Internet
Let’s talk about preteens/teens and the net.
On Tuesday, the kiddos are going to have internet access. Right now, no one uses the internet because it is in my bedroom. But since Bug is doing virtual school and Izzy needs to be able to email her brother, I got a second phone line installed upstairs. The computer is in the living room, where nobody can have privacy. I created email accounts for the girls which hid their real names and ages.
Do you use some kind of net nanny program? Do you require your kids to use passwords that you set? Do you allow them to have myspace? Do you allow them to IM?
If yes, what ages are we talking about? Like I don’t mind Bug IMing me, Geo, her grandparents, etc or even kids we know. But I don’t want any of the kids emailing/IMing strangers.
As far as myspace goes…don’t they have to use their real names? Bug and Izzy are both in “hiding” as in their birthfamilies do not know their location. Do they have to put their locations? How does it work if you set your profile to private?
Also, Callie has expressed the desire to have an email penpal with someone. Does anyone have a teen her age that would be interested?
I just went upstairs to give all the kids the email addresses I created and I told them that we were going to be talking about internet rules before Tuesday. Bug asked if I had a lot of internet rules when I was her age.
Me: “I didn’t have the internet, Bug. I didn’t use internet for the first time until I went to college.”
Bug: “WHAT? How did you talk to Nana and Grandpa then? And you mean there weren’t any blogs back then????”
August 26th, 2007 at 9:27 pm
Myspace is not such a good thing. It’s actually kind of a disgusting place on the internet. Facebook is a bit more classy and DOES require you to use your real name and parents permission if under a certain age. Also Facebook is meant to be mostly for kids/ college students. There are plenty of other social networking sites too.
I don’t have any good internet nanny programs but I bet they wouldn’t be too hard to find.
Best of luck. The internet can be a scary place for kids and their parents.
August 26th, 2007 at 9:32 pm
I don’t really like myspace either, but the kids asked about it. I don’t see anyway to do either while maintaining their privacy.
August 26th, 2007 at 9:33 pm
I don’t know anything about monitoring programs but I have to agree with Angela. Myspace can get kids in trouble. You have to use your real name but you don’t have to use it on your page just when you register. The bad part about that is that it makes the profile searchable.
If you set it to private only friends can view it, but then you have to monitor who they accept as friends. When someone who is not their friend searches them what will come up is their picture (if they have one) their location (if they listed it) and their age. Then it will say this profile is set to private you must contact the person for approval.
Hope that helps!!
August 26th, 2007 at 9:56 pm
Oh my. I know nothing about any of this. Wow, it is a lot to consider. I never even thought about it. I didn’t have a computer and internet until I was 36. No kids, no teens.
August 26th, 2007 at 10:00 pm
I use Myspace, and I think it would be fairly easy to make a safe page.I have done some reading on this since I love building websites. If kids are under 16, the site automatically makes their profiles private, so only people who they know can “friend” them. My cousins’ kids are 17, 16, 15, 11, and 6 months. All of the teenagers have their own Myspace pages (the 11 year old and the baby don’t of course) and my cousins (the parents) have their own pages too, and its really nice cause they’re always emailing each other jokes and stuff on their Myspace account and the kids’ friends can “friend” the kids’ parents and it works out really well for them, actually makes them closer!
I know there is a way to set it where, to even email a person or request them as a friend, you have to already know their last name or their email address. This makes it so random people can’t just see their site, like it, and “friend” them.
You don’t have to use your real name, age, or address. It asks you for that information, but they have no way of verifying it, and a lot of people make fake pages for nonexistant people, like Kermit the Frog or something. I made one for a fictional character in one of my books, as a marketing device type thing.
If I were you, what I would do is make my own “myspace” page and require them to “friend” you, so that way you can easily monitor their page, see who their friends are and what their friends have on their pages, and see what they’re putting on their bulletins.
OK. Thats all for me!
August 26th, 2007 at 10:03 pm
For kids with foster care backgrounds — MySpace and Facebook can be dangerous sites, at least the kids we’ve had don’t have enough experience and judgement to determine what’s safe and what’s not, and they have lots of inappropriate boundary issues. We allow email to friends we know, and IM to those same friends. When rules are broken, computer/internet privileges are lost for a time. We’ve also had some abuse web access, so we closely monitor that. I just say “I care too much about you to let you . . . .”
Bug’s comment about the internet reminds me of a discussion with my daughter (now 25), and she was amazed, saying “You mean you could play a record on BOTH SIDES?!”
August 26th, 2007 at 10:11 pm
I have a MySpace account solely so that I can monitor my kids’ accounts. You do not have to use your real name. Even if they say you are supposed to, you don’t have to. I mean, if I say my name is Yondalla Nike are they going to look up my birth certificate?
I am one of the many people who claim to live in Antarctica. It is a way of hiding your loation. I believe I also said that I was something like 92 years old. My profile is set to private. There are really good privacy protections on MySpace, but most of the kids don’t use them.
I review my kids’ accounts to make sure they are good about privacy and that they are only “friends” with people they have met IRL.
It is like anything else on Internet, including blogs. You can be careful or not. Of course kids are not careful, so they need to be guided.
We don’t use the various child monitoring software because none of it seems to get along with our anti-spyware/virus/etc programs. We also keep the computer in a place where we can see over their shoulder.
August 26th, 2007 at 10:23 pm
Our kids have MySpace, and we monitor them like Yondalla does.
It has only ever been a problem for S, for obvious reasons.
August 26th, 2007 at 10:46 pm
Hey Bags. I just finished a super interesting article in the July/August Atlantic, about adolescent girls and online communities like MySpace. Safety issues, but also the social effects. I’ll email it to you because you have to be a subscriber. Not like you have time to read or anything, but I thought it was fascinating.
Also, can I borrow Bubba? He cracks me up.
August 27th, 2007 at 5:13 am
I’m so excited that I can give you actual practical advice!!
After discovering that my 13 year old son visited a site or two over my red lines I decided the time had come for a filter. I’m now using, and very satisfied with the K9 filter. Check it out at www.k9webprotection.com
For starters, it’s free. It’s also easy to set up. It offers a wide variety filtering levels and is easy for you to override but not for the kids, as long as they don’t find out the password.
My husband and I generally use a variety of passwords which are variations on a phrase the kids hear constantly. So for this I picked a name and password that neither the kids nor DH would ever be able to guess, but is easy for me to remember.
As an added bonus, since I put the filter on my son is spending a lot less time on my computer. That doesn’t mean everything he was looking at was forbidden, but the filter automatically blocks youtube etc where he was wasting a lot of time.
I admit to joining myspace and facebook to spy on my neices and nephews - and I certainly didn’t use my real name.
By the way, you can tell Bug that when I was her age we didn’t even have VCRs and microwaves and color tv was only for rich people.
August 27th, 2007 at 5:43 am
I tend to agree with Karen: the problem with teens and MySpace often falls into the “inappropriate boundary issues” area, foster care or not. I think you would have to be extremely vigilant in monitoring these accounts, so it would mean a lot of extra work for you.
I’m pretty sure that with opendns.org you can block certain sites entirely, for free.
I think you can easily set up a safe internet environment with filters, passwords, etc. It seems like the most important rule, though, is simply to be in the room (or nearby and aware) whenever the kids are on the computer. Knowing you can always walk by and see what they are doing will probably be the biggest deterrent.
August 27th, 2007 at 5:45 am
Just quickly, I know a fictional character who has her own Myspace! Very very cool. So I’m guessing you don’t need to use your real name, although the creator of the character may have used hers.
But I also know that pretty much EVERYONE else on Myspace has photos of themselves, their families, and their friends. Although you could stipulate no photos, the girls might feel a bit left out and/or not really realise the risk. If Bug allows some of her schoolfriends access to her Myspace, would they think it weird if there were no photos? And of course, people leaving comments might inadvertently use her real name.
I’m 34. My household got a VCR when I was 13, a computer at 15, a microwave at 18, a CD player when I was 21, internet access at 26, a mobile phone at the same age, and a DVD player at 30. But then I again, I am in the cultural and technological wasteland (apparently) that is Australia.
August 27th, 2007 at 6:46 am
One more thing about Myspace.. then I’m done with my personal rant. I became a member about a year ago to find one of my high school friends, I was only a member for about 2 days and I got no less than 5 offers for online sex. No Kidding. Everytime I logged on someone wanted to be my friend for sexual reasons. It grossed me out.. so I deleted my account and found other ways to find my friends. For a hormonally charged and sexually charged teen, that temptation might be too much to just refuse those people. Just a thought.
August 27th, 2007 at 7:09 am
Working in the middle school, a lot of kids have “myspace”, along with other pages. Our county put out a newsletter to parents last year after “threats” were being made. These threats were made on the students page to several other students and staff. The student was charged with intent to commit a crime. The student claims to have been mad and several girls who were trying to get a guy she liked. The staff was “gettin in her business”.
We have also seen sharing of classwork, test, ect. on myspace, not to mention a wide variety of photos that are sexual in content.
I beleive you have to be 14 to have your own account, however, we have students much younger and they just click they have parent permission. Its very easy!
Its a scary thing to expose your child to the outside world. I am shocked to see some of the things kids put on these pages. They list EVERYTHING about themselves, even the school they attend and most of them lie about their ages but aren’t smart enough to change from middle school to high school.
Unless its homework related and monitored, I would place internet time as a special reward and have it timed. You can never be too safe.
August 27th, 2007 at 9:11 am
My opinion is not going to be the popular one but…..
I personally don’t like the idea of a filter. They tend to filter too much, and Cody has trouble doing school when we have one. I would let the older girls have myspace, but keep and eye on it, and set them to private. Most kids don’t get in trouble with it, and generally keep it to only their real life friends. Cody has an account at imbee.com. It is like myspace for kids, and he LOVES it!! He has hooked up with other homeschool kids over it.
When I have foster kids, I make sure to always check the history after they have been online, and also our computer is in a central location so there is no privacy.
August 27th, 2007 at 10:04 am
Vista has awesome parental controls.
You can set up accounts for each kid, and set up time limits for use, not just how often they can use it, but during what hours. It blocks pages with a certain ratings, but also any other page you specify.
It also keeps a record of where your kid has been, which, unlike the computer’s history, can’t be cleared.
August 27th, 2007 at 10:22 am
These are our controls.
1. No Myspace for anyone. We used this example to explain to my daughter as to why not when she couldn’t understand and thought it unfair. She had all the excuses and reasons on how she would keep herself safe. No real names etc. We said listen myspace is like this. What if we put all your favorite playgrounds and pools in town right outside the prison gates. Oh they won’t see your face and know your real name. We’ll let you wear a hat but this is where you are going to play from now on. Do you feel comfortable - all the prisoners staring down at you. She said no. We explained to her myspace is just like doing that. She hasn’t asked since.
2. She has a yahoo account set to child. which is kind of a pain in the butt to me when we try to play games together but worth it.
3. The computer is in the living room.
4. Software installed on all the computers in the house that lets me view her desktop at anytime without her knowledge. I can go in and out without her permission. This is good when she has friends over and they use the computer together and think they can sneak one past when I’m upstairs in my room. I haven’t caught her doing anything wrong yet. Hoping to keep it that way.
5. I also look at our phone records via vonage to see who they call and the times. Mostly again when she has friends over.
August 27th, 2007 at 10:49 am
I only briefly read the other commens, but as I think was already stated, you absolutely do not have to use your real name on MySpace. I am the queen of internet anonymity (sp?) and not being found, so I should know. Type in my name into the MySpace search engine. Do you find me? No. Type in my email address. You still won’t find me because I created a separate email address just for MySpace which no one knows. I also never use my photo as a main profile photo.
In Account Settings, you can make your profile private for friends only. You can also set it so that someone needs to know your email address or last name (that being the fake last name or fake email address you used to register) to send you a friend request. You can only allow messages and invites from people you’ve already approved as friends.
I would say definitely let the kids have MySpace, because they will probably miss out on some significant social interaction with schoolmates if they don’t have it. Basically, I think MySpace is very safe IF and ONLY IF the security measures are used to full capacity. The problem is, a lot of kids don’t like such limitations, and if your girls wanted to, they could easily come up with a page you don’t know about. That’s why you need some sort of an internet monitoring system, which they DO know about, so that they’re aware all of their internet activity can and will be monitored.
Also, if Callie wants a pen pal, don’t be too afraid of letting her join message forums of people with similar interests. If she likes Justin Timberlake, let her join and participate on a justin message board. I think that’s an excellent way to make friends/pen pals. Danger is always lurking, but most likely that won’t happen in a situation where everyone there is soooooo Justin obsessed, and you can always monitor it anyway. There’s also the issue of her being a foster child and maybe it’s not the best idea to give out her name or location. At the same time, she could be making real friends that she would’t want to lie to, but I’m sure a happy medium could be reached. There’s nothing wrong with giving a nickname and saying she’s not allowed to say where she lives or what school she goes to. I am a huge advocate of meeting some of your best friends on the internet
so I say watch over the kiddos, but don’t deprive them of what’s out there.
August 27th, 2007 at 11:01 am
I am not sure how old your kids are, but my daughter is almost 12. For awhile she had unlimited access at our house, and limited access at her dad’s house. Both worked well because we would check on the computer a lot. Turns out she created a blog without telling us, and my husband found it. She has been “grounded” from the computer ever since. We bought her a computer for Christmas last year because of school. It now has passwords that only my husband and I know. She has to ask to log on. If she had asked about the blog before hand, I would have agreed to allow her to create one, but there would have been rules.
She does not have a myspace. She will not be allowed to have a myspace.
Check out this link: http://sahuarogsc.org/links/safetypledge.htm
this is from a Girl Scout Webpage, but it is originally taken from the Center for Missing and Exploited Children. A good start for discussion regarding internet safety.
August 27th, 2007 at 11:51 am
I didn’t have a chance to read the other comments but I have a MySpace and an EveryonesConnected site. I think MySpace is a little more adult and EveryonesConnected seems to be a bit more family/kid friendly but I don’t really know that much about either. Good luck!
August 27th, 2007 at 12:13 pm
If you find a decent filter, let me know, my Cateyes has full access right now, but I know that will be a problem as she gets a bit older. She is as handy on the computer as I am, and she isn’t 8 yet!! I monitor her sites ALOT, and she is grounded from the computer if she gives off any personal info, or register’s to something without my permission, but as she gets older, the rebelliousness and curiousity will definitely come into play. Sometimes I fear for our kids this instant access to predators and frighteningly sexual internet exposure, and I wonder if we are doing a serious disservice to their generation, though I also see the inability to keep them from it completely. I guess we’ll see…..
August 27th, 2007 at 12:41 pm
One more thing I want to say, is make sure they don’t click on any of those flashing banners that say you won free stuff. Cody got caught up in one of those, and we almost immediately started getting telemarketing calls for him.
August 27th, 2007 at 1:40 pm
baggage–
if you decide to monitor their computer from yours you may want to look into doing it from www.logmein.com. it’s a remote viewing site that people use to telecommute.
wen
August 27th, 2007 at 1:57 pm
Hey, I just wanted to let you know that I would love to be Callies penpal.
August 27th, 2007 at 2:55 pm
Ooh I have another comment! A cool site is FosterClub.com. It doesn’t have a profile section (except you get to make up your own cartoon picture thing) but it is a message board for kids in foster care to talk to each other. It is very carefully monitored and if kids do give their last names, email addresses, regular addresses, etc, the moderators blank it out. It is a nice place for kids to support each other and give each other advice. Plus the site is very big on teaching kids to advocate for themselves, teaching them their rights in foster care, teaching them that they’re going to have to make good choices so that they can “be something” when they get older. Pretty neat!
August 27th, 2007 at 2:56 pm
I would love to be Callie’s penpal. I will be starting 11th grade on Wednesday, I don’t know exactly what else you’d like to know, so please feel free to email me for any information if you’re interested.
August 27th, 2007 at 3:07 pm
Not sure about the internet things; I’m probably too old to be Callie’s penpal (I’m 22) but I’d be willing, lol. She sounds like a blast. Either way, I’m not sure about the net nanny thing, other than it sounds like a good idea; just from my own personal experiences with myspace, I’d try to lead them away from that, but of course, that’s totally your decision. Just my own advice; there’s a lot of creepy people out there that look for kids to send creepy messages to via myspace.
August 27th, 2007 at 7:00 pm
myspace is an easier place to be able to hide your name, identity, and location. facebook demands actual facts that would make the girls much more easy to locate. i am 18, i have a myspace that has completely false information on it so that no one can search and find me. for bug, i would get a child filter on privacy so she can’t contact strangers and, more importantly, so strangers don’t contact her. it happens on IM more frequently than you would think.
August 27th, 2007 at 7:00 pm
Just echoing some of the MySpace comments to say that you don’t need to use any real information (I don’t) and that the privacy options are good if they’re used. If you do allow it, teach them not to friend anyone they haven’t met- even if that person is friends with another friend of theirs. I’m all for teaching kids responsible internet use without always having to just deny it. How else will they figure it out?
August 27th, 2007 at 11:29 pm
Having worked with middle school kids recently (and being not-that-far from teenagerdom myself), I can honestly say that myspace is just not a good place for kids. Even as someone who rarely gets on myspace and has a total of 8 friends there, I still get spam messages, many of which redirect to webcam pages.
On the other hand, it’s a lot easier to put misleading/misdirecting info in regards to your location on myspace than on facebook.
I second all the advice that suggests some careful monitoring
August 28th, 2007 at 5:40 pm
I’m a little leery about MySpace/Facebook/whathaveyou with teenagers. This might sound a little weird, but what about a Live Journal account? The basic account is free, and it can be set to Friends Only, which is nice. IIRC, you don’t have to have your real name in your public profile at all. I’ve gone for a nice long time over there without revealing an actual physical location. Like the other ones, you must be 13 to start an account.
Oh, and for what it’s worth, we’ve got three computers in the house. Only one is hooked up to a modem, and it’s downstairs in the Gigantoroom. Of course, only one is functional for anything other than Myst…
August 29th, 2007 at 10:15 am
Through my work I’ve had to do some research on young people and internet safety and I would be VERY wary about MySpace etc. I probably would let the girls sign up BUT I would monitor it like crazy and very much limit the information they can put on the site. I would also ask the girls to agree to a set of internet requirements that you have drawn up and would be very clear about what will happen if they try to get around that aggreement in any way. If you’re looking for a good list of guidelines as a place to start, try http://www.girlguides.org.nz/girlfrenz/surf.asp
which are the ‘Savvy Surfin’guidelines of Girl Guides New Zealand - common sense, cool cartoons and pitched at 2 different age levels, with age appropriate information about the dangers of the internet.
Hope this helps.
Sky
April 23rd, 2008 at 12:40 pm
codes…
classic scorched earth…