Do you stalk your kids???

[PizzieDuster]

Not sure if my mom does or not. She has both twitter and facebook. She doesn't follow many people, so all my stuff comes up pretty easy. I will call her, and tell her something. Her reply "I saw that on twitter!"

Sometimes she stops by where I work to see if I am there. Usually when she can't get in touch with me, and needs something. I was on break once, and she stalked me from work down into Target to give me something. I've now just written down my schedule for her information.

Thank you for being patient with us moms

 

[Acklander]

Older DS is in his late 20s. He will occasionally post on FB family photos or projects from work (he's in construction).
DS14 has a FB acct. but he hasn't really used it in a few years. The only activity is when relatives post photos and tag him. I make him go on once a year to thank all the aunts and grandparents for wishing him a happy birthday. His main communication is texts and Skype. I don't check those as he's pretty responsible and has earned the right to some privacy. If we find out that there are problems we will revisit the issue.
Mainly he chats with the other computer geeks. They're trying to write a computer game together so here's lots of back and forth on that. I probably wouldn't understand what they were talking about if I did snoop.

 

[skatalite]

I read a study that says 87 percent of teenagers have an average of six social media accounts, and oftentimes those include duplicate accounts on the same service.

Which means: Decoy accounts.

 

[Acklander]

I read a study that says 87 percent of teenagers have an average of six social media accounts, and oftentimes those include duplicate accounts on the same service.

Which means: Decoy accounts.

Can't say I blame them any. When I was a teen I'd talk on the phone with my friends for hours and hours. If a parent was on the extension listening in, it would have been a 30 second phone call. It's not that we were doing anything wrong - but that we needed friend only time to talk about cute boys, and music, and clothes, and yes - to complain about our parents.
Kids aren't stupid. If parents are monitoring what they're doing the important conversation will happen else where.

 

[tvguy]

My adult sons moved onto something other than FB. Too many aunts, uncles, grandparents, ME, commenting.

I did find my 21 year old on twitter. I laughed so hard reading the tweets about me when he was home for Christmas. I'll leave out the hashtags.

"My mom sneezed. Was there an earthquake?"
"Someone tell my mom she's not on Iron Chef"
"Does my mom realize she talks to the dog all day long in an annoying voice?"
"My mom says MuSKULLS - instead of muscles"

Then, when I was very ill and in the hospital,
"Please pray for my mom." Aww. I was so shocked to see that. And the exchange that followed. He was so worried, I never knew.

My DS24 ~ I don't even want to know. He did give me a call when he fractured his collar bone while with friends at the beach, riding a long board and he hit a rock. He was going to post something on FB and he gave me the courteous call so I wouldn't find out on FB. Shsssh. Oh but "Mom, I tucked and rolled into the sand, yeah." Hahahahahaha.... so funny. NOT.

My adult boys do know not to post things on the internet that they don't want any employers to see.

I think Twitter and Facebook are like any other fad. They've gone main stream now, every police department fire department, restaurant, store, tv station has a page, and main stream stuff is what a lot of younger folks are trying to get away from.

 

[mom2rtk]

My 18 and 20 year olds don't do any social media.

My 13 year old has instagram where she posts photos of the cats, clothing items, various food items, and silly selfies. I've told her I have a right at any moment to check her accout, but so far have not felt the need.

 

[NFLDERS]

According to my (adult) children, Facebook and Twitter are for old people. They text, they rarely are on social media except to stalk ME.

 

[The Mystery Machine]

No, I do not.

However older family members stalk my 22yodd and then call me about her antics.

Youngest is 17 and frankly, I just do not care about the crap they post. It is the internet and full of it. She rarely posts on FB. Her thing is Tumblr.

Neither one of my girls are on Twitter but I am.

 

[monorailsilver]

Yep I do!

I check my 12 yos texts nightly to every few days. Just harmless pre teen stuff and I hope it stays that way. As well as her kik.

I check her Instagram as well. I log in as her on the iPad.

She used to have an ask so that I was on daily but she gave that up!

Now she has snapchat and I have no idea a to use it.

My 10 yo has an Instagram and kik but doesn't use it often. My 7 yo just text my sisters from the iPad.

My oldest knows that I am allowed to look at her phone whenever I want.

We also have the iPhone Finder on the phone and I am able to see if she is really at the football game in the hill watching or if she snuck in the woods!

 

[DawnM]

My teens don't do any social media of any kind. They just aren't interested.

I don't call that stalking at all though and I don't understand why she is angry with you and why you think it is an oops to have liked her status.

 

[DisneyFan32WI]

My teens don't have Facebook or anything else like that, but I do read their text messages 2-3 times a week.

 

[daughtersrus]

I got busted again. I was reading DD's Twitter and accidentally "favorited" a Tweet, which sent a notification to her. Oopsies! If only I knew what the heck I was doing! Anyway, she's mad, but my feeling is, if you're not set on "private", anyone can see, so what's wrong with ME seeing???

Am I the only one who does this?!

Back in the day when my girls were younger, Myspace was the big one. We had a long talk that posting there was the same as taking out a billboard on I294 right in front of O'Hare airport for everyone driving by to see. When I said that, it was like a light bulb went off.

They are adults now and requested to be my friend of Facebook.

 

[luvsJack]

I read a study that says 87 percent of teenagers have an average of six social media accounts, and oftentimes those include duplicate accounts on the same service.

Which means: Decoy accounts.

This is exactly why I chose to constantly teach dd about the dangers online and texting things that she wouldn't want shared with the world rather than constantly checking. Too many ways around it.

She has a boyfriend that she texts with constantly. Rather than read their texts, it was more important to me to talk to her about appropriate behavior. To remember that when they break up (and break ups are rarely good at that age), her texts are still there for him to show others. And its been that way since the first boyfriend. She is careful about that and if a boy has ever sent her anything remotely inappropriate, she usually tells me and asks me how to handle it or tells me how she did handle it.

The current bf has a mom that checks every text anyway. He's a good kid though and lets it roll off his back. He says "well, I have no intention of sending anything mom can't read. (dd's name) would kill me if I did anyway"

 

[ronandannette]

I don't do FB myself so the only way I can peek is if he's left his profile open on one of our household computers. I believe he's under the impression that we have a greater ability to monitor him than we actually do which is fine with us; sort of a "this call may be monitored for quality control" type of effect. We've seldom seen anything we felt warranted intervention but over the years it has happened on one or two occasions.

We also have the Find My Phone app installed on all our apple devices. There have been a couple of times we've become concerned enough about his whereabouts to "ping" his phone (although not near as many times as we use it to find where DH has absent mindedly left our iPad ).

 

[mamacatnv]

I read a study that says 87 percent of teenagers have an average of six social media accounts, and oftentimes those include duplicate accounts on the same service.

Which means: Decoy accounts.

Personally as a parent, I think I'd be a fool to think that my kids would tell me everything and allow me access to everything just because I insisted upon it which I don't. I have never had their passwords, I don't see the point nor do I think it is really effective, I think it promotes sneaking.

Can't say I blame them any. When I was a teen I'd talk on the phone with my friends for hours and hours. If a parent was on the extension listening in, it would have been a 30 second phone call. It's not that we were doing anything wrong - but that we needed friend only time to talk about cute boys, and music, and clothes, and yes - to complain about our parents.
Kids aren't stupid. If parents are monitoring what they're doing the important conversation will happen else where.

Teens need privacy too, they need their own outlet and the ability to vent. In this day and age, that is done via social media. Unlike when I was a teen and my father was threatening to have the house phone surgically implanted in my ear our kids use social media. I'm okay with that, we discuss online safety but I don't monitor it or feel the need to log onto their account to make sure I'm included. My kids are way smarter than I am when it comes to technology, no way am I naïve enough to think I could have the upper hand.

This is exactly why I chose to constantly teach dd about the dangers online and texting things that she wouldn't want shared with the world rather than constantly checking. Too many ways around it.

She has a boyfriend that she texts with constantly. Rather than read their texts, it was more important to me to talk to her about appropriate behavior. To remember that when they break up (and break ups are rarely good at that age), her texts are still there for him to show others. And its been that way since the first boyfriend. She is careful about that and if a boy has ever sent her anything remotely inappropriate, she usually tells me and asks me how to handle it or tells me how she did handle it.

The current bf has a mom that checks every text anyway. He's a good kid though and lets it roll off his back. He says "well, I have no intention of sending anything mom can't read. (dd's name) would kill me if I did anyway"

I'm with you, good communication is far better than sneaking around or trying to spy on my teen

 

[mickeyboat]

I do. It is a condition of them having the accounts and having a smart phone. They don't like it, but I continually remind them that they should not ever post something they would not want me (or their grandmother) to see.

I am certain they have aliases on some sites. I know they do a lot of texting, FaceTiming and SnapChatting that I do not have access to. I can't control every word that comes out of their mouths or every thing they see, but I want them to understand that what they put out there is not private and never goes away!

 

[mamacatnv]

My teens don't have Facebook or anything else like that, but I do read their text messages 2-3 times a week.

I don't think I have ever intentionally read one of the kids texts, I truly don't see the point. If its something they don't want to share they will delete plus I think its way to easy to take them out of context, overreact etc.

 

[Axel]

I had a MySpace when I was in middle school and got a Facebook a few years later in high school. My mom became my friend after joining at the insistence of many of my other friends! She adopted a lot of the kids I hung around with, to the point where some of them started calling her Mom. She got a Twitter for a while when I started using it, but gave it up pretty quick. I have a Tumblr, but she never knew nor cared about it because I got it in college after I was 18 so she figured it was my responsibility. I use Snapchat, too, but that came after her time.

My dad was pretty much forced into getting a Facebook because that's how most of our family communicates party dates and stuff like that. He enjoys it now because he's living alone in the woods two hours from the nearest relative, but with Facebook he can watch sports or shows "with" the family.

Neither ever felt the need to check my text messages.

My parents never felt the need to have my login information or even my account names so they could create their own and follow me. I had complete unsupervised access to the internet and never once had a discussion with either parent about "internet safety". I just had common sense! (I didn't have a boyfriend asking for inappropriate photos or friends who wanted to go out and party, either, so that may have helped...)

 

[Arielle22]

When my girls were young teens, DH would have their user IDs and passwords. He is an IT Admin so it was easier for him to handle that.

They are 18 and 20 now. I am had the talks about things on the Internet being forever. I am a HR Mgr and I have explained how things posted can haunt a candidate and can lead to termination of employment (people are stupid enough to call in sick then post on Facebook about how drunk they still are)

My DDs and my nieces have pretty calm lives. Our entire family (save 1 brother who refuses to use Facebook) communicate on Facebook. A couple of nieces post pictures of their new tattoos but otherwise no drama.

I do have 1 adult nephew who is friends on Facebook with DH but not me or my girls. His reason is that his friends (and I am sure him) will post things he doesn't want us to see. I understand and have no problem with that.

I don't use Twitter but DD18 logged into her account while on my IPad. She posts on that occasionally but it is things like movie quotes and how much she loves her friends.

 

[SLK1]

My adult children? No. My Mom does and I wish she'd knock it off because she's always calling me to tattle on them with their supposed misbehavior that she finds on Facebook.

Cripes Mom he's almost 24 years old. I'm not going to ground him because you saw a Facebook picture of him holding a beer.

My mom does this too!! She would not only rat out my kids and nieces, but she'd then start talking about the other kids who might be using foul language! Mom, I can't totally police what my own kids do, let alone what other kids are saying! That was back in the day when Facebook was all the rage. Now it's for "old people" (aka, my age).

DD's Twitter wasn't set on private, she just didn't want me reading it. Well, I was bored, it's out there, and quite frankly, she's very witty and I enjoyed seeing her sense of humor sometimes. She's also 18, so no big deal. It's not like I was going to reprimand her or anything.

Sometimes I think all this crap is nature's way of being ready to send them off to college. Get us good and mad at each other and...off you go!