<p>D just reported that the father of a guy she’s dated a few times checked out her linkedin profile. They are not GF and BF yet. I thought it was kind of funny, and was a little comforted to know his parents care about his associations, but I was also sort of surprised since it’s a son and and not a daughter, and the relationship isn’t really defined yet. At the same time, with some of our kids going far away to school, we aren’t likely to meet their dates in the early stages. So perhaps this is the modern substitute for that? Still, you can’t tell much about a person’s personality or character from a resume, so I don’t think it would be all that helpful for any purposes I might have, outside of mere curiosity. Since presumably he had to know she’d see he checked her out (unlike with other snooping), could this be a suble warning to her that they’re watching out for him?</p>
<p>Well…my offspring dated pre-Linked In and I certainly googled! </p>
<p>I wouldn’t see it as a warning at all. I’d think that the young man has actually mentioned your D to his parents and they are curious, that’s all.</p>
<p>If you are signed into linkedin and view other people’s profiles, linkedin does track that and will probably tell them (this may only be at the paid level; I’m not sure). If you don’t want people to know you’re looking at their linkedin, make sure that you are not signed in, but sometimes less information is available that way.</p>
<p>I can see doing that out of curiosity but I don’t think it’s a good idea. You don’t want to know more about the person than your child. I guess there’s a big difference between a quick 5-minute search (harmless) and an-depth full investigation. Not sure why someone would be more likely to do for a daughter than a son, though, but I’m imagining it more for curiosity reasons than protective reasons.</p>
<p>As a mother I have googled my daughter’s college BF and some of her other new college friends - found only HS school press releases about awards, sports results, etc. - same type of stuff you would find if you googled my daughter. My husband would not think of doing this. I think it is a responsible thing to do - if I had found something bad like a police crime report I would have told her. As it was, I told her which of her friends are national merit finalists or commended!</p>
<p>If your kid (especially minors, but not necessarily) is secretive about who they are dating, or naive, it is kind of fun to spend a few minutes searching the web and show the kid how much you can find out. If you can find a name and city, you can find an address, you can find an arial and street view of their house, you can find out its tax value, etc. I don’t really do that, but it has come in handy for others.</p>
<p>Ok…just googled D2’s bf…he was top at the page for his name. Didn’t see anything I didn’t already know but then he has my seal of approval already</p>
<p>I googled a son’s then-GF, then regretted it. I couldn’t un-see what I’d read and it wasn’t easy to forget. Dh was even more bothered, which surprised me. After sleeping on it a few nights, I told Dh that it was a good thing we were young and foolish long before FB and all of the other ways that people now share their no-longer-private lives with the world. Had either of our families known everything about our pasts they probably would have done everything they could to prevent us from marrying. He thought about it for a while, then said we needed to just pretend we’d never read a word.</p>
<p>Absolutely, I check them out, google, facebook and any other resource I can find. I even talked to one of my daughter’s old HS teachers that is a friend about new BF, and SHE called a teacher she knew he had at his old HS to find out about him.</p>
<p>:) He’s a great guy. :)</p>
<p>I’m pretty sure his parents did the same about D and our whole family. AND I know they gave him a list of questions he had to ask her about values, beliefs, etc. which I thought was great.</p>
<p>My mom did this with my current SO- not google but FB stalked. </p>
<p>She only knew his first name though- which is so common that she finally caved and told me she what she was doing but couldn’t figure out which one he was! </p>
<p>Googling would turn up the fact that he was val at his HS so I don’t much mind ;)</p>
<p>For me, it’s all about intention. Googling out of curiosity is one thing (to see what he/she looks like, etc). Snooping is another thing all together- ie googling to figure out whether or not he/she’s “appropriate”.</p>
<p>romanigypsyeyes - I google for both reasons. Just sayin.</p>
<p>Krlilies - Maybe, but not necessarily. Now that I know BF, and know he’s a good guy, his family is great, we all share common values, etc. - I’m happy to mind my own business. I just had to get that initial crazy mom stuff out of the way.</p>
<p>I’ll do whatever they want me to do for the wedding, and I won’t be giving unsolicited advice, or dropping in uninvited. BF that is new is different than husband/fiance.</p>
<p>LinkedIn is not a social media site - it is a professional networking site. The information freely available to the public is controlled by the profile owner. Generally, by default, only a few key details can be seen to non-LinkedIn users. One can also control the traces they leave when they browse others’ profiles. Some of our Ds’ BFs, science nerds, sent requests for “linkedin connections” to Mr B (a big science nerd) and are now in his network (although no longer romantically involved with his Ds :)).</p>
<p>So to make the long story short, I do not see any harm in googling or looking up someone’s LinkedIn profile. “Cyberstalking” via Facebook is a totally different thing.</p>
<p>My daughter has been dating someone seriously for the last few months. None of us have met him yet. Little brother (18yrs old) befriended the boyfriend on facebook. At first I thought “that’s weird”, but now I think it’s kind-of protective, and nice.</p>
<p>If people are willing to make their LinkedIn profiles or Facebook pages public, then I don’t consider it stalking to look someone up. In my mind, by not making your information private, you are implicitly agreeing that it’s okay for anyone to view it. Stalking to me, is tracking someone’s activities on a regular basis so that you can keep ‘tabs’ on them.</p>
<p>I agree, though, sometimes with younger people you find out things you would have preferred not to know. </p>
<p>On LinkedIn, you can turn off the option that allows others to see when you have looked at their profile.</p>
<p>Linkedin is public and meant to be seen, and so I certainly didn’t consider it stalking. As I said, I was just surprised that it was a dad doing the looking for a son (though of course his mom could have suggested it and peeked over his shoulder), and because I would not have thought their very early stage friendship warranted snooping. She was a date on several occasions–not necessarily a romantic interest yet. I consider myself a very involved parent, but do not go on FB or ever check out my kid’s pages, except once very briefly before my D started the athletic recruiting process and agreed her older brother could scan it for anything potentially objectionable. I think young adults deserve their privacy unless their or their frrend’s behavior or other clues suggest a need for parental concern/sleuthing.</p>
<p>If I want to know what a date looks like, I just ask D to send me a picture and she does.</p>