Is Facebook okay for 12 year old?

My about-to-be 12 year old (6th grader) wants to join Facebook to communicate with friends. We generally have tried to ''go slow'' with respect to computer stuff with our kids and we aren't that savvy about sites like Facebook. He says other kids at school/in his class use Facebook but I wanted to get an independent read on when other parents are letting their kids get on Facebook and whether parents of 12 year olds have had an okay or bad experience with it. I don't want to be overly restrictive but I don't want to be leading the pack either. Thanks for your advice! unsure mom

12 is a little young. My son was 13 and in 8th grade when he got his account (earlier this school year). You might want to hold out until next year, or maybe over the summer.

First, the basics: your computer should be in a public place (whether your child is on FB or not). This will allow you to monitor how much time is spent on Facebook and what he/she is doing. Also, help him/her set up the account. Make sure the settings are such that only people he/she ''friends'' can see his/her page. (Some people have their page set such that ANYONE of FB's millions of users can see their info!!) No posting of phone numbers or too much personal info, etc.

Second, get your own Facebook account and insist your child ''friend'' you. Best way to monitor what's going down. The upside of this is that I have reconnected with many relatives and old friends. i do not lurk or comment on my son's activities all too much (I want him to think I'm not looking, in fact), but i do check in from time to time to see what his friends are saying and posting. I also do not hold him responsible for what other kids post, especially if it really has nothing to do with him.

Third, realize that your child will potentially end up friending hundreds of kids, many of whom he/she is not really friends with. I am surprised at some of the kids my son talks about not liking but has on his friends list. So, it is just a cultural thing that all the kids at school friend each other.

Fourth, kids will be partying and doing stupid, dangerous, ill advised things whether Facebook ever existed or not. You need to have your finger on the pulse of your child's school community and on his/her social network regardless of his/her online activities. Facebook doesn't make kids party, but for some reason they feel the need to advertise their indiscretions. Honestly, I'm glad some of them do because it is a good jumping off point for solid, honest discussions with my son.

Lastly (I think), exercise your power as a parent. Should you allow a FB account, monitor your child's activity. If he/she breaks the rules (too much time on FB, inappropriate posts, etc.), then password protect the computer and only let him/her on when you allow it. Also, you can ''unfriend'' someone without them knowing it, so make sure your kid doesn't do that.

I have to say I am loving Facebook. My son and I have reconnected with many nieces, nephews (my sons cousins) and other relatives. It has been a lot of fun having discussions and jokes between all of us even though we are spread out around the country (and abroad, in fact). So, Facebook can be a great thing. Again, just exercise caution and shut it down if it gets out of hand. FB Mom

Safe email for 11-year-old?

My 11 year old is wanting an email account and I'm wondering if any providers are safer than others in filtering out spam and phishing emails.

Shocked by my daughters' friends' Facebook pages

My 13yr old daughter and lots of her friends are on facebook. She is my 'friend' so I can see not only her profile, but any of her friend's photos that she comments on. In fact, I can see their whole album if she just comments on one photo. We've been talking about how none of it is private, even if they think only their 'friends' can see it. I am shocked at what I'm seeing on some of her friend's sites. Super provocative photos, really racy comments from boys & girls (some they barely know), photos of im's they are having and thinking are private and in the moment, etc. I think these girls would be horrified that adults see it. I think they are in real danger of ruining their reputation (at best) and much worse. I wonder if their parents are checking. What's your strategy for supporting teens as they mature, yet also helping to safeguard them as they make this passage? Do I limit my daughter's exposure to certain friends now that I see what they're up to? I'll certainly create other plans before letting her join one of the sleep overs where a lot of this happens. I don't know many of the parents since its middle school, and I wondering whether this is an issue for our school. Thanks. mom

We had a very bad period of about 2 years before she decided to go in another direction.However we ran a constant war with her. We took away access to the computer; wrote to MySpace and got them to remove her accounts and just fought it every way we could. It was a continual problem.

BTW, she went to a well-known and respected private school and I would say that there were any number of boys and girls doing the same.

I did contact parents of two boys who sent awful emails. One parent's reaction was ''my son couldn't have done this'' and the other said to please send her the emails. I sent them to both families.

I don't think you can stop them from keeping their friends, but you should notify parents if you find scary things on their kids' Facebooks/MySpaces. The best language I found was ''I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but I thought you would like to know that I saw.....on their MySpace''. You can explain that you were monitoring yours, and found theirs. They may or may not be happy about it, but they should want to know.

Good luck. Anonymous

With both FB and MS, one of the conditions of my 13-year-old using the sites was that he had to ''friend'' me. I also ''friended'' his close pals -- kids he grew up with who are practically part of our family, and who wouldn't think it was weird that I was asking to friend them. These are mostly nice kids from mostly intact, educated, middle- and upper-middle-class families, but I've been floored by what I've seen them say and do online: 7th grade girls posing in bras and bikinis offering oral sex or boasting of their sexual prowess, cyber-bullying and slander, kids posting school essays for others to copy, talking about getting high, saying they want to stab a teacher ''in the vagina,'' and on and on. Across the board, these kids don't get or don't care that most of what they're doing on these sites is not terribly private -- e.g., that anyone who's a ''friend'' (which can include hundreds of virtual strangers) or even a friend of a friend can see all of their ''wall'' posts, photos, photo comments, etc.

I've tried to talk to other parents about it, particularly ones whose kids are posting the most shocking stuff, but many are willfully ignorant about it. I hear a lot of ''I barely know how to get online, much less use FB.'' Please, for your child's sake, figure it out. Make a FB account, friend your kid, and regularly check in on what he or she is doing there. (Also make sure your teen doesn't have a ''secret'' account that they really use, while keeping their ''official'' one clean. I know several of my son's classmates do this. Look over your kid's friends' lists of FB friends to make sure your child doesn't show up there twice, with one ''nice'' account and one ''naughty.'') My own son knows I check his FB page several times a week, so he thinks twice about what he posts there.

Is this an invasion of privacy? Possibly, but I don't care. These kids need some parental oversight, especially when they're using what is essentially a public forum. Facebook Savvy Mom

I think we all need to check our kids sites and tell our husbands/partners to do the same = after all you are parenting... and isn't this parenting?

If I find anything racy my child as posted then she knows the consequences = If I find anything a friend's child has done, I am going to call that family too mention they should look at their child's site to make their own judgement.

Good luck and don't hesitate to say something if it goes against your family rules and frankly for that matter your values or morals...speak up parents...your kids will respect you for it. Parent who speaks up

Facebook - is it safe?

My daughter recently opened an account on facebook.com. How safe is this? What's the difference between this and my space? Are weird people and sexual nut cases able to stalk young teens on this?

As you've probably guessed, I'm nervous about having her on this, expecially because her photo is on it. She of course has reassured me that it's absolutely safe and not to worry.

Any input greatly appreciated.

You set up your facebook page so that only your ''friends'' (the people you have specified) can see it. Others would be able to tell you have a facebook page from your name or email address, but the most they can do is send you a message that they want to ''friend'' you. In the last 6 months I have gotten one or two such messages from people I didn't know, which I just ignored. But I've gotten lots of friend requests from old pals from elementary school, distant relatives I lost touch with, etc. It's great!

This summer we went to a big family reunion back in Kentucky and afterwards all the cousins with facebook pages (basically everybody under 30) uploaded photos from the event to their facebook pages so everybody got to see them. It's brilliant. You can ''tag'' photos with names, so people in the photos will get a message about the photo. And you can post little comments about the photos, which the younger set do and everyone gets to read. No more emailing all the cousins a big batch of digital photos that clogs everybody's mailboxes. My older relatives who have facebook are there because they want to see the photos.

Another fun thing on facebook is becoming a ''fan'' of something. For example, you can be a fan of Peets or the Cheese Board, both of which have facebook pages. You can be a fan of Obama, or NPR, or the de Young museum, which will then send you notifications about upcoming events. There are all kinds of crazy things to do on facebook, mostly designed for the vast legions of those much younger than we are, but still, we oldies have a growing presence!

I also have a myspace page. Myspace is not as much fun as facebook and it also has more ads. When I first went on myspace I got a lot of spam, but this seems to have diminished now. However, myspace is where all the musicians have their main pages, and the place to go to legally download a song a band has made available. So this could be why people have both facebook and myspace. I recently googled an obscure band and found the only way I could get info about them was by logging in to my myspace page.

There are many other social networking sites as well, but some of them are pretty bad, so I would recommend sticking with facebook. An old (55-y-o) pal who lives in Japan friended me on one of the more obscure ones called ''hi5'' and as soon as I signed up, I started getting emails from people I didn't know. It was quite hard to delete my page from that one too, which I wanted to do immediately. Facebook is not like that -- they make it very easy to have as much privacy as you want.

So, in summary, I suggest that you go to facebook.com right now and make a page for yourself. Then, find a flattering photo of yourself to upload to your page. You can look for names and emails of people you know who you think might be on facebook, or, you can give facebook all the names in your address book and they will tell you which of your friends have facebook pages already. Don't worry - facebook will not send them mail or notify them in any way unless you click a box that says you want to do that and then confirm!

Now the question is: Does your child want to be ''friends'' with you? One of my sons was happy to be my friend, and even some of his friends did too. The young ones have hundreds of facebook friends, so apparently they are even willing to friend a friend's mom. But my other son said No. He said there needs to be a boundary between Mom and Joe. OK, I can respect that. But he did friend my husband and all of my sisters so I can keep up with him that way!

I'd be happy to answer any questions about facebook - as you can see, I am a fan! G.

My suggestion is to set up your own facebook account to get an idea about how it works - then you can advise her, and join the fun as well! You could also stipulate that she be 'friends' with you - then you can monitor what type of content she posts.

Most importantly, review the privacy settings - you control who can see your profile, photos, etc. You need to manually change these settings to allow only friends, who you have added or approved, to see your information. The only thing non-friends can see is your profile photo (and I think you can even set that to private) and whatever networks you belong to. If you're concerned, you could have her not join her school's network, or adjust the setting so that it can't be viewed.

It's really a great tool for communicating - as long as users use common sense (which we know some teenagers are lacking sometimes . . . ) The rule is that if they don't want a future employer to know something, don't post it. I have heard that these days employee background checks include digging up stuff on facebook and myspace.

I started using facebook, and was amazed by how many friends and family in my generation are on it! I've gotten in touch with old friends, and a lot of people at my company use it. It's mostly kind of silly, but the 'profile status' updates are great. You can send private messages - I've found it to be a nice alternative to email and my overcrowded inbox. There a tons of mini applications that can be fun as well.

My oldest is heading off to UCLA, and is already getting to know her future roommates through facebook (they immediately found each other - it has pretty much replaced email for friend communication - which my kids consider 'old school'!)

By the time we get the hang of this, I'm sure they'll be on to something new! facebook mom

Internet Safety for 14 Year Old Daughter

Hi - I'd really appreciate advice on the following issue, which is how to protect my daughter from potential sexual predators while she surfs the net and goes on sites like Skype. Last evening, after a really boring Sunday at home all alone (by choice, after rejecting the few ideas we had of things to do), our daughter was spending time on Skype, as she often does. Until now, her conversations have been limited entirely to her best girlfriends, who are also in 8th grade. We have two computers networked together, in my office (she does not have a computer in her room) and I came into the office and began to check my email and noticed (thanks to an icon on my toolbar) that she was on Skype chatting with someone whose name I didn't recognize. Asking her about it, she said, oh it's just some nice person (she assumed a female) who shared her interest in movies. They were comparing notes about favorite films and in the course of so doing, my daughter revealed that she's 14 and lives in California, and the other person shared that ''she'' was 27, living in Thailand, doing ''volunteer work.'' She asked my daughter if she had a camera (!!!) and then my daughter asked me if we had a Webcam in our new computer. I quickly insisted that she stop the conversation and she resisted that and continued chatting for another 15 minutes or so, until I really forced her to leave the computer and get to bed (by now, almost 10:30 pm on a school night). I then blocked the name of this unknown person from her Skype messages but am new to Skype and am not sure whether or not it worked. I'll check later today. Our kid has always and only been around trustworthy adults and is trusting, naive and vulnerable. She's also a stubborn, increasingly independent teenager who doesn't want to be given rules or have her freedoms curtailed. The red flags were, to me, immediately obvious. So I'd really like some guidance navigating these new waters. I don't really know how to set parental controls in all of the places she might visit; I don't know how to impress upon her the cunning of all of the nuts worldwide who are surfing for young vulnerable teenage girls (or boys for that matter) online. I've been looking for some clear guidelines online and have checked the Digest archives for a past discussion on this, but neither has offered the concrete help I'm hoping to find. Your insights into how to protect our daughter while still allowing her a lot of freedom on the internet would be invaluable. Many thanks.

We established only simple, basic guidelines - no addresses, no phone numbers, no meetings. And for a long time we had an old New Yorker cartoon taped by the computer -- a big old Labrador at a desk with a computer, labeled: On the internet, no one knows you are a dog. If you don't know someone, for all you know they are a dog. All you have are words on a screen or pictures anyone can post.

But you will not always be on hand to monitor your child's actions, and there is no system that is fool-proof. Even if there were, there is always access to other people's computers to worry about. The conversation you reported does not necessarily mean she was dealing with a predator. It could have been an actual 27 year-old lady who doesn't have a good sense of how sensitive it is to deal with teenagers.

What you want is for your daughter to be clear on when a conversation should start the alarm bells ringing. She doesn't need for you to block this lady. All she learns from that is that you are ''mean.'' What she needs is an internal ''three strikes'' guideline for dealing with strangers. The question about a camera is strike one.

An important point to remember: the kids who get into the kind of desperate, scary trouble that makes headlines don't have someone reach into the computer screen and grab them. Instead they agree to pose for pictures they shouldn't, or to go meet strangers, and the like. If your kid is clear on issues like these, the computer isn't going to take her anywhere dangerous. also a mom

I only have one thing to say about your limit settings - teens need them - this is one example of where parents need to be VERY clear and simply do what's right - take her off the site ALTOGETHER - you would do the same thing if she was being propositioned in a public place - in other words, if she was been harrassed in the park - wouldn't you go pick her up and put her in the car and drive away? Hope you tighten the reins a little - although the experience will have taught you both a lesson about how easy this happens. Maddie

Daughter posted on Craigslist erotic service

Hi, Please help! My daughter posted herself on Craigslist for erotic services. We saw it accidentally on the computer while she was out of the house. We have not spoken about it to her and are at loss about what to do next. She is only 17 and has been a ''good girl'' and a good student. We do not have a lot of money, tru, but we have always had values. She has been saying lately how she wants to have an expensive car and designer clothes and move out soon. She works part time in a restaurant and now this! Any ideas are welcome. Thank you. Martha

Unfortunately, this situation is something I'm seeing more and more of in my private practice: young girls who have decided that its ''not a big deal'' to trade sexual activity/performance for money, clothes or some kind of remuneration. This is connected to what many are beginning to understand as the rise ''raunch culture,'' where performative sexuality (sex like the porn stars seem to have) has become the ideal against which sexual ''openness,'' and ''sexiness'' itself is being measured.

It is also, more unfortunately, connected to the intense status anxiety that high school students feel. It's not unusual--especially when teens have such frequent and intense exposure to the material ''goodies'' of celebrity culture--for teen girls to think that trading sexual services for material goods is just another way to get them the status symbols they desire.

There are some very complicated issues involved here. The persons or people your daughter may come into contact with may be committing a crime by being involved with her. It is against the law in California (where the age of consent is 18) to engage in “sexual activity” with a person under the age of 18. In some cases, the activities or behaviors your daughter chooses may also constitute child abuse or exploitation.

There may be underlying mental health issues that are driving your daughter's choices to engage in this kind of activity, including depression, anxiety or past negative sexual experiences (willing or unwilling). Being a ''good'' girl and good student doesn't mean that she isn't facing some difficult problems. It would be hard for me to imagine that a 17-year-old would take the chances of posting a listing for erotic services on Craigslist and having that represent a healthy, fully consensual choice.

If you confront your daughter, she is likely to initially either feel very embarassed/ashamed or defensive about having her privacy violated. Please remember that you'll likely need to have many ongoing conversations with her about this situation. If you can talk to friends and family about this, please do so, especially if it helps you listen to her and stay calm, amidst a pretty upsetting situation. I would also suggest you be willing and ready to support her entry into counseling to talk about her choices and risky sexual behavior. My sense is that this is not normal sexual exploration. It's a complex response to a number of factors, including important social issues around status anxiety, that might benefit from the intervention of a therapist.

To understand more fully some of these issues, please consider reading Ariel Levy's ''Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture''. You'll also find more resources on my website at www.practicalhelpforparents.com.

Michael Y. Simon, MFT

Cyber safety for 'tweens

As my kids get more savvy using the internet I am curious about how other parents are keeping their kids safe. Do you monitor your kids computer usage? Do you control their internet access? if so, how? Do you allow your kids to shop online at places like iTunes? Also, can you recommend a cyber safety seminar that can help me better understand the issues and how to address them? Thanks
technically clueless mom

2) We had a talk with our kids about internet safety; we want them to be partners in intelligent use. They understand why they should:

  a)  never use their email address to sign up for anything, including
petitions, website sign-ins, etc.
  b)  never open up email attachments
  c)  never respond to email from someone they don't know
  d)  never go to a chat room
  e)  never forward chain letter emails or other internet garbage from
friends.  (They know how to check about.urbanlegends.com & snopes.com
for the multiple internet hoaxes and they have become adept at debunking
the junk their friends send them)

3) If they want iTunes or other internet purchases, they ask me and I sign in with my account and deduct it from their allowance.

We tried a software filter/timer. My 10 year old then put together a hilarious PowerPoint presentation entitled ''why we should remove Content Barrier X from the computer'' which was very persuasive. The program prevented access to innocuous sites, blocked friends' emails and failed to correctly time usage.

Rather than being the ''internet police'', I am focusing on partnering with the kids in becoming savvy about internet use and abuse. This includes thinking about the choices their friends make in terms of websites and emails. They've let me know about a 10 year old who was corresponding with a stranger, an 11 year old visiting porn sites, a 13 year old forwarding malicious gossip, etc.

At the same time, I can't always rely on their good sense - I ''trust, but verify''. I occasionally check the ''history'' on the browser to see that they're not on inappropriate websites, and check their email inboxes (and trash) just to be sure they're not getting/sending to/from strangers.

I've talked to my 16 year old niece and gotten some good advice from her as well. So far my kids are not asking to do a MySpace account, but the 13 year old does have friends who have one. You might check out previous BPN postings about this issue and internet safety in general. http://parents.berkeley.edu/advice/teens/computer.html Natasha B.

Provocative teen pages on mySpace

Hello parents, I don't know how many of you are aware of the current teen ''hot'' activity that is www.myspace.com. My freshman daughter recently shared her page (wiht blog, photos, links, etc) with me, and it was cute enough, but it contained links to dozens of her friends' pages, many of which were deeply concerning. Girls whose pages included photos of them in their bras. Girls photos' with condoms in their mouths. Lots of very provocative language. Their full names and some of them even had phone numbers. They seem to have no clue (or maybe they do, and don't care) how very public these sites are. They say they want to meet ''hot boys.'' I think this is dangerous.

I am posting this here because I think all parents should be aware of this, and might want to know what their own kid is posting. You can just go to the main page (www.myspace.com) and do a ''search'' for your kid's school. Most likely you will find kids you know, and if your kid is friends with any of them, there will be a link to your kid's site.

Better to be aware, I think.
Concerned

I've found that she only corresponds with people she knows, and that her friends are pretty sweet with one another, that they are mostly concerned with their friendships, annoying parents, music, day-to-day worries, changing emotions and ambitions. I've read nothing about partying, drugs, alcohol, and/or sex. (Or if they indulge in these activities, no one's bragging about it online!) One girl does have problems with grades and cutting class, and I've quietly encouraged my daughter to have her over more, do homework with her, etc.

Anyway, it was a relief to see what my girl's circle is up to, and I also think these blogs can be a very good place for kids to vent and to feel part of a community. My concern is for those who post their e-mail addresses and get into long ''conversations'' with people they don't know.

An excellent source of information and advice about this topic and other related matters is Carolyn Jabs's website www.growinguponline.com.
Anonymous

Background: she is what I and other parents have called a ''good'' kid. She gets good grades in School mostly A's and, an occasional B. Doesn't mouth off, treats people with respect and, gets ''pleasure to have in class'' on her report card. My gut tells me she's good but, has apparantly made some BAD choices.

I logged on and, searched for her on MYSPACE and, her friends. What I found I didn't like. It seems for my daughter's group there is a kind of competition amongst peers of who can be ''cool'' and have a ''cool'' myspace. I read things that were a bit disturbing to me.

Friends of hers posting about teasing boys etc. My daughters blogs were fairly benign with the standard ''I'm bored...school is boring'' but, a few posts were a bit of a diary of what she and her friends were up to...I found out in April she and some of her friends snuck out of a house they were spending the night at, they drank and 1 of the girls got drunk (and sick...) and, went skinny dipping in King Pool. Stupid, stupid, stupid!!!

She has told me she has tried weed 2 times (once on 4/20 and earlier at a friends house and, given the excuse that at BHS it seems most everybody has tried it or smokes it sometimes. I asked her about some of her 4.0 friends? And, shocked to hear that they have tried it too.

This is crazy!

Sex? Well she hasn't YET, but some of her friends have and, since am shocked that it seems that in her circle it is too commonplace. She says she isn't ready and, that she promises that she'll wait until college. But, she also promised not to lie and, tell the truth.

I was unpleasantly surprised to find out what my seemingly good kid had been up to. Needless to say, this has engendered a lot of serious discussions, with the appropriate consequences and, appropriate levels of contrition of my daughter's part.

But, it is still shocking to me...these kids have been over to my house. They are repectful and, nice and, seem like good kids, but they are making BAD and STUPID choices. I hope I caught this early enough to nip this in the bud. I will yank her out of BHS if this situation does not get remedied to my liking. What my worry is that sex and weed/drinking are acceptable in many circles at BHS and seem ''normal''.

I would encourage other parents to find out what is possibly going on with their kids by reading what they and their friends are writing in their blogs...

I'm glad I followed the suggestion of an earlier poster.

anonymous

Certainly as a parent I worry and try to talk my children out of things I think will turn out badly for them, but I have tried to allow them freedom to make their own choices (though I'm glad they never had a chance to go skinny-dipping in an old quarry at night the way my friends and I did!). Your daughter sounds like a good kid who loves you very much, very normal and not engaging in any very risky behavior. I hope you are not going to put barriers between her and her friends, because in the long run I would expect this to just create barriers between you and her.

Getting education about how the teens use the Internet, so that we can talk to them intelligently about their use, is the first line of response. Two of the best sources of information include: 1) Kids and Media at the New Millennium: A Comprehensive National Analysis of Children’s Media Use (The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, Menlo Park, California, 1999) and subsequent publications of the Kaiser Foundation, found at http://www.kff.org/entmedia/internet.cfm and; 2)Youth, Pornography and the Internet (National Academies, Washington, D.C., 2002). Two good internet sites include: 1) www.wiredsafety.org and 2) www.wiredkids.org.

I travel around California doing talks on ''Understanding the Online World: Chatting/Blogging, Gaming and Pornography'' and have been hearing the same thing for the last two years. ''Sure, my teen uses the internet, but she would never do something like give out a picture of herself showing her body.'' ''My son always plays games online, but he isn't looking at pornography. No way.'' ''She is really honest with me and even lets me see her online journal. She goes to an excellent school--I know it's a problem at other places, but not at our school.''

Inevitably, someone calls me after one of these talks and says that they were shocked to find out something...after checking the Internet Explorer history or their son or daughter's online weblog. This is an extensive topic, but I wanted to at least post a few tips:

14 and older
--Involve teens in developing Acceptable Use Policies
(AUPs) at home; encourage self-monitoring but be willing
to step in if certain conditions are met (establish
these "intervention points" also with your teen
--Set very clear rules for online use and clear
consequences if they are broken;
--Involve teens in limit-setting or use software/hardware
like Eyetimer;
--Promote positive use: Ask your teen for help researching
topics of interest for the family (buying a new car,
researching a vacation, etc.);
--Talk about games, news stories, movies and television
portrayals of online life; ask your teens their opinions;
don't preach;
--Make sure that you're helping to promote well-rounded
activities that don't include internet use; teens don't
actually want to be on the internet as much as they often
are.  They will frequently say that they feel ''trapped''
and don't know what else to do.;
--If your teen is particularly interested in computers,
encourage them to use computers with others, teach others
computer skills (programming, web design, basic computer
use), develop their mentoring skills with younger children
and peers;
--If you're having wars/major problems, take the internet-
connected computer out of the bedroom—access to the
internet from a teen's private space encourages isolation
and higher amounts of usage; better yet, don't put it
there to begin with;
--Remember that unless you know and have already met the
person you teen is chatting with, everything about that
person may be fictitious (name, age, gender, history,
motives, etc.;
--Exchange of photographs or moving images of a sexual
nature involving minors may be considered sexual
exploitation under the California Penal Code and
reportable as sexual abuse.  This may involve civil and
criminal penalties.  It is not unusual for teens to share
provocative pictures or to be sexual with each other using
webcams.  This can be damaging or dangerous if the teen is
doing this, especially with an adult stranger;
--Chatting and online messaging is often used to "flame"
or harass teens (and younger kids) online.  Some services
like AOL have "warning" systems but people simply switch
screen names and keep up the taunting or harassment.
Don't be afraid to ask questions about who your teen is
talking to and about what.  Tell them that you don't
intend to pry or invade their privacy without cause but
you just want them to know that if they get into trouble
online, they can talk to you about it.

Many thanks, Michael Y. Simon, MFT

Limiting 12-year-old's access to email & chatrooms

My 12 1/2 year old, 7th grade daughter has suddenly become very interested in communicating with her friends via email. What rules, guidelines, limits, warnings, check-ups do you recommend to keep her safe?

They all have free email addresses through aol. Now they want to get Netscape Instant Messenger. What is available along with these that I need to know about? One mother told me that if you get your own email address, you are then able to get into internet sites limited to over-18. What is Chat Room Navigation? What else should I worry about?

It's terrific to have a place like this to come to ask this type of questions. Thanks in advance. Barbara

In my opinion, one of the biggest "dangers" of internet use by teens is that they can become addicted to online "chatting." Picture a teen's typical use of the telephone multiplied many times as several friends can be online at once, chatting back and forth. I would suggest setting time limits from the outset--e.g., no more than 30 minutes per day and only after all homework is completed. I have found my own child online aftter midnight, when I thought she was asleep, still chatting with several of her friends!
Irene

My kids are older than yours, so this may not apply to you, but I give my 2 boys (14 & 17) a lot of freedom about what they do on the web. For example, after a discussion on this list a few months ago, I told them that I'd heard from other parents that teenage boys look at pornography, it's pretty normal, and that I am not going to forbid it. I gave them my views - that I think it might give them the wrong idea about what real women are like, and that I think it's mostly pretty demeaning to women. I told them I do not want to ever want to come across it accidentally on the computer, just as I don't want to find Playboys lying around the house. But as long as they do it privately, I won't say anything about it. This has worked out really well, and they keep their own "Bookmarks" separate from mine. Incidentally every once in a while I secretly check on what they are doing by looking at their bookmarks and history. It's about 80% sports, games, and music, 20% porno sites (pretty much run-of-the-mill T&A type stuff).
Ginger