<p>It was suggested to me that we start a facebook group for CC parents only. I can try to figure out how to do this tonight when I get home, or if anyone else wants to do it, please go ahead. We would have to provide the group owner our CC name to “prove” we are parents and not kids. Might be fun!</p>
<p>No parent “stalkers” allowed, lol.
It actually is so much fun that you will spend less & less time on CC. It’s great to put faces with with names. Please post back if one of you senior members (who seem to have more time to post here) is up to it & starts a group.</p>
<p>"First off, I have better uses for my time than to be lurking/stalking my daughters & their friends, living vicariously through my children. "</p>
<p>The majority of my adult friends are on facebook. From people whom I went to college and high school with to people who are active in causes and organizations that I am active in, I have found FB to be an excellent way to organize events, discuss issues, and to simply keep up with people whom I care about.</p>
<p>I am also friends with younger son and some of his friends. I know that there are some teens and young adults who post lots of stupidity on FB – drunken and vulgar pictures of themselves, for instance. S and his friends aren’t like that.</p>
<p>Recent posts by them included holiday greetings, someone sending a cyberhug to her out of town boyfriend, someone announcing he got contact lenses, someone posting articles about terrorism that’s directed at women, and someone who posted a pictures of the interesting class she’s taking with my son.</p>
<p>There was no dirty laundry revealed, and no information revealed that wouldn’t come out in a normal conversation. </p>
<p>There really are lots of young people who have the good sense not to post stupid things on FB.</p>
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<p>Unlike many of the older people here, lol! Also I think there is a lot less of the viciousness that goes on here at CC when people are able to see each others’ faces.</p>
<p>I joined facebook because an adult friend of mine invited me to. Then I found out that a lot of people that I know from a show I did are on it, so I friended them. I found some people from church on there, so I friended them. My brother in law is on it, so I friended him. He’s friends with all of my kids and his nieces, so I friended them too. So far my younger daughter is holding out and not friending me, but my other two kids have (I’m sure the older boy would not have friended me a few years ago in high school, had this existed then, but he is an adult now). I understand that my high school age daughter is embarassed to be my friend, but her older siblings out grew it, so I imagine she will. She has her uncle and some other moms that I know as friends, so I imagine that she isn’t putting anything too crazy on there.</p>
<p>So, it’s all new to me. I haven’t figured out yet what to do with it. I posted a photo, and with my lack of technological skill, it took about an hour, I think. But so far, so good. I have a myspace page, but never did anything with it. Facebook seems to be where it’s at for people my age – not what some kids want to hear, I know! But then again, I know that a lot of kids have switched from Myspace to Facebook because it has less junior high kids on it and is more grown up!</p>
<p>Not to ‘out’ jnm, but my policy of not friending any of our kids’ friends unless the kids ask me was put to test for the first time by your daughter ;)</p>
<p>Of my 40 friends, only 4 are alums from our kids’ high school.</p>
<p>I also do not use the ‘mutual friends you may know’ feature just to add more people to my list, and did not use the feature of adding friends to my list by providing my e-mail address book to FB in order to see who of my friends is already on. When I sent out Christmas cards this year, to those who live far away and I rarely see, I included a family letter and did mention I was now on FB, and anyone who would like to friend me, could. </p>
<p>Without divulging too much, I once joined FB to gain access my daughter’s a cappella group’s site; however, I then discovered they didn’t have FB, they had myspace. So for almost a year, I rarely used it (meaning every couple of months I’d look in). Then, her group did get a FB, and funny, I hardly ever look at it now.</p>
<p>What got me to be more of a regular on it, is a group I joined for parents of college theater students. These are parents to whom I can ask any kind of question related to the experience of kids in college majoring in theater. It has been an invaluable resource, and we feel much freer to talk specifics, and reveal our true identities (it’s a private group). It’s the kind of information no one would publicly share on CC. From this group, D2 has a ‘surrogate’ mom in the city where D2 attends school, and I now have a new travel agent 
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<p>I have also reconnected with some friends from high school and college with whom I’ve not had much contact with in the last five to ten years. FB allows me to catch up on their lives, and with enjoyment, look at pictures of them and their families (those who choose to post them). Just last night, I sent one (who just friended me this week) a FB message telling her I might be out her way (CA) sometime this spring and maybe we could hook up. I have friended three of my nieces, but none of my siblings or their spouses have set anything up. These nieces are all in their late 20s/early 30s. </p>
<p>And perhaps, a telling of the times, I hear kids rarely check their e-mails anymore. All students at D2’s school are required to check school e-mail once every 24 hours, but other than that, most of them do their communication through FB and text messaging. I think gone are the days that we are guaranteed that our kids are checking e-mail as often as they used to. It’s so easy for them to set up group accounts as MOWC has suggested above for things they mutually have in common (perhaps it’s the play they’re all involved in for a few weeks, etc.).</p>
<p>mstee - you bring up a great point of churches having FB groups; that’s becoming more common, too.</p>
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<p>That’s exactly what D2’s high school coach said–none of the kids paid attention to email and the best way to make sure you got their attention was either texting or Facebook.</p>
<p>quick question… can you ‘de-friend’ someone without them really finding out. I have a couple of friends (I’m sure I was asked because I was in their e-mail address book), that I really don’t want to get updates on. Neither one has ever posted on my FB, and I would never post on theirs, so I’d prefer to delete them.</p>
<p>FB doesn’t tell them when you defriend them, but the problem is that they’re likely to find out about it when your name pop up on their lists of people whom they may want to friend.</p>
<p>It’s easier to just click the x next to their updates, and indicate that you’d like to hear less about them. That’s how I hear to next to nothing about a FB friend who annoyingly posts every boring action he takes.</p>
<p>I would agree that some people are carried away w facebook.
Since I have been using it more after starting my class, the wife of my prof in particular sends all kinds of " gifts" and things, that I feel I need to reply to.
Since we have dial up, it takes forever and a day , so I have only clicked on a few.</p>
<p>( I’m not sure why she added me, I can’t keep up- thankfully she is the only one on my friends list that does so)</p>
<p>I was explaining to a friend yesterday though who wanted to know more about facebook, that to me, it was easier to handle than email. I have a pretty good spam filter- but as everyone knows, if you only have one or two addresses, you get a lot of stuff that you aren’t interested in & even if you don’t open it- it is in your mailbox mixed up with all the other things you are interested in. With facebook, it is more graphically based and easier for me to see what I want to pay attention to. </p>
<p>( I am someone who has piles all through the house, if I can see it, I remember it- if it is tucked away- I forget all about it and don’t remember where it is- I cannot tell you how many times I have put something away in a " good" place- and while I am DOING IT, I am thinking* this is a really bad place* and I do it anyway) find it )</p>
<p>I need to figure out how to add a comment to my facebook picture though- I don’t have many current pics and my prof snapped it when we were installing garden beds at a retreat center. Several people have commented that I have a very impressive garden!
I wanted to assure them that it wasn’t * mine* mine is more in the " remodeling" stage. ( however I have a feeling it will be there for a looong time)</p>
<p>I don’t engage in any of the games or gift giving on facebook. It’s too time-consuming and lots of times it wants you to add applications.</p>
<p>I’m with you MOWC. Don’t do it, and frankly when I do realize someone has sent me something, it’s usually weeks later as I’m just not as adept with FB as a lot of people are, and have not developed a habit of looking for things. I think as long as you make it a blanket policy, then you’re not offending anyone.</p>
<p>Hey–to each his or her own, and I trust that ‘teriwtt’, knowing her friendly-like as a parental colleague in crime, is using Facebook in the right way.</p>
<p>But she & I both know a couple people who are way too caught up in it, immersing themselves in a non-productive way with high school kids and faculty as well. Nothing sexual or anything, but just stupidly inappropriate.</p>
<p>totally agree jnm - some people don’t have appropriate boundaries, and they needn’t necessarily be high school teachers (well, I guess some DO work for school districts). I’m not saying I’m necessarily using in the right way (I don’t know if there is a right way), but before I got involved, I did set some boundaries so that hopefully, my integrity is kept in tact, well, as I define integrity.</p>
<p>My high school class is trying to see if Facebook is the way to go to keep in touch with each other. I jumped from 2 friends to 26 friends almost overnight. How my D can have almost a thousand friends, I have no idea…</p>
<p>so I am confused. My daughter added me as a friend on facebook- I clicked on confirm and her lil face was added to my friends list-
I didn’t go to her wall and look around- but this morning when I checked she had vanished and vanished from our " mutual friend" my SIL as well
( and I took all but one group photo including her down before I added her too)</p>
<p>I am also now on Facebook. Began when I was talking to my nephew who was getting ready to leave for a semester abroad in Australia. I said I was looking forward to seeing pictures and that he should put them on Shutterfly (or the like) and he said he would be posting them on Facebook and that I should just make an account. I know my brother and almost all of my cousins have accounts so I thought I would give it a try. I sent requests to my 2 daughters (19 and 17) and was very pleasantly surprised when they accepted my request with “It’s about time” from my 19yo!</p>
<p>EK, ask her what happened. I had a friend disappear like that, and then I found out that Facebook had banned her because they thought she was a spammer! She was pretty upset about it, and emailed them to let her back on. After a week, they did let her back on, with limited capabilities (I think she can only wall-post, but not send other types of messages).</p>
<p>My parents are adding photos on facebook right now! Should I add them? I wouldn’t mind as long as they don’t use it to stalk/spy on me.
Then again I’m not very active on it anyway and I don’t have anything stupid posted on it.</p>
<p>I think it is important to set your privacy limits to 'FRIENDS" only - otherwise anyone can see your information. My dD friended me, and (:))so did my DS, but I told him I wasn’t interested in seeing pictures involving scantily clad party-goers, so he has limited my access so that I see only a few chaste photos.</p>