At what age should you let your child create a Facebook account? It’s a tough question, and a new one – parents today can’t look back for guidance at how their mom and dad dealt with this parenting dilemma.  Yet with the internet and social networking becoming an ever larger part of our everyday lives, it is almost inevitable that your child will eventually want to join up and login to a social networking service like Facebook.

Currently, Facebook officially bans children under 13 from creating an account.  However, the reality is that there are an estimated 7.5 million kids under 13 on Facebook, out of more than 900 million users worldwide. Many users under 13 simply lie about their age when they join up, while in other cases parents set up accounts for their children.  

Facebook is now testing ways to allow children who don’t meet the age requirement to participate in social networking, without needing to lie. Options being explored include:

• Having children’s accounts linked to parents so that parents can monitor activities
• Making children’s default account setting, “friends only”‘ so strangers cannot see their profile
• Letting parents have final say on who their children become friends with on Facebook

(Source: www.bccf.ca )