Dear Mary-anne. I'm constantly being messaged by my friend's nine-year-old.

QUESTION:

My friend has a nine-year-old child whom she recently signed up to online Messenger, so she could keep in contact with family.

She added me as a contact to her child’s Messenger and I have no idea why she would do that, but now the child is sending me lots of messages and, although I feel bad for saying this, I find it annoying and disruptive.

I don't have any kind of close connection with my friend’s child, but I fear if I don't respond to the messages, both the child and my friend will be hurt and offended.

I just don't know how to tell my friend that I find the situation awkward and I don't want to be messaged constantly by her child.

ANSWER:

On reading your letter, I immediately assumed your friend would have no idea her child was annoying you. She probably signed the child up, gave said child a few contacts to get going with (or to use in emergencies) and then never gave the child’s online activities another thought – which is slightly alarming on many levels. Your friend probably intended remaining vigilant…... which shows how easily parents can be blind even when something is in plain sight.

I wouldn’t like to be messaged constantly by a nine-year-old either. Most of us get pinged many times a day by people with real messages and things we need to deal with, but to dig your phone out and find it’s a nine-year-old saying hi? No thanks.

You’ve got several options and, if I were you, I’d make a decision and get this small, but irritating problem dealt with.

Ask you friend straight out if she knows her child is messaging you X number of times a day. I’ll put my money on the fact that she has no idea, will feel a bit awkward and put a stop to it. Or, you can simply not answer the nine-year-old. I would do that, because the child will soon move onto someone who does reply. Another option is to reply to the child and say that you don’t want to be messaging, but he/she can feel free to keep your number for emergencies.

In this last suggestion, you may find that nine years old is a bit young to get the brush off so will tell the mother anyway, so you may as well have been upfront with your friend in the first place! Confused?

There’s an app called Messenger Kids which Facebook brought out in 2017 to hook the under-13s into the Facebook web. I’m assuming this is the app your friend has used. Many experts have been fairly scathing about this app – and considering the misuse of data that’s happened with the over-13s Messenger app, it’s not surprising they are scathing. There may be some families where circumstances demand the children need Messenger Kids, but as a general rule, I can’t see any reason why a parent would bother with all this palaver. There’s plenty of time for children to become hooked on messaging – let the nine-year-old be a nine-year-old.