If it is your child, you have the right to know whom he or she is talkig to. You know, anybody can be on the other side of the monitor and you will never know who is this for real, but you can see what are thay talking about. It's very easy to monitor IM with keylogger or any of software for parental control.

Welcome Strane, and thanks for your post. You mentioned some 'common principles' for kids' Internet use. What are the principles you use in your house, and which do you feel are most important?

Best,
Maureen

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Maureen Kochan
ConnectSafely community manager

Welcome austin blue, we’re glad you’re here. The message could have been junk mail, but you’ll need to have a good discussion with your son to know for sure. It’s possible he set up the account on his own (on tagged, he must be at least 13), or someone could have set it up without his knowledge (often a form of harassment among kids).

Assuming your son set up the account (called a profile) on his own, we suggest talking to him in a casual, nonconfrontational way (confrontation can shut down parent-child communication like nothing else, and often leads kids to go underground online, which is even less safe). Don’t know if you’ve already seen our pages of tips (some just for parents), but do check them out for additional information, and please, let us know how it goes.

Good luck,
Maureen

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Maureen Kochan
ConnectSafely community manager

Welcome gr8tmom, I'm so sorry to hear about this. Teens use Facebook, etc. like previous generations used the phone, so I'm not surprised that she doesn't want to give you and your husband access to her "conversations." That said, lying about her age violates both Facebook and Bebo's Terms. Contact the sites at abuse[at]facebook.com and beboinquiry[at]aol.com to submit a report.

You could also install filtering software on the computer she uses or see if your Internet service provider offers it (though that wouldn't help with her use of computers, e.g., at friends' houses). You could possibly sit down with her and talk about why she is lying about her age (it often helps if parents listen as much as talk) and suggest that you might have to use filtering to limit her access or monitoring software to keep tabs on it. Let us know how things go, OK? All best,

Maureen

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Maureen Kochan
ConnectSafely community manager

Hi all!
I've just visited this forum. Happy to get acquainted with you. Thanks.

I completely agree with Maureen. It's impossible for me to tell parents what is right for their kids. Over time parents has to make that decision based on their values as well as what is best for their kids. There is no universal answer. Personally, I raised two kids without filtering or monitoring but I have friends who do put some controls on what their kids do.

One thing I do recommend is that if you do monitor a child's messages, email or web access, that you tell them in advance. That way they know you're looking and if you find something you can deal with it without having to defend yourself from the inevitable accusation that you were "spying."

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Larry
Co-director
ConnectSafely.org

I don't think its fair to monitor a 16 year olds conversations, unless you have their permission and if you do then you should go ahead. But i think all chat rooms should have at least one person monitoring their chat room at all times, and should have a report abuse button like msn messenger now has.