Parenting Teens

It’s one of those hotbutton issues - do you myspace? Do you let you kids myspace? What about facebook? or whatever other Social Networks are out there where evil predators could lurk and steal your preshush beebees innocence? And more importantly - do YOU know what they’re doing while online?

The rules at my house were simple - no computers with internet access in their rooms until they could prove to me they’d behave. We started with little things - club penguin for the youngest, Disney Channel online, Cartoon Network, those kind of things. Then, the inevitable question came. “Mom, can I get a myspace?”

Note that my kids ASKED me first. I know that not many kids ask their parents, or feel they need too, but my kids knew better. Because they asked, it also allowed me to set down guidelines for them too.

I set up the accounts for them, just as I had set up their email addresses before. The rules were the same - you can change the password, but if I ask, you give it up freely, or I shut it down. And then I added them to my friends list, which lets me keep track if I want to as well.

Now, I’m not a super snoopy mom. I don’t check their accounts obsessively, I don’t even flip over to their profile more then once a month or so. But they know that I CAN. At any point in time I CAN. I find that fear of mom is a much better motivator then my actually having to invade their privacy. As I’ve told them often -if you act like my eyeballs are carried around a chain around your neck, and that I CAN SEE EVERYTHING, then you won’t do anything you don’t want me to see, right? (It helps that they’re a little gullible too - like the time I convinced them a friend of mine could spy on their computer activities via AIM. THAT one was golden! To this day they still think J. could tell what they were doing online while I was on vacation!)

I find that my kids and their friends don’t mind my being a Myspace Mom, all told. In fact, I’m one of the highest priced pets in the “By your friends as pets” war, and have been passed around to all their friends as everyone tries to ‘own’ me. I always wanted to be the cool mom, and it seems that I’ve achieved that goal in style!

So while some teens treat this kind of joining by parents as an intrusion, I think the important issue here is how you’ve talked to your kids about the whole internet Social Media deal. Are your guidelines reasonable? Are you giving them the room to spread their wings, do you trust that you’ve taught them enough to fly? It’s hard to balance the protectiveness with letting go, but it’s exactly what we have to do.

It all starts by talking to your kids. Start early, but if you haven’t - the time to start is now.