Bare with me while I vent here as I simply need to get this off my chest.
We moved into a nice community in Florence, Arizona on June 6th. Our daughter quickly made friends with the girl next door to us who is the same age as her, 8. We were happy about that since it's nice that she can have a friend who lives so close. However, things have started to become very problematic.
We found out that her friend next door is very addicted to TikTok. Now I honestly didn't know much about TikTok or what it was until this happened, but upon discovering it, I was absolutely shocked to go on this 8 year old girls profile and see what she was posting on there. Just the other day she uploaded a video of her doing the "WAP" dance (which I also didn't know what that was until my wife told me).
The worst part of all of this is that she's been trying to get our daughter to participate in these videos, which both my wife and I will absolutely not have. I mean let's put things into perspective here. If you're a grown adult and want to sexualize yourself online by doing the WAP dance, by all means, go for it. But an 8 year old girl? This just blows my mind.
Looking at her profile and her followers, it's very obvious to me by the amount of people following her with either obviously fake profiles (or no profile photo at all) that a lot of her "followers" could be pedophiles. We asked her about her followers and she said she doesn't know most of them, they are just random people. Even better, right? Your 8 year old daughter is online shaking her ass, wearing highly inappropriate outfits for an 8 year old, and basically just twerking so that all these creepers can see.
As a parent, how can you possibly be okay with this? See, we asked her, and she said her mom and dad both know about it, and both of them are okay with it. Really?! She's EIGHT years old. How on earth can you possibly be okay with your 8 year old daughter sexualizing and objectifying herself on a social medial platform where the entire world can see?
Now granted this is just a rant and you are entitled to parent your child however you want, I am honestly in utter disbelief that any parent could possibly be okay with this. We are very fortunate that our daughter is honest with us and knows wrong from right. I'm very, very grateful for that, because I definitely do not want out daughter participating in this sort of behavior whatsoever.
I've gone ahead and blocked the TikTok app (and all social media apps) from our WiFi router so that as long as she is on our WiFi, she won't be able to access TikTok. I'm also going to have a talk with both her and her mother about this and simply tell them both that as long as she's using TikTok around our daughter, they will not be allowed to play. If she wants to use it, she can do it in her own time and keep it to herself.
With that being said, I hope that all of the parents out there at least have some idea what their children are doing. The fact that a little 8 year old girl is doing stuff like this is both alarming and inappropriate. I'd also like to warn parents out there to be careful who you let your children play with. You just never know these days.
Thanks for listening, and sorry for the long winded rant. I'm just very highly ticked off about this whole thing. I'm not trying to completely shelter my child, but certain things are just not appropriate at this age.
We moved into a nice community in Florence, Arizona on June 6th. Our daughter quickly made friends with the girl next door to us who is the same age as her, 8. We were happy about that since it's nice that she can have a friend who lives so close. However, things have started to become very problematic.
We found out that her friend next door is very addicted to TikTok. Now I honestly didn't know much about TikTok or what it was until this happened, but upon discovering it, I was absolutely shocked to go on this 8 year old girls profile and see what she was posting on there. Just the other day she uploaded a video of her doing the "WAP" dance (which I also didn't know what that was until my wife told me).
The worst part of all of this is that she's been trying to get our daughter to participate in these videos, which both my wife and I will absolutely not have. I mean let's put things into perspective here. If you're a grown adult and want to sexualize yourself online by doing the WAP dance, by all means, go for it. But an 8 year old girl? This just blows my mind.
Looking at her profile and her followers, it's very obvious to me by the amount of people following her with either obviously fake profiles (or no profile photo at all) that a lot of her "followers" could be pedophiles. We asked her about her followers and she said she doesn't know most of them, they are just random people. Even better, right? Your 8 year old daughter is online shaking her ass, wearing highly inappropriate outfits for an 8 year old, and basically just twerking so that all these creepers can see.
As a parent, how can you possibly be okay with this? See, we asked her, and she said her mom and dad both know about it, and both of them are okay with it. Really?! She's EIGHT years old. How on earth can you possibly be okay with your 8 year old daughter sexualizing and objectifying herself on a social medial platform where the entire world can see?
Now granted this is just a rant and you are entitled to parent your child however you want, I am honestly in utter disbelief that any parent could possibly be okay with this. We are very fortunate that our daughter is honest with us and knows wrong from right. I'm very, very grateful for that, because I definitely do not want out daughter participating in this sort of behavior whatsoever.
I've gone ahead and blocked the TikTok app (and all social media apps) from our WiFi router so that as long as she is on our WiFi, she won't be able to access TikTok. I'm also going to have a talk with both her and her mother about this and simply tell them both that as long as she's using TikTok around our daughter, they will not be allowed to play. If she wants to use it, she can do it in her own time and keep it to herself.
With that being said, I hope that all of the parents out there at least have some idea what their children are doing. The fact that a little 8 year old girl is doing stuff like this is both alarming and inappropriate. I'd also like to warn parents out there to be careful who you let your children play with. You just never know these days.
Thanks for listening, and sorry for the long winded rant. I'm just very highly ticked off about this whole thing. I'm not trying to completely shelter my child, but certain things are just not appropriate at this age.