About a few months back, Nadine was asking if she could get a Facebook account. According to her, a lot of her friends and classmates and cousins have already and she wanted to join the bandwagon. I think the main reason why we had to think twice about this is because the Internet is not entirely safe. And especially for children her age, I would rather that she get into it when she’s a little older already.
But after a lot of thinking, I thought, well, we don’t want her to be left out also with her friends and as long as it’s regulated and supervised maybe it would be ok. Besides, a lot of people I now allow their kids for the games only. And I’ve read about an article how parents can monitor their children through Facebook. But when we tried signing up, we found out that there is an age limit --- only for people who are 13 and above.
What did this mean? All these classmates and friends and cousins of hers have changed their ages so that they can get Facebook account. With this information, we decided that no, we would not let her join Facebook. We don't want to teach her to be dishonest even if it is as simple as changing her age just so she can get what she wants. The minimum age requirement was put there for a good reason.
Now I don’t want to sound high and mighty or righteous about this. I just feel that sometimes we aren’t aware that our actions are magnified heavily by our children. As they say, children live by example. And what lesson will she be learning if we allow her this Facebook account?
I know that this is just a simple case but will teach her values that I hope she will adopt in the long run. It isn’t easy to be a parent. We have to choose our battles and our actions carefully because these have an impact on our children. But we have to do it because they are our responsibility. In the end, I want to face my God and tell him that I did all that I could to bring up a good and upstanding person.
