Do I Speak up About Social Media Shaming?

Based on the info you gave, I suggest the "friend" asked a legitimate question. Your daughter can answer or not. Where's the shame?

I guess your definition of shaming is different from mine. I was expecting insults, gossip, degrading, and humiliating words being directed toward your daughter for the entire student body to read. Asking why she doesn't want to be friends isn't in the least bit offensive or humiliating. I have a daughter in 4th grade and these love/hate relationships between the girls have been going on for YEARS! Even the teachers and aftercare teachers will tell you that girls are pure drama and don't get involved in these little tiffs.

I am surprised this is the first time your daughter has come across someone who asks why she doesn't want to be friends. Kids in my daughter's class are frenemies on a weekly basis, it's part of growing up and learning that your friends are entitled to have other friends and sharing. No one belongs to anyone, despite rampant jealousies.

Regardless of social media (and my daughter is not allowed on it despite the fact she begged, pleaded and talked my ear off), these questions and situations arise in real life and in school as well, as I mentioned above. Anyway, I don't think the question she asked your daughter was abnormal or negative, it's a legitimate question. If anything, I think it shows that the other girl values your child's friendship enough to wonder why she is drifting apart and maybe repair it.

This would be a good opportunity for your daughter to clear the air and maybe mention she feels left out. I think you're placing more importance than necessary on communications between two little girls. It really is not a big deal. Step back and let them resolve their friendship issues on their own. If there is bullying, harassment, or anything negative coming out of this, then yes, by all means step in, and definitely contact the other parent in that case, but if a kid decided to host a sleepover and did not include your daughter, for example, that is not a reason to speak to the mom.

At your daughters age... She should NOT be on social media.

Stop the drama!! You do not engage in it and make it worse.

Gees...SMH

I thought your question sounded typical of grade 5 kids. Mine were not on social media at that age, but they used a chat feature on their ipods, and some stuff was said that was probably unkind. It's the same stuff they would say on the playground, except it's online - and people can take snap shots of it and show moms. That's how I see it because when it's happened with our kids - or kids we know - the kids will say, "Well it's what we would say to them at school". Kids are immature at this age. I ended up taking away the chat app for my child who was part of a group in this drama. That's on the parent. If your kid is getting bothered by what she sees - I would take away her access for now.

You can't control other people's kids. If you want, you can mention it to the mom - more as a heads up, but in my opinion, that wouldn't go over well. If it was online bullying - making fun of to the point where your child is ridiculed .. different story. I am not ok with bullying (true bullying). Sounds to me like your daughter did the passive drift from her friend - and if she was her BFF should have been more direct - and her friend did a kind of passive agressive "shame" on instagram. Again, the kids are not mature.

I would talk to your daughter about friendships and use this as learning experience. As a mom who has had the odd mom approach me about my kid not wanting to be friends with their kid any more - it's awkward. Because that's what this kind of boils down to. Sure - the method was online for others to see - not cool. But honestly, it's more about teaching kids respect and how to break off friendships without it turning into drama. If this girl continues to share stuff about your daughter online, then yes - I would contact the mom.

What I would do with my child is have them approach the now ex-friend and say "I don't appreciate you putting that on instagram - please don't refer to me on social media (and otherwise we will take it up with you parent)..." kind of thing.

As for your SWH questions of "is it ok to shame on social media? Would you do that publicly amongst all your followers on FB? If you were having marital issues would you air that?" - of course not. But instagram for kids is all about sharing everything. They take pictures of any thing and everything. They comment on every detail of their lives. We had the talk and continue to have the talk with ours. They all screw up - all kids do. That's why we have to be hyper vigilant of their online use and what they put out there. Even my super respectful timid shy child has screwed up and posted without thinking.

I don't think you can compare what we as adults post on facebook and what a 10 year old would post on instagram. Apples to oranges. We have wisdom and maturity. Don't hold this ex-friend up to our expectations for adults.

Obviously this age group is WAY too young to be on social media! You have to own your part of it by allowing your child to have an account, and ideally the other parents should monitor their children's accounts (which may or may not be legal) as well. But you cannot police the other parents.

The fact that kids have enough savvy to take screen shots, but not enough to think before they post, tells you they are not ready for this level of internet participation.

On some level, we have to understand and acknowledge that what is occurring on social media now used to be what happened in the school hallways a few years ago. It may be awful and cruel and uncalled-for, but it's magnified because friends of friends of friends can see it on social media.

So...lesson learned. Get your kid off social media, monitor her computer usage (public areas of the house, looking over her shoulder), absolutely learn the abbreviations that kids use to clue in their friends that parents are looking over their shoulders, and absolutely learn the apps that kids use that look like innocuous things (calculators, etc.) that shield their true purpose. You might propose that the school run a course on these things for parents. If your kid has a cell phone, cut off the data program and absolutely go through it every day for text messages.

You MIGHT (depending on how well you know the other parents) start a conversation about how to know what kids are doing on line, but if you position is as "Your daughter was cruel to my daughter on line" you will absolutely not accomplish what you intend. If the other parent is sympathetic, you can share (if pressed) the screen shot you saved. But it absolutely has to be based on "our kids are doing things we don't know about and we ALL have a role here."

Otherwise, you stay out of your kids' relationships and you help them develop the skills to choose friends more wisely, to determine what makes a friend a friend, and you help them find a backbone when someone does something hurtful. Definite what it means to be "a friend."

I've said it before, and I'll say it again.

Social media, no matter what the platform, is a two way street. We may believe (and know) that our child is respectful, uses Instagram to post pictures of her kitty cat doing cute things, and talks to Grandma on Skype. But, since it's a two way street, you HAVE to realize that the rules aren't the same for everyone. Some kids have no supervision whatsoever, no filters, no boundaries. When you allow a kid who's 7 or 8 or 10 or 12 to access social media, even with the most severe restrictions, you're allowing the rest of the social-media-using-world into your living room and your bedrooms. It's like leaving your front door unlocked and wide open and unguarded, and then complaining that strangers/thieves/vagrants/freeloaders wandered in.

Would you let your 5th grader drive your car on the highway? Of course not, because she doesn't have the maturity, the wisdom, the abilities, to predict other drivers' actions, to drive defensively, to avoid collisions. Would you leave her alone in a bar at 2 am? Of course not. She wouldn't be safe.

That's why we say NO to social media before our kids develop some maturity and the ability to dismiss things that are harmful. No fifth grader should be screen-shotting, looking at pictures that are socially and personally harmful and degrading, and experiencing social media shaming. We teach them, and coach them, and when they're able and old enough (like at least 13, and even later for some kids), we allow them restricted use of certain platforms, with the caveat that all passwords are known to the parents, and the parents retain the rights to review all the sites at any time without warning, and any violations will result in a complete loss of anything other than a flip phone that can make a call in case of emergency - not even a text or a camera on the dorky old piece of antiquated equipment.

You can't blame your daughter, or the other girls or the clueless mom. You can only admit that you allowed the internet world to come streaming into your home when you gave your daughter access to social media before she's even a tween. She's still a kid. Tell her you were wrong, and you exposed her to things that she's not ready for, and that have already hurt her. Take responsibility. The problem is not the shaming. The problem is, you put your daughter on a dangerous multi-lane highway and yeah, there's going to be a lot of oncoming traffic.

Yes, I think this is definitely worthy of a conversation with the friend's mom. Social media is changing and growing faster than parents can educate themselves about what is and isn't appropriate for their children to use and before parents can educate their children on responsible social media use. We have to teach our children how to navigate these platforms and what is and isn't appropriate behavior. I would approach it from the standpoint of "I think you'd want to know what's happening." It's not shocking that this "friend" doesn't know that this isn't OK, but it does need to be addressed.

There are a lot of adults who don't know this either - I actually got into a bit of a FB tiff last week on a page for moms from my town. Someone posted a photo of a man who was allegedly asking people for gas money outside of a local grocery store but was really buying booze. While a normal person wouldn't have given this much thought, one of these moms felt it necessary to share a photo of this man to "warn us." Ugh. I spoke up and said that I didn't think it was right to publish a photo of someone without his knowledge or permission or shame him in a public forum and that if someone felt that they were being harassed or threatened, they should talk to the store manager or police. Many people agreed with me, but there we plenty who thought that this was a perfectly appropriate action and that it's OK to accuse someone, post photos of them and speak ill of them under the guise of having the right to be informed. It was middle school mean girl mentality at its finest!

This is probably also a good lesson for your daughter in what not to do or say online - it sounds like she "gets it" already but still, you have a teachable moment here. And finally...I would recommend that you consider what social media your child has access to for specifically reasons such as this. If she doesn't go online that often anyway, it would be wise to perhaps close those accounts until she's a bit older. My younger boys are in 4th and 6th grades and have NO social media accounts on any platforms - no FB, no Instagram, no Snapchat, no PSN accounts, etc. They can text friends from a shared iPad using my account so that I can see everything, and that's all they need. They're still too young for social media. IMO your daughter and her friends are too. There's no harm in saying "we tried this, it was a mistake, we'll revisit it again when you're 13."

No, I would not confront the friend's mom over this. My youngest is now in 8th grade and this is typical Instagram stuff. Girls post pictures of their friends. Girls left out of people's picture collection feel slighted. Sometimes it is intentionally passive-agressive, sometimes not. I agree the friend should not have posted this kind of personal conversation to public social media. But she is in 5th grade. I wouldn't call it shaming, I'd call it immaturity mixed with social media. And a good talking point for you and your daughter about responsible and respectful communication in public forums. If your daughter is spending time viewing her peers Instagram pictures and feeling left out, that's pretty commonly associated with feelings of depression. Have her give Instagram a break for awhile. Of course your daughter is hurt because that would be embarrassing to have one of your peers post that message. But SHE should be the one to tell the other girl that it was not cool to take that personal question public. And leave it at that. The fate of the friendship is for the girls to figure out.

Trying to figure out how a 10 or 11 year old has access to social media. They will not allow a child to have an account until they are 13.

I am also not understanding how asking someone why she won't be her friend is social shaming. Your daughter was blowing her off, she asked why. If your daughter doesn't like questions like that she should be more direct and say, we are drifting apart, I don't want to be friends.

I agree with what many of the others have said - even with proper parental monitoring, kids are going to post things on social media that they shouldn't. Unless the child can only use the program while the parent is sitting right there with him, they are going to post hurtful things without realizing that it isn't the right platform. A parent monitoring the use will see the post afterwards, and can then have a conversation about it, but won't have been able to prevent it in the first place.

I don't think this is social shaming, though you do say there were other things so maybe there is more to it that we're missing. Anyway, if the question was really just "why don't you want to be friends anymore," I agree that it was inappropriate place to ask, but not shaming your daughter. I hope that your daughter chose to respond privately, rather than publicly. Also, remind your daughter that sending messages is really the wrong way to communicate about something important, and that they need to have an actual conversation instead, so they can use the right tone of voice, not sound accusing, etc. We often read things very differently than the sender intended.

I would not talk to her mom if it's really just about their friendship growing apart. If the friend starts saying bad things about your daughter, calling her names, etc., then yes the mom needs to know. But just asking that question alone is not something I would take to the next level by involving the mom.

Kids this age - and really kids of any age - are pretty clueless about what is and isn't socially appropriate. I am really sorry to hear that your daughter was hurt by this girl, and it sounds like she is mature enough to realize that this is not a friendship worth keeping. I know plenty of kids in elementary school and junior high have access to instagram and facebook (my son had a first grade classmate with her own instagram - sheesh!!), but they really aren't ready for it. This is such a hard age for girls and social media just makes it so much harder.

Do I think public shaming is ok? No.
Do I think a 10 year old asking another 10 year old why they aren't friends anymore on social media is shaming? No. It's a bit awkward, but what 10 year old doesn't make some awkward social choices? They are still learning.

I do not think you should talk to the other parent. I think you should use this as a teaching moment for your child. I agree with you that instagram is not the place to have a personal conversation and that is something to talk about with your child. And I would encourage her to talk to a friend who appears to have hurt feelings. And I emphasize the word TALK (as in - in person).

You tell your daughter to block the person she doesn't want to hear from and move on.

I think it might be a good idea for your daughter to take a break from all social media for a few years.
In general, it's a good idea for everyone to unplug, disconnect and put the whole internet down for awhile and play a board game, read a book, walk on the beach, etc.
I despised Facebook and rarely use it.

Here's the thing...people today, not just kids, only seem to know how to use technology but not how to have a real relationship/conversation/true personal interaction. The fact that she takes jabs and then takes them down says that either she knows they are wrong and doesn't want to be caught or she posts to express herself and then feels bad...which in some ways mean their is hope for her interpersonal skills yet but doesn't really solve your dilemma. Or maybe her mom isn't as clueless as you think and made her take it down.

Maybe you can take your daughter to talk with this girl and her mother. More so you and the other mom are there but let your daughter explain to this girl that discussions really shouldn't be public posts and while they have grown apart, in part her distance was initially due to some hurt feelings. If they aren't going to be BFFs anymore, it doesn't mean they have to be mean or publicly shame the other.

I don't understand what was so shameful? If your daughter feels she has legitimate reasons for backing off the friendship, why should she feel ashamed? I only feel ashamed when I know I have done something wrong/bad.

You could show it to her mom and tell her that you know she isn't aware that her daughter does this on social media. She's actually not old enough to have accounts (is it FB? She is supposed to be 13 to have an account.)

If her mom doesn't care, then there's nothing you can do. Of course, the girl might shame your daughter more by bringing it up...

If this, "Her friend asked publicly why she did not respond or want to be friends anymore" is the accurate representation of the question, then it does not qualify as shaming. I prefer to keep things more private, but asking the question in the open is really common among younger people.

Since your daughter is too young (legally and developmentally) for social media, and you say she doesn't check it often anyway, my action would be to delete her account(s) and let it rest.

If my child mentioned it to me, I would tell her not to reply to the post but tell the friend in person how she feels and talk it out. If the friend is not up for that interaction, then she's not a friend. Middle school is a terrible time for kids, especially girls, and the friendships are crazy mercurial. Don't try to keep up. However, if it goes beyond this and it starts to be cyberbullying, then do step in. I think that your daughter sees how her friend misuses social media and has been burned before since she pre-emptively took the screen shot. I'd ask her to think about this friendship and how a friend behaves and if this is something she wants to fix or let go. Sometimes friends fall apart. Sometimes it's temporary and other times it's forever. It's OK to let go of bad relationships. I also think that social media is hampering people's ability to handle conflict in person. They take to the public forum vs making a phone call or meeting with that person. They vaguebook. They don't ever really resolve the issue. Teach your child better conflict resolution.

And definitely be a part of her social media world and talk to her often about being online, and the hazards out there. I will not allow my DD to have any social media accounts til she is a teen because I don't see any reason for her to be on them til she is much older. Everything else can go through me. We recently had to discuss how FaceTime with family is ok but FaceTime with random people is not something she should be offering. She is 7. Sigh.

Also, don't look to what other people do. My DD's school had to tell parents their kids' phones need to be left home. They were having trouble in elementary school with cell phone use, and not just with the 5th graders. I know kids as young as 6 take phones to school.