Letting my child use the internet is a scary thing. There are a lot of weirdos out there. On the other hand, I think it is a necessary skill and should be developed at an early age. I also believe that monitoring your child's use of the internet is extremely importatnt.
I let my 6 1/2 year old use Facebook. She uses my accout to play Farmville and Fishville. She loves it. She also loves chatting with family on Facebook. We have an understanding. She is only allowed to chat with family. Anyone else pops up, she is not allowed to chat with them. If I happen to be in the kitchen, she is to come get me if someone pops up in chat that isn't family. I do my best to stay right there and watch while she is on the computer, but it is not always possible.
I trust my daughter and I know she understands the conditions of her using my Facebook account. I like the way that chatting with family improves her spelling. I like that she is learning responsibility. I like that she can talk to her older cousins, her uncle and aunts, and her grandmother in the Facebook chat.
You may not agree with me. You may not approve of letting a child of my daughter's age use my Facebook account. That's fine. I feel that it is fine, as long as it is monitored. She understands the rules for using the computer. She understands what she is allowed to do and what she isn't. My husband and I keep a close eye on her when she is on the computer. If we can't, then she has to play on Kidzui until one of us is ready to monitor her.
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3 comments:
Hi Tammy,
As you my know, I have been a follower of your blog for some time. I have three teenagers with autism. Because of the time you have invested in your blog with wonderful and helpful articles, I have nominated you for The Beautiful Blogger award on my most recent blog page.
Hi Tammy,
I fully support the idea of children using computers. My kids don't have facebook accounts but they do have Gmail - and they're their own accounts.
I did this for a few reasons;
1. I wanted to reserve the same style email addresses for the entire family while they were still available.
2. I wanted to encourage my kids to spell, read and write online since they're less motivated on paper.
It's lovely when my son who usually has lots of motivational difficulty writing contacts me via Google Chat when I'm at work. His "chats" are brief but they're touching nevertheless.
At this stage, I'm not worried about outside contact because he's got no other contacts and he probably couldn't tell someone his address.
Even so, he's been brought up to know that there are dangerous people out there and that if anything sounds "wrong" that mum and dad will always help him understand without being judgemental.
I just let my son do Facebook. Its been great for him. It gives him a way to be social in his comfort zone (the computer). We also have rules around usage, but so far so good.
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