In the pre-millenium decades kids wrote in their diaries and hid those books under their beds or in their closets with their deepest, darkest secrets. It was a reasonable discussion by parents “to read or not to read” the diary inadvertantly unearthed while helping the child clean their room. This was considered by some parents as a breach of trust while other parents saw it as a necessary componant of the parenting responsibilities.

Now, post-internet explosion, times have changed. Diaries in book form are rare. Blogs and personal web sites are the norm. Kids text message their friends and exchange thoughts and ideas online. This can be great but it can also be dangerous because the kids often have a scewed perception of who is reading their online information. Perhaps they are thinking that it’s cool and that only their friends or other teenagers are reading their pages and that anyone else that comes across the page wouldn’t even pay attention.

In the mid 90’s I started reading and studying Parry Aftab’s series of books on keeping your kids safe on the internet and have tried to instill these ideas with my kids as they have grown up with online access. In the past we have taught our kids how to avoid strangers walking down the street but now we have to teach them about how to stay safe and avoid getting into trouble from strangers online. One of the craziest things about that is that strangers online are never seen. Once a kid posts information it goes out to a world wide audience of strangers.

When my pre-teen son asked for a computer in his room (we were upgrading our computer and he suggested we put the old one in his room) we told him to choose between the computer or the door to his room. He chose the computer. So, now he has a computer in his room but no door on his room. That may sound a little extreme but it has worked out really well. When we come up the stairs I can look into his room and see what he is looking at before he realizes I am even there.

The other option is to assert parental control and only allow the computer in a central family area. This way everyone can only surf sites that are ok to view by everyone else.

The reason this is the topic of the day is because of a news story we ran across online today about high school partiers posting their party plans on their personal web sites that are often times provided by their local high schools. If your kid has a Myspace.com web site it should be reviewed and discussed as a family on a regular basis. Ask them to show you their friends web sites as well. Here is the story that prompted this discussion. Parties On MySpace.com