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This should spark a good debate. How does everyone feel about teenagers (mine is 13 going on 14, in 8th grade) being allowed on sites such as these. My son has all three and generally speaking, I check them very often. This is pretty upsetting to him, but I have generally maintained that I will continue to check. He is a very good kid and has never given me a real reason not to trust him. Part of it for me is that I do enjoy getting to know him and his friends. The other aspect is that as he gets older, he becomes more... well.. more like a teenager. Getting him to talk sometimes is a major task. He now has a girlfriend and wants to talk in private ALL the time and we had a pretty big incident when I told him he can talk occasionally in the presence of the rest of his family. How about some insight and experience on this issue.
I think you are smart to keep tabs on those types of things at this age.....he's testing the waters of his limited independence and you should be the guiding force here....
LOL - just wait....My kids (19 and 16) have facebook pages and they had been bugging US to get them! DH finally did and it's been a great way to keep in touch with relatives spread out across the world....Imagine my surprise recently when I heard my DD (19) yell from upstairs "Mom! Grandpa has a facebook!"...I have yet to do it but I'm sure I will one of these days.....
I would do it. I have thought about this issue because we were suppose to take in my 14 y.o. niece this year. I guess the only other thing is to tell him that he has private time with his friends and he will get more and more as he gets older until he finally moves out, but that it is your job to make sure he gets to that point whole and intact.
I personally think your children are pretty young to have these things. If they must have them make sure they are as private as possible so not just anyone can contact them or add them. Continue to keep close tabs on them as well.
I don't think facebook is so bad if you also have an account and your son is a "friend" and also a "friend" of other family members.
Our family uses it --- all ages, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, the cousins can kind of keep in touch, post family get together pictures and remember birthdays and all that.
I think one good thing to do as far as the internet is to teach your kids the proper use of it, teach them that it can be good wholesome fun. At ages under 16 - the parent should check how the child is using the internet and older depending on how the child seems to be affected by their internet use.
I think one good thing to do as far as the internet is to teach your kids the proper use of it, teach them that it can be good wholesome fun. At ages under 16 - the parent should check how the child is using the internet and older depending on how the child seems to be affected by their internet use.
I would agree to this. Since social networking, and other technology mediums for that matter, are not going away, the best thing you can do is teach your kids how to use them properly. However, this also means you must understand them and know how to responsibly use them too.
Arguably the most important thing for anyone to understand about things like social networking sites is the agreement terms which most people don't bother to read. Once you type something or upload a picture to a site that is owned and maintained by an entity other than yourself, then typically by default that entity has a right, via their agreement terms, to take that information and use it or maybe even sell it. In addition to this, it's important to understand that when you delete something from a site you are using it does not mean that the information is really gone. Copies of what you deleted can still reside on that entity's servers. So when sharing any information online this should always be kept in mind. The hard part, IMO, is getting people - especially kids - to truly understand this and see passed pseudo "privacy" features.
Yep I keep tabs on my DD's (15) facebook, myspace, and I check texts every now and again. The myspace and facebook she knows about, not entirely thrilled but puts up with it, the texts she doesn't know about so sshhh don't tell her!
I would check their online accounts occasionally. When you say he wants to talk in private, do you mean over the phone or online? If it's over the phone then i dont think it's such a big deal. I mean, it's kinda hard to be all lovey dovey around family members. If it's on the computer then i'd be like hellz to the naw.
As of now we do not monitor their text messages. If we have a reason to suspect they are involved in anything that is problematic we will monitor them, but in the absence of a problem they are permitted to text their friends without us snooping on them. Our approach has been to give the kids respect as long as they are worthy of our respect. If they do not hold up their end of the bargain all bets are off. We will read their texts if we feel we must.
As for Facebook, our teens are our friends on FB. Many of their friend are our friends on FB. We model responsible usage. If we feel something they post is inappropriate we will tell them privately and allow them to make the changes without all their friends knowing that mommy made them change it.
We allow our kids to have private phone conversations. We believe that they are entitled to privacy until they do something that makes us distrust them. I wouldn't want them listening in on all my private phone conversations and I don't listen to theirs. Again, if I felt that they violated our trust things would change but until that time we allow them their privacy.
Well, I honestly think that sometimes I may go overboard a bit. I check his texts multiple times a day and facebook the same. He insists that I check it too much and that he wouldn't complain if I checked it with a little less frequency. I guess my problem is that sometimes I feel its my only way of knowing whats going o in his world, because now that he's this big cool teenager... blah, blah, blah. He's really a good kid that is worthy of my trust, so I can see why its a little frustrating. I just sort of wanted to get a few opinions on how much is too much when it comes to keeping tabs on his online activities and text messages. For the record, I have no intentions of stopping checking the texts.. perhaps it will be better that I just stop letting him know it.
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