Daughter is on MySpace
 

My initial reaction is that her having a MySpace account is trouble, but so far she hasn't put a lot of personal info there and she has restricted her full profile to her 'friends' list. My daughter does not yet know that I know she has a MySpace account. I can see that it looks as if it's only her school friends posting there, yet I worry about online predators.

Has anyone here gone through a MySpace 'battle' with their teen? Do I even need to worry about it?

Oh, and her status says she is 'in a relationship'. :shock: That is something I am worried about.

Been there. I don't like that school info ends up there through posts from friends.

I'm getting close to where you are right now Aqua. Watch this very closely. Ask questions.

Tough love, dude....

My best advice...make a MySpace account of your own. that way you can talk to the people that she's talking to and know what's up.

My son moved out of the house a few months back and didn't have Internet service where he moved.(<my oldest sons house).A few weeks ago he called me and gave me his id and password and asked me to cancel/delete his account.I guess he just outgrew it or got bored with it...I don't know.I did "snoop" around while I was there!!There didn't seem to be much going on and I think the few incidents that have been reported on the site is minute considering the number of members that belong.

I hate to send up another red flag but..........keep an eye on the text messages sent and recieved via the cellphone!!!I've had more problems in this area than I care to mention....and the sender/reciever is usually in the same neighborhood.

Edit: I forgot .....Do you know why kids' cell batteries need frequent charging?-----They don't delete their incoming/outgoing call lists or their inbox/outbox for text messages! ;)

my daughter is 9 and has various things on MSN and and a few kid oriented sites. I can't say i am too happy about it, but i'd rather she has stuff i know about than have her set up ones (and she is very capable of doing that) i don't know about. I'm not too sure about MySpace stuff and how it works, but at least her email is set to exclusive.

We had a LONG talk about the dangers. I think she is sensible and will seek advice when needed.

She is growing up fast! Sheesh

This was my approach as well.

That just means she doesn't want guys asking for a date.

and doesn't want the other girls to know if she doesn't have a guy.

My 17 year old son has a MySpace account. However, he told me about it, we discuss it, he shows it to me and shows me the things he has posted, mainly poems (dark) and such. I like to think I know what's going on, but that would be presumptuous on my part. I agree, set up and account of your own :)

Just read something about how camps & other places are restricting what info the kids put on myspace so the camp's location, etc. isn't given away.

Make sure she knows what to keep off the web.

It's a different world, eh? :)

my kids aren't old enough yet but i say hell yeah worry. not so much that it keeps you up at night but enough that it keeps you aware. there may only be a small percentage of predators out of the total myspace users, but i know i wouldn't want one of my kids to be a statistic and neither do you. talk to her frankly about the dangers and lay down some rules. i can't say for sure (cause it hasn't happened to me yet) but i don't think i'd keep my knowing a secret.

My son knows I know because he has his account restricted and I had to be approved to see it. The problem I have is not in what info my sone has given out but in what others have said, "_____ High School's X country ROCKS!!!!!" etc. I know my son is 15 and a big guy but he's still bait.

would you have told him if his account wasn't restricted?
do you want to yank his privileges because of the comments other people make? i know that wouldn't be fair, but it must worry you.

I have let it stay because it is restricted. If he opened it to the public I'd have it yanked.

I have a 15 year old daughter that had created a Myspace account. My wife stumbled across it one time on the net.

She didn't know that we knew about it until we found stuff out there we didn't like and had to confront her. It wasn't that she lied about really important stuff. Just little things, but the big one was her age.

She put on there that she was 17 and sure enough, had posts from random net people along the order of "have you had sex yet?" and "do you have a web cam?" Stuff like that.

Anyway--we made her shut it down but still search out there because she has a computer at her moms house (exwife) and can pretty much do whatever she wants. :nuts:

I deal with that a little myself. She spends a lot of weekends at her Grandparents and is unrestricted and unsupervised on the computer as far as I know. At home her Net use is very regulated.

Holy hell man, I hope you are not talking to me. :huh:

Seems like you have something to say to everyone so I will assume it is not because I am the new guy.

So yeah, I have no idea whats up with that.

it looks like a g/f or wife or someone else got a hold of platinum's account and is trolling pixies with it and posting many hurtful comments, either that or the real platinum went troll....it happens sometimes...

ignor the flames and don't feed the trolls

I started heavy on the net when I was oh lets see now geez it was some time ago.... I was about 15-16, I chatted with people ranging generally like 13ish-22ish, it's funny looking back now that my sister is that age and thinking about the things I was talking about with those other people lol though we were considered quite the perverted group

as to how to handle the situation I couldn't tell ya , perhaps the tough love approach is right, it's a hard balance between giving them room to grow and making sure they aren't putting themselves in danger

though danger isn't the best thing for me to talk about, by the time I was 16 I was traveling to the states for long periouds of time and by 19 had covered most of the northern states on my own lol alot of time depending on complete strangers for assistance and places to stay at time, and I never once ran into any danger... however I'm also amazingly lucky so I would tell any of my kids asking this *if I had any* that they are freaking crazy lol I still can't believe my parents trusted me that much, but alls well that ends well
definatly an interesting topic though, I like discussions along this line

aw to be young again, when danger wasn't lurking around every corner

just a little thought, Research in Uk has shown that sexual abuse of minors normally happens from people within the family or the familes circle of friends, and that its unlikely that abuse will start from an source such as the net.

Aqua my daughter has had a MS account for quite awhile and it's been pretty harmless. I got an invite from a friend of mine and created one too so yes part of the reason I haven't been here a lot is because I've become a MS junkie myself. Some of the friends I've made are now her friends as well and vice versa. Never hurts to have extra eyes on duty if ya know what I mean. So far I have nothing negative to say about it, I'm sure there are exceptions but I've seen nothing bad personally except the usual idiots in chat. Hope my 2 cents worth helped in some way and best of luck to you.

Hey Bear! I've been wondering why you haven't been around so much. I appreciate your input. :)

I thank you all for your advice... and welcome any further advice anyone might want to add.

I won't be addressing this issue until my child gets back from my ex's though.

You should talk to her, and let her know the dangers of being on the internet.

I had a MS account, but deleted it after 6 months. I don't know about y'all, but I found it boring and overhyped.

I agree with Satyriasis, talk with your daughter about it. Will it may be true that the majority of sexual abuse happens by those closest to the person the net opens up a new door.

Just be open and honest about how you feel.

My daughter came to me a few days ago and asked if she could have an acct. there and I told her ok but watch what you put on there. I asked to see her space yesterday. Guess what? She had her REAL name, her city, state AND her Picture up! She's 16. GEEZE! We immediately went thru all the personal stuff she had on there and deleted it. Kids just don't GET IT. Keep checking Aqua. I know I AM!

Thanks (((CGT))))...

and don't worry... I am.

Aqua,

You realise she's probably posted a thread "Father is on MyCase".

:roflmao:

OMFG!!


That's too damn funny OF!

My son is 14 and has friends with MySpace accounts but has yet to ask us for permission to access MySpace. I think his mind is still reeling from getting busted trying to search for "boobeys". :roflmao:

While I sympathise AND empathise with you Aqua (My daughter is nearly 13, and has her own laptop already!) This may be somewhat amusing - I thought so, anyway!

DM

That was damn funny dm! Thank you for the laugh! :D

Y'welcum mate...... anytime!!

DM

*Bump*

Doing a little catching up and ran across this thread.......

Aqua, don't know how things are going as far as your or other parent's concerns, but did you know about a site called xpeeps?.....it's a spin-off from Myspace that's x-rated. Most of the ppl at xpeeps have Myspace accounts also......i get the impression from sumpin i read on one blog at xpeeps that certain "adult" things were getting deleted from Myspace so these ppl moved to xpeeps with the adult stuff but still hang around Myspace, as well.

My 14 year old has a MS account. It's private and I make sure to have her show it to me at random times so that I know what she is up to. We talk a lot about being safe and I pray and fret.

i'm on Myspace and Xpeeps, but in no way are they connected, some people post their links to both but i don't.

i wanna keep that stuff separate.

Oh boy!

First there is ®Glo-Worm...then there is ®Leap Pad...and then MySpace?

They grow up soooooooooooo fast, eh?

As to the internet being a lesser fear then in your own backyard...that might be true elsewhere but from what I've seen on those "sexual preditor shows" the deviants are ALL over the internet and have a way of "picking out" the weakest to prey on!

From what I know of you Aqua, you are a caring, diligent parent with a good head on his shoulders as to the things to be leary of in this world! If any of that has rubbed off on your daughter then she'll be ok...I just know it!

Now...when she gets to college...let's talk again! *giggle*

((((((((Lixy)))))))))))

Thank you for your encouraging words!

Here's the update... as for right now, she is not using her Myspace (it's still there, but she's not accessing it) because the terms of use state that she must be 14 and she isn't there quite yet. She has her email and another Myspace type site she is using so it's not a huge issue at the moment.


Thank you to everyone who has offered advice and shared their experience. I appreciate it very much. :)

All my students just lie :p

DM, I have something like that letter that I read to my students every year, sort of an "it could be worse than a D in Chemistry."

Aqua, we've all been raising our kids since day one, and I'm guessing from what I'm reading here that most of us have been involved with our kids all along, and have pretty good relationships with them, and thats good because I don't think its a good idea to start getting involved when they hit adolescence (geez mom, you never followed me when I was playing doctor after preschool).

That being said, as parents we are becoming less important and less influential to our teenage children, which is perfectly normal because the peer group is becoming more important, after all our kids are going to work with, marry, grow old with these peers.

As far as I know, most coercive sex and most abuse is still carried out by someone the victim knows. I also believe that television sensationalizes everything nowadays, and implies more about things like MySpace than it can show evidence for. That doesn't mean that the net is safe, and I'm not suggesting it is. I think that a lot of our concern as parents stems from the fact we know that we are all probably lucky to have passed through adolescence relatively unscathed, and we probably all know someone who wasn't as lucky.

Which brings us to MySpace. I suspect that a lot of it is pretty harmless, just like most of the net, or most of the kids at my daughter's high school. The problem is that a kid can get to know someone over MySpace (or think they get to know them). Add to that the fact that all the bad apples, not just the local ones, can access the information on the net, and I can understand your concern.

Sooner or later our kids are going to find out for themselves though..