Help. Kids, social media and ex husbands

[1confused1]

I signed my 8 year old son up on instagram. I put all kinds of rules in place to protect him.

His dad (my xh) is commenting on pictures and asking him if He can meet him at a park, have a bbq, etc. My xh has supervised visitation and he knows he can't see the kids outside of his visitation time.

My son is upset he can't see him. We had a long talk about why.

Outside of removing xh as one of his followers, is there anything else I can do? I don't want to punish my kid because his dad is a jackass.

[thinkofthesoldiers]

WTF does an 8 yo need to be on instagram for?

[shopgirl07]

Why isn't his account private?

[1confused1]

Nov 27, 2015 16:44:33 GMT -5 thinkofthesoldiers said:

WTF does an 8 you need to be on instagram for?

Because he likes to share pictures with his friends and family.

[nancybotwin]

8 seems a bit young for Instagram...but you're not asking that.
Can you remove xh as a follower? Because I don't think there is much you can control beyond those two moves.

[1confused1]

Nov 27, 2015 16:45:01 GMT -5 shopgirl07 said:

Why isn't his account private?

It is, but he wanted to be able to share pictures with his dad so I allowed them to follow each other.

I guess it was my mistake thinking xh could be a responsible adult.

[Deleted]

I think 8 is really young for that kind of stuff.

[1confused1]

Nov 27, 2015 16:45:09 GMT -5 nancybotwin said:

8 seems a bit young for Instagram...but you're not asking that.
Can you remove xh as a follower? Because I don't think there is much you can control beyond those two moves.

That's what I thought. Thanks.

[shopgirl07]

Nov 27, 2015 16:46:16 GMT -5 1confused1 said:

Nov 27, 2015 16:45:01 GMT -5 shopgirl07 said:

Why isn't his account private?

It is, but he wanted to be able to share pictures with his dad so I allowed them to follow each other.

I guess it was my mistake thinking xh could be a responsible adult.

Yeah, I mean, I'm not sure what you expected to happen. He'll either have to delete his Dad or deal with the comments.

[W.T.Faulkner]

Eight is too young for IG, I think.

[textbookcase]

8 is a little young for social media, imo. My 11 yo just got a private, heavily monitored account. My 9 yo isn't ready for IG or any other social media. If you want to let him keep the account, I would block your xh from seeing his posts if he is making inappropriate comments. That's really the only option you have.

[ECB]

Can you contact ex and tell him "stop with the comments or you're going to be deleted. Son wants to share pictures with you but you need to stop it w/ the comments".

[atlas]

Instagram TOS require user to be 13 years old to sign up. Did you lie about his birth year?

I'd probably delete the instagram account. But the only other option is to block his dad.

[1confused1]

Nov 27, 2015 16:51:28 GMT -5 atlas said:

Instagram TOS require user to be 13 years old to sign up. Did you lie about his birth year?

I'd probably delete the instagram account. But the only other option is to block his dad.

I didn't see a part where you enter an age.

[1confused1]

Nov 27, 2015 16:50:44 GMT -5 ECB said:

Can you contact ex and tell him "stop with the comments or you're going to be deleted. Son wants to share pictures with you but you need to stop it w/ the comments".

Yes, I did. He has yet to respond.

[joenali]

No. He does not need an IG account at 8. We won't even let our 11 year old have any social media accounts.

[AHappierHour]

Do you have iPhones or any other Apple products

If you do have him make photo stream and let him share photos that way.

[ECB]

So, I realize this is going back in time, but what about just printing pictures out and sending them via snail mail? So DS feels he's sharing but there is no opportunity for immediate comments?

There ARE other options to share than via instagram. Not as easy and immediate, but perhaps more protective of your DS.

[atlas]

Nov 27, 2015 16:52:41 GMT -5 1confused1 said:

Nov 27, 2015 16:51:28 GMT -5 atlas said:

Instagram TOS require user to be 13 years old to sign up. Did you lie about his birth year?

I'd probably delete the instagram account. But the only other option is to block his dad.

I didn't see a part where you enter an age.

I signed up for IG a long time ago, I thought there was a place to enter age. But I could be mistaken. Anyways, on that link the first rule of IG is that the user has to be 13.

But since you aren't responding to things saying to delete IG, I'm assuming you don't care.

[konstantine]

By allowing your son to have an IG and contact with his dad, you're setting him up to have to deal with adult problems at 8. I know it isn't what you're asking, but this is not a good idea.

I guess blocking exH would be the second best solution, aside from deleting your 8 year old's social media account.

[wannabe]

Why can't you share his pics for him? There's no reason why an 8 year old kid needs to be on social media. None.

[WOUNDTIGHT]

This is silly. If IG is causing problems for your eight year old, take him off social media. I don't know why you need a room full of strangers to tell you this. There are lots of adults who can't even navigate this stuff. And you know your xh doesn't respect boundaries (if I recall properly, you've had a restraining order, yes?) so you get the side eye for putting him in this situation in the first place.

[1confused1]

Thanks everyone, I will talk to him about deleting the account.

And yes, there is a restraining order, but it's between xh and I, not the kids.

[knx9211]

I assume if your family members have IG, they also have email. Why would you sign an 8 year old up for IG when he can just safely email people pictures? This is so weird, delete the IG

[thinkofthesoldiers]

Nov 27, 2015 16:45:07 GMT -5 1confused1 said:

Nov 27, 2015 16:44:33 GMT -5 thinkofthesoldiers said:

WTF does an 8 you need to be on instagram for?

Because he likes to share pictures with his friends and family.

And yet this drama with his dad could have been avoided had you used some common sense about parenting and social media.

[konstantine]

If he's interested in sharing pictures, set him up on Dropbox. You can choose who you send a link to share photos/documents with, and (as far as I know), there isn't an option to leave comments.

[MrsPenny]

Delete the IG. He is too young for it.  If your exH has supervised visitation, there is a reason for it, and your son is too young to understand that. Deleting the IG will take him out of the this situation completely.

[ginandjucie24]

Nov 27, 2015 17:05:32 GMT -5 konstantine said:

If he's interested in sharing pictures, set him up on Dropbox. You can choose who you send a link to share photos/documents with, and (as far as I know), there isn't an option to leave comments.

This.

[MixedBerryJam]

In a million years I would never have predicted that the IG of an 8yo child between whose parents there is a RO would cause an issue. Shocked, I tell ya.

[WOUNDTIGHT]

Nov 27, 2015 17:21:38 GMT -5 MixedBerryJam said:

In a million years I would never have predicted that the IG of an 8yo child between whose parents there is a RO would cause an issue. Shocked, I tell ya.

But you see the RO was only between xh and mom. There were no restrictions between xh and the kids.

Oh, except for supervised visits. So who could have guessed xh would have boundary issues or trouble following the rules? Why not give what is essentially a GPS tracker leading directly to mom and kids and share it with xh?

SMH.