Disturbing dilemma

[ourmaminhavana]

One good piece of advice that I have already passed on to my children is "don't post or text anything that you wouldn't want to put on a t shirt and wear it to walk down the road".

Great advice scary mum!

[pabrighton0]

DD recently watched a video at school about this. We have not allowed facebook but there are all sorts of variants of social networking sites. The thread was whether the child would even consider showing all her photos and personal details in the front garden and leave the front door open. There were old men pretending they are little girls coming into the house and having a look around, etc. We had a few chats at home with both DDs to make sure all was clear - often the real situations can happen with people closer to you. One of the things children need to be really strict about is that parents should not have the children's password or be allowed to login to the school collaboration sites, which felt a bit odd but makes absolute sense...

DD still remembers it after a couple of months and did not ask for facebook again so it worked very well.

[Fran17]

One good piece of advice that I have already passed on to my children is "don't post or text anything that you wouldn't want to put on a t shirt and wear it to walk down the road".

Great advice scary mum!

Love this advice. Will be sharing it with my DSs.

[Chelmsford mum]

I have just caught up with this thread.I wouldn't say anything to the girl's mother.Ultimately it is her responsibility to monitor her own daughter.If she was walking down the road dressed provocatively for all to see, I suspect you wouldn't report that to her mother. I agree that it is tasteless and worrying but her parents should be monitoring her internet activity like a hawk at this age.I think it could backfire on you and your daughter. There is a place for intervening e.g if you knew she was planning to meet up with someone who had contacted her on the internet but these kind of photos are all too commonplace.Also not all parents would react as strongly as you.I have been shocked by some of the reactions of mothers I know to such photos and overt s-e-x-ualisiation of young children.Some mums actually encourage it - some inadvertently.

I feel it is sad how young women feel such a pressure to look like they would fit in a dodgy lads' mag photoshoot.I actually blame a lot of women as much as men for this.How many female celebrities, some even with brains, like journalists feel the need to pose in some tasteless photoshoot , just because a magazine asks them too.The tabloid press are no better and run these kind of articles/ photos.E.G "Loose women" presenter (don't know her name - can't STAND the programme) loses a stone and feel obliged to get her kit off and pose near n-u-d-e.She is my age - won't her sons be proud of her in few years. You don't see any male journalists feeling obliged to do this.(maybe thankfully!)

Maybe I am old fashioned - nothing wrong with being alluring but save it for your husband/partner.No need to share it with the nation at large.

Anyway I digress, but the point is young girls feel they are only acceptable if they can be s-e-x-y from a young age.Being bright or a brilliant sports woman isn't enough any more thanks to the utter shallowness of our celebrity obsessed culture which the media drip feeds to our children from birth!

[Lah-Di-Dah]

mm23292

Quite frankly I would say nothing unless it infringed upon my own child. Parents should police their own children and not other peoples. It is a very difficult job being a parent, and your concerns could come over as a bit "holier-than-thou".