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<p>No, you don’t. They may be hiding a lot from you but that has nothing to do with FB.</p>
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<p>As far as FB goes, there is nothing to hide as both work professionally and are not stupid to post something that would not look right professionally let alone for my eyes. </p>
<p>As far as the rest of their lives, sure they may have things I don’t know. I have things in my life they don’t know. But I do know their daily plans and thoughts about various things as they share a GREAT deal. One of my D’s has a BF and I certainly know about that. If there is something they are not sharing, that is their right as adults to have some conversations with others or something else in their life that their parents don’t know. I feel I know so much about my kids and their daily lives and I’m real fine with it. They also come to me often for advice and things that they don’t want to ask a friend about. My mom used to criticize me for knowing SO much about my kids that it is funny to think that someone would think I don’t know enough! :D</p>
<p>Of course, they could be hiding things. That’s not what I meant. Don’t see the need to answer so aggressively. I just meant that they’re not wanting to be “friended” on facebook doesn’t imply they’re hiding anything.</p>
<p>I <em>do</em> think it’s going to be a real challenge for our generation (it is for me) to accept our kids moving away from us. I was so much closer with my kids than my parents were with me. But it’s a normal and healthy stage of maturation.</p>
<p>I do and will miss them, but it is thrilling to watch them get on with their lives.</p>
<p>Now back to the salt mines to reinvent mine.</p>
<p>Not all young adults post a lot on FB, believe it or not. I’ll probably be criticized for this, but I can view my daughter’s boyfriend’s FB wall (he must not have it set to private) and for example, there are NO posts ever by my D on his wall. She has a busy life and doesn’t spend it chatting it up online. His wall announces this or that show he is in, all of which I know about anyway. Both D and her BF were in a show together last night in fact. I even joined the event page for their show. I don’t need FB to find out this stuff. My Ds tell me ALL of it anyway, and way beyond what I am sure they write on FB. My Ds are often in published articles and they send me the links and I send them links when I find them online (googling my Ds brings up many pages of “hits”, particularly younger D) Not being FB pals with our kids doesn’t preclude knowing everything they tell on FB anyway! Definitely not in my case. Whatever they may tell on FB I know through other means directly from them. The ONLY thing I am missing by not being FB pals is who is chatting with them and posts by others on their wall. Do I need to know that? NOPE. My kids already tell me about their friends.</p>
<p>Inappropriate behavior by adults when they have access to kids FB…</p>
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<li><p>My younger brother friended my teenage nephew on FB. He saw a group of girls started up a fan club for my nephew on FB, innocent, but clearly not something my nephew would say anything about. My brother (nephew’s uncle) made a joke about it at a large family gathering, which really embarrassed my 14 year old nephew. Not right.</p></li>
<li><p>A relative who friended D1 when she was in high school downloaded one of D1’s pictures with her sorority sisters, and contacted one of those girls. Creepy.</p></li>
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<p>I told the girls to un-friend all adults, and not accept any friend request from boss, co-workers, professors, relatives, friends’ parents (especially BF). As D1 gets older, she has her own adult friends (over 25) and she decides if she wants to let them in to her FB.</p>
<p>I got on FB last spring which was not long after my then 8th grader got on. S showed me a page called “I Hate (classmates name)” and I was horrified at what these middle school students were posting. My college age D was also horrified. I was in the process of notifying someone at the middle school about this when the page was taken down. Apparently someone else had reported it. Shortly after this I created an account and “friended” both of my kids. I am less concerned about the older child but I monitor the younger one. I had him remove a comment he has posted which said something like one of his teachers didn’t know what was going on (true, but not appropriate).</p>
<p>FallGirl, if I had an 8th grader, I would feel as you do. FB was not available to those not in college prior to my kids entering college and so this never came up. For a significant chunk of their college years, I wasn’t even on FB myself. I only joined FB in order to join a private parent group that was organized among some CCers with a common interest in fact. </p>
<p>We are all talking about seeing our kids’ FB walls. But in my case, I really don’t love the idea of my kids seeing MY wall. That is because I mostly use FB to communicate with the parents in my little group. We talk about our kids. That is the nature of our “group” and so my kids likely would not love all this chit chat about THEM. I have a very small set of FB friends and this is mostly what I use it for and not staying in touch with other family or friends at all.</p>
<p>Call me old fashioned, but I still use phone or email to communicate with relatives. One of my relatives died today. I have a lot of phone communications today. None of this is over facebook! NONE of us are even FRIENDS on FB. I guess we are all hiding something???</p>
<p>Also, neither of my kids, or myself, has Twitter. Does that mean we don’t share or stay in touch? Nope. And if they had Twitter, would I need to see all the tweets their friends left on their Twitter page? No.</p>
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<p>My kids might send me photos if I wasn’t on FB, although probably not, as I barely saw any photos from my daughter the entire time she was in college, and she was the editor-in-chief of her school’s photo-magazine, so I know she was snapping photos. The problem is, I would not be sending them photos as every online photo gallery I’ve tried, besides FB, has ended up being a huge frustration. FB is the most user-friendly one I’ve come across. I don’t put a lot of stuff up, but what I do put up, they want. I’m embarrassed to admit that since I got my digital camera, I have not developed a hard copy of a single photo. I have edited down what is on my camera with the intention of eventually taking the memory stick in to get developed. But I think my kids have figured out that, for now, FB is probably the only way they are going to get anything at all.</p>
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<p>I have never spoken to my husband on FB either in private message, on his wall, or anywhere in the medium. I know some people do use FB for close relationships, but I think the more useful part of it is to stay in touch with people with whom you would otherwise not have much contact. The people closest to you are people you’re going to talk to anyway.</p>
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<p>Exactly my thoughts. Those I am closest to, such as my kids and ALL relatives, talk to me frequently anyway and I don’t need FB to share with them whatsoever. I’m not FB friends with any of them, not just my kids.</p>
<p>The only thing I miss by not being FB friends with my kids is viewing who else is leaving comments for them. We don’t share our photos via FB but by other means.</p>
<p>I can certainly understand that for whatever reason, not everyone wants to be FB friends with their college aged kids. And it’s ridiculous to imply that that must always have to do with issues of closeness or trust. But on the other hand, I disagree with the notion that once you share in print (and for all time) with scores or hundreds of other readers, anything you write can or should realistically be deemed remotely “private.” </p>
<p>What this thread and all its diversity of opinion suggests to me is if your kids have an expectation of privacy on FB and are friends with people whose family dynamics vis a vis FB differ significantly from theirs, they should be even less surprised when “private remarks” and wall conversations are shared with others. Many people our age are on FB now, many of whom HAVE adopted an open, intergenerational approach. This is something I think many younger people still haven’t fully processed. An adult shares what he or she reads with his or her kid (or a friend of your kid’s) and yours eventually hears about it. Or kid shares a friend’s page with a parent who ends up telling the kid’s parents friends, all while the kid’s own parent is still oblivious. Bottom line, if a wall post is insensitive, TMI, offensive, or would embarrass anyone, whether among the friend group or not, it really shouldn’t be up there.</p>
<p>As long as the ‘experts’ agree that parents need to monitor their children’s internet behavior then I will do so without hesitation. Just because a kid is 18 and out of high school or walks through the doors of a college does not mean they are able to handle indepedence and responsibility the way we would hope they do. If that were the case then tragic victims like Natalie Holloway, and others like her, would still be alive.</p>
<p>My sister used to fight me on this issue expressing a desire not to be bothered by the whole FB phenomenon. I asked her if she would allow her teenaged daughter out in the world without supervision. She responded ‘of course not.’ I said that is what she’s doing, but in the cyber world, if she did not get up to speed. </p>
<p>Again, college kids are a different level of involvement and more choice but I can almost bet that the kids who post the stuff that gets them in trouble rarely have their parents as ‘friends.’</p>
<p>If that were the case then tragic victims like Natalie Holloway, and others like her, would still be alive.</p>
<p>I so disagree.</p>
<p>As on the thread " do as I say, not as I do", I can speak for myself & others that wild behavior does not mean that tragedy will ensue.
It also does not mean that if tragedy * does* occur, that wild behavior came first.</p>
<p>^^^ (reference to denise’s post)
Don’t be too sure.</p>
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<p>I don’t agree with that. There are many young people who have traveled by themselves and have lived happily ever after. A lot of adults have also been robbed, kidnapped and raped with all the precaution in the world.</p>
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<p>I can almost bet that kids who DON’t post the stuff that gets them in trouble don’t necessary have their parents as ‘friends.’</p>
<p>Kids who get into trouble will get into trouble even with heavy parental monitoring.</p>
<p>It’s more important to teach our kids what is right or wrong, not by monitoring.</p>
<p>I have no issue with family staying in touch through FB, but if it’s purely for monitoring then one has to wonder if it’s the best way.</p>
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<p>We are back to the monitoring issue. :D</p>
<p>denise…again, you are at a transition point as a parent. You have not really had your kids as independent young adults yet, given their ages. I was where you were at now at one time too! :)</p>
<p>You mention Natalie Halloway. My older daughter has done the following things (ALL unsupervised, unlike poor Natalie’s trip which was supposedly supervised)…
Age 18…drove 6000 miles to Alaska
Age 19…went to work in France for the summer on her own, knew nobody.
Age 20…went to work and lived alone in Paris for the summer, knew nobody…traveled to many countries in Europe by herself while there
Age 20…studied one semester abroad in Italy and lived in an apartment with others, traveled many places independently
Age 22…went to work in France for the summer and lived alone where she knew nobody, and travelled to many countries by herself while there
Age 22…traveled around Cambodia and Laos with another young woman, in obscure places…went over there from the US alone
Age 23…moved to Switzerland for a summer job where she knew nobody, and has traveled to many places alone
Age 24 (as of two days ago)…is moving tomorrow for nine months to work in France where she knows nobody but her employer and will have an apartment alone. </p>
<p>I know where she is and she contacts me upon arrival every time she changes her location and is in contact by phone and email every couple of days. I do not monitor her every move. If she goes out for the evening, I will have no idea if she got home again.</p>
<p>Did she do this while in high school unsupervised? NOPE. You haven’t really yet lived the parent role of having to let go of supervision yet, understandably. </p>
<p>Also, my other D started college at age 16 in Manhattan. She grew up in a rural area where she was never ever unsupervised and never took any public transportation, etc. She has remained in NYC since the day she got there five years ago. I had to adjust. My role in monitoring her has changed. She tells me her basic plans but I don’t know the hour she arrived home, who she was with, etc. as I did when she was growing up prior to college. She is alone on NYC streets all the time. Last month, she went to Europe for two weeks. One of the weeks she was all alone in Paris. She is 21. I had to adjust to this new stage of my life of not monitoring her every move. We are in regular contact. I advise my kids, and they share with me. I no longer monitor and supervise their every move as I had done prior to college.</p>
<p>denise, you mention that you asked your sister if she’d let her teenage daughter out in the world unsupervised. Well, if you asked me that when my kids were still living at home, I’d have a very different answer than I have now that they are independent (college years and also beyond). Supervision as teens prior to college? Yes. Monitoring them while in college and beyond? No. Aware of their daily happenings? Yes, but not monitoring everything they do and who they talk to.</p>
<p>The style and manner in which one supervises a child under 18 living at home is not the same as a kid over 18 who is living independently from his/her parents. It shouldn’t be.</p>
<p>By the way, Natalie Halloway’s parents sent her on a SUPERVISED trip. They would have assumed she would not have the opportunity to go out clubbing alone and without supervision. They would have assumed that the leaders on the trip would know before the next morning whether or not Natalie had gone to bed in her hotel room. It was a false sense of safety in terms of the “supervision.”</p>
<p>That ‘wild’ behavior was not that wild. She met what looked like a cute nice guy on vacation. Her judgment about leaving with him was likely impaired by alcohol or drugs. The point was not that she was acting wild. I guess no one here has heard the statistics about under aged drinking and premarital sex. The point was that we can take precautions and prepare them to hilt and they can still make bad choices. One simply needs to do a search for ill advised postings on FB and you will find scores of stories and many of them were college aged kids.</p>
<p>I’m not sure what the debate is here. The experts say that monitoring on line is important. Presumably parents would be lucky as I am and their kids WANT them there. But if not, the parents still have EVERY right to be there whether the kids like it or not. Again, for the millionth time, I’m making a distinction for college aged kids. Parents may not have the ‘right and the responsibility’ to ‘monitor’ their college aged kids online behavior but also don’t stop being parents once the kid turns 18 or enrolls in college.</p>