her knowing I was keeping her in check. She's grateful now that she is in her 20's and understands I was protecting her from herself.   

[Trulyvintage]

Encourage your kids to have real friends & do real things.
The internet is great for some things.
Going thru puberty is not one of them.


Jim

[b5blue]

OH my daughter and her friends were up to plenty of mischief! (Not online!)   

[Lord Warlock]

It was a relief to send her off to college, didn't have to stalk her online anymore or try to figure out what she was up to.  When she came home for the summer she learned we weren't willing to go back to old ways and start where we left off, told her it was time for her to move out on her own.  She'll always be welcome to return for brief visits of a week or less, but we won't let her move back in with us, she adds too much stress to me and my wife's life, which we try to live stress free as possible. 
The older daughter yearned to move out on her own, and did so her 3rd and 4th years of college, moved in with her boyfriend...but we saved by not having to pay her room and board.  Her last two years of school were almost boring since we didn't have to pay for much until she started her internship and we had to help her pay rent during that part. 

[marshallfry01]

Facebook is an old person's website.  It was cool back in 2010 to have it but not anymore.  My age group (I'm 21) uses twitter and instagram.  Twitter is starting to die out.  Instagram is still pretty popular though.  Snapchat is prolly the most popular thing out right now.  The good thing is that the pictures are not public unless you put them on your story.  The pictures you send to an individual only last for a maximum of 10 seconds.  If the person you send that picture to takes a screenshot, it will notify you.

[skip68]

Thanks for all the input guys.   

[cavemanno1]

Do yourself a favour and don't join twitter and instagram 

[chargerman69]

Carefull on taken anything away if you got a ex thats a cop or with a cop
Anyone hear about the guy that had the cops show up after his ex found out he took away there daughters phone (2013 story)
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3419205/Texas-father-not-guilty-theft-took-12-year-old-daughter-s-cell-phone-away.html

[Lord Warlock]

cops told me (after 14 yr old got arrested for shoplifting) that we can take anything we want away from them, they even recommended taking the door off the bedroom (did that) taking PC's away, taking bed and other furniture out of the bedroom, just give them a mattress and sheets on the floor  and we are "providing shelter" as required by the law.  I wasn't that nuts, but did try to take any extras we had provided away, wasn't until she had access to a car that we had leverage that made a difference to her.

Once they are 18 however, you can't take a phone away that they bought themselves, unless you can convince them to give it to you.  Apply enough leverage and they usually will capitulate, but they won't be happy and I'd expect them to rebel anyway.

I would recommend setting up a generic account in Instagram, Twitter, and Tumblr and post to it regularly for six months or so (they do check history and content of accounts when friend requests roll in) I didn't have enough activity on mine and she was suspicious from the start, wasn't until a couple years later that she figured it out, think she picked up my cell and noticed the name on the account and confessed it was suspicious because I had very little if any activity and wanted to friend her.  But I set it up as a teenager profile, about 2 years older than her.  

Providing false information is against the bylaws  of all of these sites, as is setting up an account and lying about their age, Facebook and twitter provide almost no help to parents trying to protect their kids, if facebook or twitter is told you are a stalker they will block you from following them...isn't that a hoot, Getting access to your kids account through facebook management is very difficult.  Easier to attempt subterfuge than getting facebook or twitter to help out parents.