Tag: social networking

Why You Shouldn’t Friend Your Teen on Facebook

If you have a teenager, you’re probably well-versed in how important the Internet is to the social life of a high schooler. Most teenagers have Facebook accounts and spend many hours per week on the computer. It’s a trend that isn’t going away. You might even have a Facebook page of your own. But does that mean you have to be “friends” with your teenager? Some parents very closely monitor the computer usage of their teenagers and others don’t bother. Where do you fall on the spectrum? A teenager’s Facebook page is a very personal place, and if you’re friends with them, you’ll have access to it. As a parent, you may think it’s a good idea. It’s not. Some things should remain sacred, and your child’s Facebook page is one of them. Under no circumstances should you friend your teenager on Facebook. If you do, you’ll probably end up regretting it very quickly. Here are a few reasons why you shouldn’t go there.

Do You Really Want to Know What They’re Doing?

Teenagers use Facebook to post and comment on all types of teenage things. They’ll post pictures of the weekend parties, talk about relationships, say things they think are “cool,” and much more. Do you really want to be able to see all that? Being able to view your teen’s Facebook page may grant you too high a level of access into their personal life. Many things may not warrant parental intervention, but seeing them may make you uncomfortable.

Do You Really Want to Know What Their Friends are Doing?

Teens use Facebook to communicate with each other all the time. Not only will you have unnecessary access to the comments of your own teenager, you’ll also be viewing the wall posts, status comments and photos of their friends, too. If you’re not ready to see your teenager’s closest buddies in a new light, you shouldn’t be friends with your teen on Facebook.

You’ll Make Them Censor Themselves

If you’re friends with your teen on Facebook, you better believe they’ll censor their page for you. They’ll think twice about everything they post. They’ll first evaluate if it’s something they’re okay with you seeing or not. While it’s a good thing for them to be discerning with what they post, you don’t want to be the sole reason they have to censor themselves. Let your teen be a teen. They’ll be able to enjoy their social networking experience more if you’re not watching so closely.

You’ll Have to Censor Yourself

You’ll also have to make sure your page is appropriate for your teen to see, too. You won’t be able to post anything you don’t want them to see, like things they could make fun of or be upset by. But you have a personal life, too, and you don’t want to censor yourself, either. If you don’t friend your teen, you won’t have to worry about it. You can be yourself and enjoy Facebook without worrying about constantly playing the part of parent and role model.

Terry Ford wants to remind you that Facebook can be fun if you play carefully and always use a Grammar Checker.

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Who is Sending Emails to Your Youngster?

Who is Sending Emails to Your Youngster?

The World Wide Web is truly fascinating nowadays. Using the internet your youngster can look for information for any school project, homework or research paper. It’s a new world of knowledge opened up for the children, something which has no parallel. Certainly this is also a preferred manner for your youngster to remain in contact with his pals and find new friendship. With communal networking websites such as Zubby, MySpace and Friendster, your youngster can remain in contact with all his pals and enjoy doing so.

Friendster
Friendster (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In effect, social networking websites are extremely fashionable with children. Emailing is yet another manner of remaining in contact with pals and relatives who live away. Nonetheless the varied advantages of the World Wide Web also come with a large number of hazards. Kids communicate with unknown persons. There are sometimes killers who are online and are on the look-out for kids to talk to. So even though your youngster may be under the impression that he/she is conversing with another boy like him from a different state, he may in fact be chatting with an elderly person living right near you home.

Thinking about these circumstances and ideas is very frightening, but this happens often. The more information you have, the easier it is to prioritize the well-being of your kid. In case your kid is receiving weird emails or is chatting online with a person whom you are not familiar with, it would be worthwhile to find out. You can speak to your kid and get details about when and how they started chatting. Killers very often are on the look-out for children with low self-confident and self-worth. This is one of the manners using which they ensnare the child; they try to win the child’s trust and then abuse that confidence.

Fortunately there are many recent sites, from where you can determine the person sending emails to your kid. All you need to do is input the email of the concerned person. You do not require their name, Social Security number or contact details. By entering their email you can get their name, address, telephone number and other records pertaining to the person’s background/character. These records are very useful since they have information about the arrest warrants at state and federal levels. They also have information about any misbehavior or charges that the concerned person may have been convicted for and if there are any sexual offences.

Being a parent is the toughest of all jobs, although the most excellent and gratifying one. Be active in the child’s life, especially with what he does on the internet and find out doubtful persons as soon as you can to avoid getting your child trapped with a really harmful person.

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