<p>I would freak if my parents saw my facebook or needed to see my profile. It’s not like I have anything bad there (a few swears but c’mon) but the thing is you can’t trust what other people will post on your wall. Some people are stupid and tag party pictures</p>
<p>Tragic consequences of unsupervised FB bullying activity and parental legal liability for their children’s actions are two more reasons why parents should be their kids FB friends.</p>
<p>I am friends with all three of my kids (20-18-15) on facebook. For my daughter (20),who is away at college, if I say anything to her such as “don’t you think the outfit you were wearing was a little skimpy” she threatens to de-friend me. A picture is worth a thousand words, and I love to see the pictures from various functions to get a glimpse (although maybe a PG glimpse) of what is going on. If their friends ask to be my friend I always accept, but would never ask them first. I generally do it for “investigative” purposes. My boys are not big talkers and if I don’t ask the right question I dont’ find out about things, so this helps me ask the right questions. For Halloween I posted cute old Halloween pictures of my daughter on her wall. I thought she would be horrified but at Christmas time she asked me to post old Christmas photos. I am friends with a lot of my nieces and nephews and love to see them dressed up for Halloween or prom.</p>
<p><<some people=“” are=“” stupid=“” and=“” tag=“” party=“” pictures=“”>></some></p>
<p>If someone “tags” you in a picture, you can always “untag” it.</p>
<p>I’m not on FB. H is. Both kids in HS</p>
<p>Rule in our house is that they are friends with H, uncle, SIL and several other family members. They know that anything they post that is inappropriate would be seen very quickly.</p>
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<p>When my kids take the bus, work at their jobs, travel alone, they are out and about in the world. They simply do not friend people they do not know, they are respectful of others, they use privacy settings and yet they do not post things that they would be not want the world to see. Just like when they are out and about they know how to handle themselves and have learned street smarts. I actually <em>trust</em> their ability and judgment regarding how to be in the world with untrustworthy others. I don’t see how the virtual world is different than the real world in that sense at you hope you have socialized your kid and taken steps to get them to the point of some independence, but at some point you also let go. Again, maybe your kids do need that monitoring for FB (I’m not judging them!) but why then have them on FB at all? Same way as some kids are not yet old enough to take the bus, or walk alone, or have part-time jobs etc. </p>
<p>I don’t think there is anything wrong at all with being friends with your kids on FB if it’s a mutual thing. My beef is requiring it as a precondition for the sake of security and monitoring your kids. It seems invasive and completely unnecessary. Since when was FB a necessity, a need in life? Also what exactly do you find that you need to intervene on? Am I missing something? For each person they friend, do you quiz them on how they know one another? Do you give them feedback on the quality of their comments? Are they punished when you see something you don’t approve of? I mean these as genuine questions. </p>
<p>If you believe it is so scary and dangerous so that you have to spend your spare time monitoring your kids’ virtual interactions, why are they on social networking sites to begin with? And/or why can’t you educate them and have instilled in them good judgment and a trusting relationship so vigilance is not needed? I really honestly don’t get it.</p>
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<p>And last time I checked, you can remove others’ ability to tag you.</p>
<p>My daughter is in college, almost 20, and although we are FB friends, I really, really do not want to see her photos, posts, etc. I don’t want to judge her, or her friends. They deserve privacy. All I can see is her profile picture. We used to do FB chat but that has died off. We talk on the phone now. I don’t even see her appear on chat, which makes me think she has deactivated that feature somehow. Peering into someone’s Facebook life is like reading his or her diary. That this generation chooses to be so public with embarrassing thoughts and photos is a mystery to me, but I’ve decided to stay out of it now that she’s an adult. Now I am mostly friends with relatives and old high school chums. Pretty boring stuff, I can tell you.
Frankly, the narcissism of FB has gotten to me- pictures of people’s lunches, constant random boring thoughts- I’m pretty much done with it. Even Scrabble has become routine. I would much rather play a face-to-face game with time limits and no dictionary.
I have a feeling social networking will go full circle, and people may go back to actual live interaction with fellow human beings.</p>
<p>They deserve privacy OFFLINE. ANYTHING they post online is in the public domain. To believe or to teach your kids otherwise is foolhardy. I don’t understand hands off parents who are at peace with the entire world wide web having access to their kids while they proclaim respect for some non-existent right to privacy. The minute something is posted online it can be forwarded, copied and pasted, or printed for the world to see. </p>
<p>Don’t be involved or monitor your kids on FB or other social networking sites. That is your choice. But don’t be naive and claim it’s about their right to privacy.</p>
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<p>I would say so. Even really great kids sometimes exercise terrible judgment. That is why they are legally considered minors and are the responsibility of their parents.</p>
<p>Your opinion reminds me of a story the head of my D’s elementary school told us. Back before FB, when email had just become popular among kids, some student had forwarded a pornographic mass email to everyone in the 8th grade class. When someone told Mrs. Headmistress that 8th grader Suzy Jones had done it, she replied, “There is absolutely no way that sweet Suzie Jones did that! If that’s true, I will eat my shirt!” Well, guess what Mrs. H ate for dinner?</p>
<p>Suzy Jones really was a great kid who unintentionally made a terrible mistake.</p>
<p>^^^ Obviously, but i’m not on facebook 24/7 so i could be tagged for a day and not realize it</p>
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<p>Well sure, technically it all could become public at anytime (at the whim of FB) or via someone you’ve friended doing something with what you’ve allowed them to see, which is why one should operate as if it is public. But in practical terms it is not.</p>
<p>My kids talk to their friends on the bus. Everyone can hear them if they wanted to. But that wouldn’t make it any less inappropriate for me to go out of my way to eavesdrop on them. One of my kids sat on her phone and accidentally called me. When I picked up I could hear her conversation with her friends. It was out in public. But once I realized what happened, out of respect for her I hung up.</p>
<p>starbright,
FB postings are not private conversations between two people. They are more analogous to bullhorn announcements to a crowd.</p>
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<p>Not if you set your privacy settings to prevent this. </p>
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<p>Well if you actually think it’s this risky, WHY IS YOUR KID ON FACEBOOK!? </p>
<p>I read about a kid getting kidnapped at the mall. I still let my kids go alone to the mall with friends. Last year a child was hit by a car crossing the road…yet I no longer watch them cross the road. And so on. </p>
<p>Kids have to be able to go shopping, or cross the road…so I supervised them until they could do it alone. However, they do not have to be on facebook! If you do not trust them, get them off. </p>
<p>If I did not trust my kids’ judgment, they would never ever go out of the house alone, they would be under constant adult supervision. At some younger age, they were. Now they are old enough not to require it. Does that mean they might never make a mistake? Of course not. But at some point, you lessen the reigns.</p>
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<p>I know how FB works. I’ve used it for several years now. What is your point?</p>
<p>I never ask to be a kid’s friend. But if the kid sends a friend request, I usually accept it. </p>
<p>My older D friended me. My younger D had not done so throughout high school and 1 year of college. Imagine my surprise when I received a friend request from her this week. I sent her a message and asked if she really friended me or if her friends did it while she left her computer unprotected and open to her FB page.</p>
<p>She laughed and said that she did friend me (although she wouldn’t put it past her friends to pull a prank like that). Not sure why the change–I can’t believe that I’ve gotten cooler in the past week…</p>
<p>Set my privacy settings to…prevent what? My friends from tagging me, ever? What good would that do me?</p>
<p>Conversations on a bus or at the mall cannot be searched via Google…</p>
<p>at least not YET. FB or other internet postings can be.</p>
<p>^ To prevent one from tagging you, period. Or some people from tagging you if you so choose, if you have some fear of it as some posters seem to suggest. I see a lot more value in FB than tags. </p>
<p>My general sense is most of these fearful parents have never actually gotten used to FB. You sound pretty scared. I’m not sure why you let your kids use it.</p>
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<p>Neither my nor my children’s FB conversations be searched in google.</p>
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<p>With me as their friend, FB is not at all risky for my kids. For unsupervised kids on FB, it is another story…</p>