Protecting your children on social networking sites

Dina Gerdeman

Print Story | Email Story
Add to My Digital Landing

Related Articles

• Internet means more media at political events
• Election resources in the digital world
• Playing games with your social network
• Fantasy sports can rival the real thing
• Hollywood picks Apple as cool kid on the block

Remember being a teenager – with those endless telephone chats? You were a teenager once, gabbing endlessly on the phone.

Now, your teens are the ones talking chatting incessantly – except these days they’re doing much of it online as they plug into social networks such as MySpace.com and Facebook.com. Those free sites let users connect with friends by creating their own personal Web pages where they can blog, e-mail and instant message one another and post photographs.

Teens are having chats that are far from private, chats their friends, their friends' friends – and plenty of complete strangers – ones the whole online universe can see. You may be concerned about what your kids are talking about, as well as who is keeping tabs on their conversations.

Set some online limits for your children and help them think before they click so they don't carelessly reveal information that should never be posted on social network sites. (Read "Safe Web surfing: An Internet guide for beginners".)

Young kids shouldn't network

Social networks are not appropriate for young children.

Many of these sites, including MySpace.com, restrict users from posting certain material, including naked photos and violent threats. MySpace has employees comb the site in search of inappropriate content to delete. Still, you wouldn’t want your 9-year-old to see the sometimes-raunchy talk and often-suggestive photos that are allowed to remain.

Consider making social networks off limits to children in middle school or younger. (Many sites prohibit anyone younger than 14 from using them anyway. Yet it's common for youngsters to lie about their ages to gain access.)

Treat the networks as a privilege you grant your children in high school. But before you let your teenager loose online, make sure you have a heart-to-heart about what they should – and more importantly should not – include on social network pages.

Keep certain info private

Obviously, children need to be more discreet when posting openly on social networks than they are when e-mailing privately with friends.

Make sure your children know not to disclose certain personal information, including last names, school names, clubs and sports teams, hometowns, addresses, social security numbers or phone numbers.

Your children may not realize their Web pages could be viewed by sexual predators who are looking to piece together enough personal details to figure out where they kids live. Teens shouldn’t mention, for example, the names of the mall where they bought a shirt or the health club they took a yoga class, or the address of an upcoming party they’re attending.

Your children should correspond only with people whose e-mail addresses are familiar and ignore or block those that aren’t.

Children need to be told that people aren’t always who they appear to be online, that a guy who says he’s 17 may actually be a 40-year-old predator. Encourage your children to tell you if they feel uncomfortable with anything they see on their pages.

Teens should never share passwords or ask for their friends' passwords.

Kids should also be wary of falling prey to advertisements that are written to look like messages, pointing users to sites that hawk everything from diet pills to music CDs.

In addition, children need to be reminded that once a rumor or nasty remark appears on the Internet, it can spread to every kid in school – and every other school – in seconds. Simple schoolyard squabbles can be exacerbated on the Internet. Encourage your teens to type only things they would say to someone in person.

Of course, swearing and discussions about sex, drugs and alcohol should be prohibited. You and your children may not always agree about what content is appropriate to post, but help your children make wise choices. Remind your youngsters that open exchanges intended for friends may also be viewed by teachers, college admissions officers and even future employers your youngsters that teachers, college admissions officers and even future employers may also view open exchanges intended for friends.

A bottom-line rule of thumb: Your children should not post anything they wouldn't want their own parents to read.

Snoop in the open

After all, they should know their parents may indeed read these postings.

Think about opening your own free account so you have access to the same information your children do. Your children should tell you which social networks they have joined, and you should let your children know that you will be periodically monitoring these sites – not so much to check up on them but to make sure the information on the sites is safe.

For parents who have qualms about monitoring these sites, who pride themselves on being respectful of their children’s privacy, remember: Checking out the very public chatting your child does in social network sites is not akin to eavesdropping on a private phone call or sneaking peeks at the handwritten diary locked and hidden under your child's bed. If the neighbors can read it, it's public, and it's fair game.

When you do go browsing, look only for material you think could pose a danger to your children – such as a posted photo that includes an address in the background – and restrain yourself from nagging your children about every word they write. Your children should feel free to socialize safely on these sites without having to answer to Mom and Dad for every post.

Take advantage of privacy settings

Each site has a privacy policy and most allow let users to regulate which visitors get what level of access to information.

On LiveJournal, for example, you can create a friends-only journal or set a whole journal to private and allow it tohave it act as a personal diary. In Facebook, users control who can see their profiles, contact information and photos. They can also control who can find them in searches. MySpace.com offers various levels of privacy, including postings for friends only.

Some sites allow let you to review comments about your profile and journal before they are posted. Some also allow you to adjust your settings to require a person who is adding you as a friend to put in your last name or e-mail address, so people who don’t know you can't add you.

And if unknown users approach your children are approached online by users they don't recognize, there are, your kids can activate settings that allow them to block those users, preventing them from sending messages.

Set limits on when and where

When you were a teenager, your parents probably had no qualms about kicking you off the phone when you talked too long. It makes sense to limit when your children can chat on social networks and for how long. (You want to make sure your children interact with friends in person, too!)

And it would also be best to keep computers out of your children's bedrooms and instead in shared family space, such as the kitchen or living room.

After all, it's important to keep a close eye on what your children are doing online.

For more information, read Digital Landing's "Parental control of digital dangers".