<p>
</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/07/fashion/07Cyber.html[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/07/fashion/07Cyber.html</a></p>
<p>I purposely don’t go onto Facebook. I feel like it’s looking at their diaries, or peeking into their bedrooms when they’re not expecting me. Not nice.</p>
<p>I know they share everything on there for the world to see, and get feedback. Yet, there are some things you want to say and explore with everyone EXCEPT your parents.</p>
<p>I think it’s a boundary to respect. If I want to know what they’re thinking about, I ask them, and what they choose to share, they do. (My kids are all over age 17, however; with middleschooler’s I would feel very differently.)</p>
<p>I never go there either, and never would. I feel that if we cannot have honest discussions and if we do not trust each other or have to cyber snoop on each other, than, we have very serious problems that require more substantive solutions…</p>
<p>advice to parents: don’t do it</p>
<p>I don’t go on, but do ask both to occasionaly show me to just make sure they actually know everyone they talk to, and they are not in any groups that are questionable, and no inappropriate photos. Neither have had a problem with this check in.</p>
<p>For the life of me, I can not figure out why kids (some not so young!) are SO incensed when an adult reads their on-line blog. WHY do they have it on the INTERNET??? Do they not know the whole world can read it??? How can they be so naive?</p>
<p>I thought you couldn’t read someone’s page unless you ‘friended’ them? If that’s true, wouldn’t you have to give your identity away?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I don’t only do it, I leave messages and comments on their blogs and Facebooks. I want my kids (and their friends, for that matter) to know that adults CAN and DO read stuff posted publicly on the internet. If they want privacy, they should look for it elsewhere!</p>
<p>
It depends on the “privacy” set up. The default setting does not grant too much privacy…</p>
<p>My daughter told me that the father of one of her college friends joined Facebook and tried to “friend” his son. The son refused the friend invitation!</p>
<p>You can’t see anything in the profile unless they “friend” you or are in the same “network” you are in. I am on facebook with my own alumni email address and I can’t see a thing about my son’s facebook. However, my daughter has “friended” me and we can share pictures, comment on each other’s “walls” etc. I think facebook is absolutely brilliant and I really enjoy seeing the pictures of her friends from high school and before who are now her friends.</p>
<p>what do you mean by network?</p>
<p>I think if you have a certain number of friends (i.e. from MIT or Penn etc.) you are in that “network” and you can see the profiles of other people in that network. I don’t fully understand what it takes to be in a “network”. You can see this even if they are not one of your “friends”.</p>
<p>Ah! I can help with this! Let’s say I teach at Boston High School. Using my Boston High School email address, I can set up a Facebook account and see all of my students’ pages, because they are in my “network.” My child, however, goes to Boston Prep School. I cannot see hers unless she “friends” me. There are also different levels of privacy that the kids can use, but most of them choose not to. Personally, I am not “friends” with my child, but she often shows me her profile in order to illustrate some point that she is trying to make. “See! They all wear these clothes!” I do know a number of adults who monitor their children and some who are xclueless. My favorite comment that I got to pass on to my own kid was “Mrs. Smith, from church, told me that she has enjoyed keeping up with your activities! She looks at your profile when her son goes into the kitchen to get a snack!”</p>
<p>ah, ok. I was wondering about comments re looking at kids facebook pages when I had been told (probably by my own kids 
) that you couldn’t read someone’s page unless you friended him first. This explains that.</p>
<p>thanks biohelpmom, we can now call you facebookhelpmom too</p>
<p>and loved the comment about the church!</p>
<p>Networks- You can join location networks (i.e. Houston) but can only join a school or work network if you have that email address. I.E. PwC has a network.</p>
<p>My college age son put our standard poodles on facebook. The Dog Whisper was okay but some of the friends were a little strange. He took their pages down.</p>
<p>Facebookhelpmom- ha ha! Thanks, Andi! At least I can give help in this thread. For the Bio thing I needed it. I personally LOVE Facebook (and no, I don’t read my own kid’s unless I’m invited.) Here’s why. If some kid from my network (public school) asks my child to go somewhere, say to the prom, I can quickly check them out myself. “Oh, what a nice boy! And he’s an Eagle Scout! Of course you can go to the prom with him.” And then there’s the…“No…I already know about that group’s plans for Saturday night. You’re so not joining them!” Facebook is my friend!</p>
<p>I got a Facebook account when I wrote a story on it – I had one before my daughter got hers! So far, I haven’t friended my daughter, or my daughter’s friends (I only have three friends on facebook – it looks so pathetic). I’ll be curious to see what she does when she gets her college .edu email; she is going to the same college I went to, so we’ll be in the same network. She’d have to set her privacy settings so that I wouldn’t be able to read her profile.</p>
<p>She and her friends have livejournal accounts, and we’ve all friended each other there. (Again, I got mine first, and we used it to communicate when she was overseas for 3 weeks.) Her friends think it’s cool that I have these, and they’ve actually said they’d friend me on Facebook once they are in college. (I get along well with her friends.)</p>
<p>I have mixed feelings about whether I should friend her friends once they go to college. This column was very timely for me as I consider this. Facebook started as a social network site for college kids, so they consider it their little world. For that reason, I should stay away. OTOH, Facebook is no longer just for college students – it’s been opened up to anyone, and there’s no reason why adults should stay away. Heck, if it’s still around in 30 years, today’s teens will be parents, who will be sharing the site with their kids. </p>
<p>Obviously there is mixed opinions on this. I think it also depends on the type of relationship you have with your kids, and how they use their account.</p>