What? Why? Why wouldn’t they just put their age at 13?
My friend, Cheryl, works for the University of Cincinnati, and part of her job involves Googling applicant’s names and screening Facebook. She also screens FB when there is a dispute between dorm mates, and you’d be amazed at the truths she finds out. Kids are amazingly candid on Facebook. And when the parents, who defend their kids 100%, are shown web pages that contradict everything junior claimed, their jaws drop.
At my daughter’s private high school, one girl was expelled for things she wrote on Facebook re a kid who’d committed suicide. It was three months before graduation. 3 3/4 years and $45k in tuition went down the drain over this kid’s serious lack of judgment.
I casually monitor my kids’ Facebook account. It was the condition of their joining. And it’s glaringly obvious from the posts which kids are given free reign and which are not. If you think that it’s a great place for experimenting with bad language and talking about how you got your first taste of beer at the ripe old age of 15, then you may be in for a rude awakening. The university board might not find your daughter as funny as her friends do.
I concur with you BEG… I was at a law enforcement convention 12 yrs ago where i was told that the cell phone industry was goin to make a big push to parents that their kids would be safer if they had cell phones. Basically opening up a huge market. You can’t tell me that this shit and Nancy Grace doesn’t have the world running scared…
And to the OP…Dammit what’s the matter with your husband?? That kind of issue is really becoming something that I’m running into all of the time. If your DH had an issue he should have taken it up with that boy’s parents. If he harangued my son he would have a 6’4 245lbs man coming to see him personally and asking what’s his issue…
I dunno when that was, but when I was twelve (just about twenty years ago) we definitely WERE that nasty–verbally, anyway, and with the bullying.
Do your kids have some weird mental disease or something? There’s nothing they’re interested in that an adult is also interested in? I’d wager a guess that iCarly isn’t the only thing they watch. There are no TV shows or books or movies or sports that your kids like that they could talk about with an adult.
Jesus, my 8 year old cousin ignores all of his other same-age cousins at family gatherings and hangs out with me (a 29 year old man) all night. He does it because he loves Transformers and he knows that when I was his age, I loved Transformers too.
This is how generations bond. They find things in common and they talk about it. But then, maybe I’m just a creep and I don’t know it.
Do you hang out with 8 year olds who aren’t related to you?
And then when you get home do you talk to them on Facebook?
While your kid’s friends aren’t related to you, they’re close enough that I can’t imagine why you’d find it weird they may talk about something.
And while I don’t “hang out” with 8 year olds, I do work in a library. And if one comes up to me and starts telling me about the cool truck in this book or the scary vampire story their teacher read them, I’m going to talk back. That also goes for if they’re 11, 13, 15, 19 or 77.
I’d much rather talk to the 11 year olds than the 77 years old, they just want to tell me about this one time in 19-dickety-2 or their hearing aid or something equally as unimportant to me. At least the kids have enthusiasm for something I can get talkative about too.
It was a opportunity to gain insight into your kids and their friends, a opportunity to talk to your kids about how they feel about that post, find out where they are with that post.
You can’t change others, and can’t shield your children to the world, if you try and drive away their friends they will (eventually) rebel and that will cause a wall of separation between you and them, it will shatter trust, and put them in opposition to you.
To the OP - I hope your DH does see that he should have held his tongue. As long as John isn’t using that sort of language at your house or in front of any of your family, that’s all he should be concerned about. Since the comment wasn’t directed at your DH or your family or posted on your facebook pages, it should never have been mentioned. From your post, it doesn’t sound like your husband would offer the boy an apology, or would he?
They think it’s WAY cooler to be 18 than than 13 or so they tell me.
I was 12 in 1973. I was raised in a very conservative, Christian household. I also had an absolutely wonderful Mother. She would very gently tell us that if we did certain things, it would disappoint her greatly. That’s all it took for all of her four kids to behave in her house.
None of the kids I knew and hung out with bullied anyone or said curse words nor did we think it was cool to do so. I had a variety of friends, rich and poor and we ALL thought it was “trashy” and low class to talk and act like a thug. We were snobby little goody two shoes, as they used to call it! 
And let me say that my 12 year old self would be very ashamed of the language used by her 49 year old self!
“Back then” in the late 60’s and 70’s, kids didn’t get away with things like cursing, bullying and fighting when I was in middle school, Jr. High or High school. Teachers had quite a bit more power to punish than they do now. I had one teacher in the 8th grade that kept her wooden paddle sitting out on her desk all day as a reminder to behave or else!
Yeah, ditto with my mom and me, however at school (or even in private at home, by the time I was 12-13) it was a different story in 1992.
In the rural Appalachian 80s and 90s, we weren’t deterred by that in the slightest. Teachers are and were, for the most part, blind to that kind of thing even if they were inclined.
It’s my opinion that the worst bullies are middle school-aged girls. Usually around the ages of 11-14. They can be EXTREMELY cruel. And I wasn’t exactly Miss Innocent.
I totally agree! At that age, they can be so hateful. I mentioned my friend’s 12 year old daughter in an earlier post. Over the summer, she lost all her baby fat, grew a couple of inches and is a real beauty now. Now that school has started, the little boys are crazy about her and some of her “used to be” friends have decided they’re jealous of her. One of them decided she was trying to steal her boyfriend even though she’s never even talked to him. Now she’s being bullied at school and on facebook by these girls. It’s gotten pretty nasty.
My friend has kept good documentation and luckily several witnesses have stood up for her daughter. She’s been to the school, the Mother of the girls was called in and suspensions have resulted. As soon as the girls got back, they started up again. The principal is telling her now he’s done all he can do and says he can’t do anything about what they’re saying on facebook even though the girls are discussing what they plan to do to her on school grounds and are using facebook to encourage others to join in on the bullying.
And these girls are telling everyone they’re only doing what their Mother told them to do! Someone else came forward, saying they overheard the Mother giving the girls ideas on what to say and do to continue the bullying. My friend also knows someone that went to school with the girl’s Mother and she was hateful and a bully when she was in school. Now she’s teaching her daughters to be just like her. So pitiful and sad.
Some people are just crazy!!! I’ve NEVER understood that mentality and never will. I don’t understand how anyone can enjoy causing hurt and pain for someone else. My feelings about fighting, name calling and bullying are the same as they were when I was 12. That behavior is trashy and low class.
Maybe I’m seeing bogeymen behind every corner but I can’t help but imagine older people talking to them and later claiming “wait I thought she was 18!” when confronted. Children shouldn’t be taught that it’s OK to pretend to be non-minors. Again, maybe I’m taking it too seriously.
I suppose it really depends on what you’re more vulnerable to, as well–in my experience, the girls were more emotionally cruel but whether that’s better or worse than getting locked in a dumpster for an hour a day is anyone’s guess.
Not necessarily. I see where my friends have liked or left comments on posts by people I’m not friends with quite often. Right there on my feed. It’s a function of how someone’s privacy filters are set up. Most commonly things are either totally open or totally locked to everyone who’s not on your friends list, but you can also set it up so that friends of friends can see posts that a mutual friend likes or comments on, but nothing else.
Zeriel, You are so right! The boys are more physical with their bullying and the girls use words to wound. And the PACK mentality is alive and well when it comes to the other kids joining in whether they actually have a problem with the object of the bullying or not.
TO THE OP - Sorry, we’ve sort of hi-jacked your thread. Your question brought up so many other issues with what’s going on with kids these days on facebook. Facebook allows them to be much braver and more nasty than in an actual face to face.
Maybe Facebook needs to be named something else - how about Two Facebook? A lot of nastiness goes on there, from what I’ve seen.
On Facebook I saw my (15 year old, sophomore) little brother joking with his friends. One of them told him “you look stupid” in a certain picture comment. Little bro retorted with “Brian, stop cyberbullying me! :-(” Many LOL’s ensued.
It’s almost like the boys can’t imagine mental and verbal bullying, or find it greatly exaggerated (because they don’t do it), whereas little bro (185 pounds, 6’ tall) has broken up a few physical fights in the hallways.
So glad to hear this. It’s good for the kids to see we all mess up from time to time and no one should be too big to apologize.