I would guess that the majority of our blog guests and readers are somehow related to, or very attached to, an American Girl between the ages of 6-12. Yesterday my baby turned 12. When I first started working on Emily Rose in 2006, Emily was only 8 years old and 12 seemed to me like an age in some distant universe that she would never reach. Now she’s 12. Next year she’ll be 13. And suddenly as I look at how quickly the past few years flew by, her teenage years don’t seem that far away. I need to prepare.

Emily has already asked me multiple times for a Facebook account. “All my friends have Facebook accounts”, she will whine pointlessly, knowing full well how far that argument will get her in our house. I was surprised when I checked and found out that the minimum age for a Facebook account (according to Facebook) is only 14. I don’t know why I hadn’t expected that but it scares me. I started to do some research online on Facebook usage amongst the younger set and came to the conclusion that rules and guidance are not only required but should be discussed and monitored in length.

I was so relieved when I came across this very well-thought out and totally thorough Facebook Contract from the website Pass The Torch.

I know it is probably very early for most of our readers to be thinking about this issue – but you might want to do as I did and bookmark this contract and add it to your future calendar for the dreaded Facebook sign-up date. Trust me… time passes awfully quickly.