( CNN ) -- As they move from their early teens to their late teens , kids no longer want to be pals with Mom and Dad . Teenage boys are much less likely than girls to initiate conversations with their parents . And moms baby their sons . Not exactly news flashes , you say ? But we 're not talking about real life here , exactly . We 're talking about Facebook . The world 's largest social network released new data Thursday about how parents and their children interact online . But the findings , from Facebook 's data science team , also illustrate how personal interactions on Facebook can mirror those in the so-called real world . Read more : Why Facebook will have trouble killing the text message . `` With the holidays approaching , and families gathering all over the world , we wanted to understand how parents and children on Facebook communicate , '' says the post , which crunches friend requests , conversations and other Facebook data from the past two months . `` We are happy to see that our data surfaces the affection , care , and closeness of family ties . '' Young people and social media : Docs examine pitfalls . Here are the highlights of what Facebook found : . Who friends whom : More than 65 % of friendships between 13-year-olds and their parents are initiated by the child . But the older the teenager gets , the less likely he or she is to be the one sending the friend request . By the time kids are in their early to mid-20s , their parents are initiating friend requests with them 60 % of the time . As kids grow into their 30s and 40s , however , they begin friending their parents more often again . `` This overall trend follows the rough arc of children seeking distance from their parents as they prepare to leave the nest , and then gradually gravitating back as they accomplish their own milestones in life , '' says the blog post . The secret online life of my sixth grader . Who talks to whom : Moms and dads initiate parent-child conversations more often than their teenage kids . For daughters , this imbalance evens out by the time they hit 30 and are messaging their parents as often as they receive messages in return . Sons , however , however , take twice as long -- until age 60 -- to come around . What they say : The data team studied hundreds of thousands of public Facebook messages between parents and children to identify the words and phrases that appeared most often . Based on the results , Mom and Dad are very proud of their kids . Among the most common phrases from parents : `` I 'm so proud , `` all my heart , '' `` well done , '' `` proud of you '' and `` call me . '' Moms and dads use language much differently when messaging with sons , though . Mothers preferred endearments like `` my handsome son '' and `` my little boy , '' while dads used profanity and words like `` buddy '' and `` dude . '' Read more : Microsoft opens its own social network .
New data show how parents and their children interact on Facebook . More than 65 % of friendships between 13-year-olds and parents are initiated by child . Moms prefer endearments like `` my handsome son '' ; dads use profanity and words like `` dude ''