Teens and Myspace question

[ChristmasElf]

I recently found my 15 y/o DD myspace page. I came across it by accident after she used my lap top. At first I snooped and showed it to DH. We decided to say nothing and keep our eye on it. Well, something inapropriate showed up and we made it known that we disaproved. The topic that upset us was about drinking. Evidently she tried drinking at a sleepover. She took a fit and said we had no right to read her myspace. We explained our feeling about teenage drinking and she reassured us it was a one time thing. Do any other parents here have children with a myspace page and do you read it? She is an excellent student with straight A's in a private school. TIA

My kids found my neice on My Space with a pic of her that wasn't very, well you know appropriate. My sister had a fit when I asked her if she knew that her dd was on My Space. My DH and I had our kids delete their accounts as they were not 14 yet-just pretending to be. The oldest we let have the account remain although I'm not sure for how long as I really don't like that place.(we did have her remove any identifying info like school name, etc)
At one point, the schools were alerting parents as to what was going on there. I was surprised to see that there were 45 year old MEN posting on that site!!!

 

[beattyfamily]

How do you monitor his IM's? TIA

One quick and easy way is to just go into Options and then click on "Automatically keep a history of my conversations". Then it will save all conversation to where ever you want it to.

 

[dturner]

there is nothing good about myspace.com

I would NEVER EVER let my child put their picture and all their information on there - too many creeps in the world.

 

[belle_of_the_ball]

I agree with everything you said here.

Ironic how nobody cares about the teen's views.

isnt it though?

i hate it how at our school the teachers act like kids dont have opinions and cant change our world...anybody can!

 

[Marseeya]

Thanks for the link. If you install it, does the user of the computer know it is there? Does it have a logo that shows in the corner or something?

There's a little icon in the start menu, but I renamed it to "draw" because it has an icon of a pencil. DS doesn't check stuff like that out. Other than that, you can choose for it to run in the background and it won't even show up in the windows task manager. You can probably get rid of it out of the start menu too, I just haven't done that.

 

[AMcaptured]

I am actually a bit happy my daughter and her friends are on myspace because I am able to find out what is really going on. Teens tend to clamp up a bit as they get closer to 18 and without it, I don't think I would be as up on things as I am now. My daughter isn't wise to my snooping only because I think I find out more by her not knowing I am watching her, when and IF I ever come across something I don't approve of there will be hell to pay but that hasn't occured yet. Thankfully!!!

 

[goofy!]

.....

 

[summerrluvv]

I would never let my kids on myspace. I used to be on there and I got tons of nasty/dirty messages and friend requests from odd people. One guy sent me a message and his picture next to it just happened to be a naked one of him. I have no doubt that there are tons of pedophiles on myspace lurking at all the provocative pictures of teenage girls.

 

[DisneyAddict_M]

I have an account on myspace (I'm almost 27), but it seems to be huge for the teen group. That said, I would never let my child have a public myspace account. I get some really odd messages on there at times (actually, a lot) and a bunch of the sites (and pictures) are pretty raunchy. It's shocking.

 

[Mom_]

For those of you who insist on their child's MySpace remaining public, you may want to rethink that.

A couple of days ago, a local news station did a whole segment on how to protect your kids when on Myspace. This stemmed from a local teenager who was stalked by a pedophile. The pedophile found out info about her on her myspace account.

The number one safety tip they said, was to make sure that the sites were kept private, so that only accepted friends could access it.

The news said to consider MySpace as the modern day street corner. All the kids like to hang there. Except this street corner has over 47 million kids on it. And what better place for a pedophile to hang out at.

You child may not post his/her address on the site, but in chatting with friends, info could be inadvertantly given out. That is why they said to absolutely make sure that if you allow your child on MySpace, that the site be made private.

Here is the link to the article and video. BTW - they interviewed a 15 year old with a site and she supported having parents monitor the sites.

http://www.9news.com/acm_news.aspx?...a746df2984&TEMPLATEID=0c76dce6-ac1f-02d8-0047

Thanks for the link and info. This just makes me all the more determined to monitor myspace.

 

[Banzai]

Is your child posting a picture of themselves on myspace any different than you posting a picture of them here on the DIS?

(I guess I should say I have one too)

 

[summerrluvv]

Is your child posting a picture of themselves on myspace any different than you posting a picture of them here on the DIS?

(I guess I should say I have one too)

Honestly, most of the pictures I've seen on myspace are sleazy looking. Cleavage showing, etc. I don't see those pics on the Dis. The pics of the teens here on the Dis are respectable, thus leaving nothing for a pedophile to gaze at all day.

 

[monarchsfan16]

My sister and stepsister both have myspace accounts. My best friend and I keep close tabs on both accounts for my mom (who is computer illiterate), and my dad keeps an eye on my sister's account as well. My sister's profile is surprisingly clean, but it still concerns me that she's on there. She's only 15. Course then there's my stepsister, who is 13, has somewhat more provocative pictures, and is listed as 18 Unfortunately she looks it too. I'm 19 and don't have myspace. I'm on facebook and livejournal, which is what my friends are on, and they're a little more secure. I really am not a fan of this myspace craze. There's a definite reason why you're supposed to be 16 to register on the site.