Parents monitor their kid’s activity on Facebook

Article from Pittsburgh Tribune Review by Kellie B. Gormly April. 2011
Requiring that youngsters “friend” them is one way of keeping an eye out – often risisted.
Cara Drum allowed her son, Kevin, 13, to join Facebook recently, on three conditions: that he “friend” his mother, give her his password, and not accept friend requests until she approved them.
Kevin, who had switched schools and missed his friends, celebrated Facebook as a good way to keep in touch. After he finishes his homework, Kevin is allowed to check Facebook once every evening on the family computer, which sits in the middle of the kitchen.
“Nothing is hidden from me,” says Drum, 33, of Indiana Township, who says Kevin was respectful and did not put up a fight. “I think that if you’re going to have a Facebook page and interact with people online, your parents should be involved with that. … My hope is that if I can show him that I’m not going to be too overbearing with it, if I build his trust with the little bit of privacy … then I won’t have to fight the battle.”
Drum and her husband, David, serve as youth pastors at their church – Real Life Church, an Assemblies of God congregation in New Kensington – and they hear from some kids who are adamant about not friending their parents.
In the modern, digital age, millions of kids and young adults love using Facebook, a social-networking site, to communicate with their friends. But, when parents step in and want to friend them, many kids might call it a buzzkill. If the kids accept their parents’ friend requests, then the parents will see the children’s posts. With their parents watching, teens may feel inhibited and as if they have to edit themselves.
Perhaps teens should be editing themselves more, anyway – and having parents as Facebook friends can encourage this, experts say. Many don’t think about how their acquaintances and, sometimes, strangers can read what they post on Facebook, and teens tend to have looser boundaries of privacy with people, says Steve Jones, professor of communication at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Teens might share personal things with Facebook friends that many adults would share only with close friends, he says.
“Kids tend to have a different conception of privacy than adults,” Jones says. He is a social historian of communication technology and has studied social networking sites closely.
“They really don’t see any problem with posting personal details or personal opinions and emotions,” Jones says. “They are likely to be unhappy if mom or dad looks at their stuff, but they won’t think twice about letting the whole world see it.”
Few kids are happy about their parents following them on social networking sites, he says. A search on Facebook illustrates this. Many anti-parent pages pop up, like “Ban Parents off Facebook” and “Parents Don’t Need Facebook.” One of the ways kids get around this awkward situation is by creating a separate Facebook account for their friends, unknown to their parents. They might use an alias. But that’s just a high-tech version of a classic teenage thing.
“That’s really no different than what kids have done over the years, before we had the Internet,” Jones says. “They always have their own language.”
Parents who friend their kids often monitor the kids and their friends for a short period, then back off, after they see that everything is fine, Jones says. Many parents are afraid of overstepping with teens, who naturally want more privacy.
Kevin Drum says he doesn’t mind the parental controls on his Facebooking; he’s just happy to be on there, though he has moments when he wishes for more privacy.
“I actually like it because it’s nice to have [Mom] on Facebook,” he says. “It’s pretty cool.”
Even when they are no longer minors, teens and young adults may feel awkward about friending their parents on Facebook. Amanda Wishner, a student at Waynesburg University, encouraged her mom, Lisa Wishner, to join Facebook and friend her. Although she hears from peers who are wary of letting their parents onto their Facebook pages, Wishner, 19, says she thinks it’s a good idea.
“Honestly, coming from a college kid’s perspective, eventually employers are going to be looking at your Facebook,” says the Canonsburg native. “So, I think anything you wouldn’t want your mom to see is something you wouldn’t want an employer to see. If you can say it to your mom, you can say it to anyone.”
Dana Sheehan of Springdale has young children, but will require them to friend her when they reach the Facebook age. Sheehan, who manages the website and social media for Shady Side Academy in Fox Chapel, says teens don’t always realize the consequences of posting personal things on Facebook: potential embarrassment, loss of reputation, and bullying, for instance.
“Parents should be able to see everything,” Sheehan says. Teens are “still minors, and I still think they need to have that guidance.”
Sharing Facebook with teens “gives parents insights into the daily happenings of your kids’ lives.”
However, parents shouldn’t pry too much or practically stalk youngsters online and interrogate them about everything; this can create resentment, she says.
Katie Mihm of Fox Chapel says that her children – Claudia, 14, and Henry, 13 – know the household rules about Facebook.
“For our children to be on Facebook, I need to be their friend. That’s sort of a condition,” says Mihm, 46.
Mihm says she checks in on her kids’ Facebook pages periodically, rather than scrutinizing everything.
“I’m there because I need to be there to help my kids stay safe,” she says.
Facebook – which accepts users starting at age 13 – offers these tips for those concerned about safety. Parents should:
Consider that online freedom is a privilege children must earn by demonstrating responsibility.
Teach kids to be wary of Facebook applications and to avoid clicking on anything that they don’t want to advertise to every friend on their news feed.
Keep contact information private by adjusting privacy settings.
Join Facebook, and friend their child.
Use privacy settings to remove their and their child’s Facebook profiles from public search engines.
Examine settings regarding tagged photos, so only certain people can see pictures of their child.
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