<p>S1, 16, has recently gotten a Facebook, which has meant many more party invites. He got a new invite for next weekend. I asked him to show me the actual invitation so I could see who all was going, etc. as I didn’t know the host/hostess or their parents. Well, let’s just say the description of the party was, uh, lewd. I’m sure the lewdness was bravado and, I think, just hiphop song lyrics. I recognize several of the kids on the invite list, and they are great kids.</p>
<p>1) Do you ever look at what your kids get/send on Facebook or MySpace?</p>
<p>2) Would the lewd invite bug you?</p>
<p>3) Would it bother you enough to keep your kid home???</p>
<p>Kids are going to party whether you like it or not. The only thing you can really do is try to make sure he is safe and doesn’t end up drinking and driving or not using a condom. The more you tell him he can’t go, the more he will want to. It’s actually really surprising that he let you see it and even told you about such a party.</p>
<p>My mom always told me to tell her if I want to drink and she’ll let me. Since she lets me, the thrill of it is kinda gone. Partying isn’t such a big thing to me.</p>
<p>I wouldn’ care so much abou the lewd invite. If I didn’t know the host then the answer would be no. If I couldn’t call the parents to see if they would be home or if there would be alcohol, then the answer would be no also.</p>
<p>OKgirl…maybe I’m just an abnormal teenager, but my parents don’t let me drink and I’m sure they wouldn’t like it if I went to a party and got drunk/had sex, but I don’t do any of that. It doesn’t appeal to me…at all. And it’s less appealing to me, because I know if I did that, my parents would neither respect nor trust me anymore.</p>
<p>TimeCruncher - I think you should amend your first statement:
My daughter has neither a Facebook nor a MySpace account THAT I AM AWARE OF. The odds are fairly high that she has one or the other, it was just set up using someone else’s computer. I could be wrong, but there are very few kids today who don’t have one or the other. FB and MySpace are not evil in and of themselves, it all depends on how they’re used.</p>
<p>My answers:
Sometimes my daughter (16) shows me things on her Facebook page. And many times she forgets to log out, so I take advantage and check her page and many of her friends’ pages. I see her FB page more than she thinks I do.</p>
<p>2) Depends on how lewd the description was, and how well I knew the kid throwing the party, his parents, and the kids attending. If it’s just a description like “We’re gonna have a f***ing great time,” I’d say it’s fine. From what I’ve seen, foul language is very common among boys on Facebook. If it’s claiming that certain things (drinking, drugs, sex) will be going on at the party, that’s a different matter. </p>
<p>3) See answer # 2.</p>
<p>Since I think I’ve seen a pretty good amount of FB pages, and I’ve never seen a “lewd” invitation, this would indeed raise red flags for me.</p>
<p>edit: “If I couldn’t call the parents to see if they would be home or if there would be alcohol, then the answer would be no.” I agree with old fort on this point!</p>
<p>OKgirl, my son and I have a pretty good relationship. I know his FB name and password, and he knows I reserve the right to look at it anytime.</p>
<p>Lafalum, it’s funny you mention the possiblity of a secret account. I noticed one of his friends has a page, and her parents are so strict they make me look like Courtney Love. I’d be surprised if they knew about it.</p>
<p>oldfort, I definitely would call the parents before the party. Always do. I don’t know them, but I know parents who do know them and will be asking around.</p>
<p>My son and I talked about it – when we showed his dad the invite, he just laughed! – and I assured him that when I was his age kids said crude things, too, but no one committed it to writing and put it out there. FYI, the lewd things were about carpet burns and stuff like that. @@</p>
<p>To Lafalum84: This thread is about the OP’s son, not about my daughter, so I will make this response to you brief. I will amend nothing. My family has serious privacy issues (which you are unaware of), and every member of my household–especially my daughter–must take these issues seriously.</p>
<p>TimeCruncher I should not have said that the odds were “fairly high” that she has a Facebook. </p>
<p>BUT… It has been repeated many times by parenting experts: you can never know for sure what your child is doing on the computer, because kids have access to computers everywhere. For that reason, school officials are always emphasizing to us parents that we need to discuss internet privacy and safety with our kids. They want us to understand that it’s not enough to forbid our kids to have a Facebook, or to ban IM in our houses. The kids need to understand how these things work and how to protect themselves. I didn’t mean to imply that you haven’t discussed these issues with your daughter, or that she has defied your wishes. But it is a fact - it is entirely possible for a child to be using FaceBook, MySpace and AIM and the parent to have no absolutely no knowledge of it. And to deny that possibility would indeed be irresponsible parenting. </p>
<p>Back to the OP: “when I was his age kids said crude things, too, but no one committed it to writing and put it out there.” Readers Digest recently noted that this isn’t the first generation to do stupid things - they’re just the first ones to broadcast their stupidity to the world!</p>
<p>As a school administrator, I have had several occasions of having to show parents what their child has attempted to access on facebook/myspace through campus computers. These were parents who were adamant that their children had no involvment in any such sites.</p>
<p>The comments here are not about your daughter, they are about parents in denial.</p>
<p>OP, I think since facebook has opened to HS students there is the chance of their underage immaturity to go overboard. As you state you will verify adult supervision etc. you are doing the same thing you would do with a verbal or handwritten invite. I guess what I am saying is aware parenting is good parenting even in the electronic age. As I always like to quote Nixon??? “Trust but verify”!</p>
<p>Cruising facebook when your child is underage, is good parenting, but prepared for a few shockers now and again!</p>
<p>“Kids are going to party whether you like it or not.”</p>
<p>I am so SICK of this.</p>
<p>I was just awakened at 4 a.m. by four cop cars and two ambulances because the kid across the street dropped from a drug overdose in the middle of the street.</p>
<p>This is in the street IN FRONT OF HIS OWN HOME.
The parents host parties at their pool for their three children on a practically weekly basis.</p>
<p>This is not the first time I’ve been awakened by cop cars on my upper middle class street.</p>
<p>What are the parents doing? What are they thinking?</p>
<p>Reminds me of Fourth of July…my neighbor’s oldest son ended up in the hospital because he and his siblings decided to jump through the shower of sparks emitted by the fireworks, and the hem of his jeans caught on fire. He was burned pretty badly. We were all standing there in my front yard when it happened, and his parents were standing right there. What the hell was his mother thinking? “Go ahead, honey, jump over the sparks, they won’t hurt you…it’s just FIRE.”</p>
<p><em>Sigh</em> They really should administer a test or something before you can become a parent.</p>
<p>In college, yes, if they happen to like partying (some don’t). In high school, not necessarily. Parents do have some control and should have some awareness of what their teens are doing.</p>
<p>When my d first wanted to set up Facebook and Myspace accounts, I agreed on the grounds that she would allow me reasonable access, on my request and for a specific reason. She agreed, and has periodically offered to share her profiles and pictures with me, etc. I have not needed to ask to see them at other times.</p>
<p>I’m comfortable about this in large part because her two older sisters are both her online “friends” and take a proprietary interest in her online doings. This was borne out last October when each of them called me within 20 minutes to ask if I knew that her status had changed to being “in a relationship.” Youngest d had actually told me about it while she was in the process of updating her profile, so I had at least 20 minutes to adjust to the idea and could say to the other daughters, “Oh yes, I know all about it.” :)</p>
<p>To the OP - I think oldfort has great advice. Since you don’t know the parents, I’d call and ask if they’ll be there.</p>
<p>Many kids will have false entries in their profile/status. Just for the heck. I have seen kids state that they are married, taking a gap year, whatever, just for attention, or for fun.</p>
<p>I just found out from my 2 older kids that my 14-year-old has a Facebook account. Now, this is in spite of our talk about NOT getting one. Anyway, my S let me see the young’ns pages, read her wall, etc., and it was very clean and cute and hysterically funny.</p>
<p>So after a stern lecture to her, when she returns from camp, I will “cave in” :rolleyes:</p>
<p>So far so good. We decided to let our daughter, now a rising college junior, have more latitude once she started driving. She was aware that she was going to be help accountable for her actions if she did anything that we wouldn’t approve of. Part of the reason for starting this during her junior year of hs was knowing that she was going off to school in a relatively short period of time and we would have no say in what or how she did anything. If she was going to have a major screw up we would rather it be at home where we could help her through it. We loosened the reins some in her junior year and then she was on her own her senior year. We’re happy to say she appears to be more responsible and in control than some of her peers at school so maybe something worked. We kind of looked at it this way… If we didn’t do our job as parents the first 16 years, we weren’t going to have much impact after that. You have to trust their judgment unless they have given you reason no to in the past.</p>
<p>pmrl, that’s exactly how I feel. In two years, he’ll be totally on his own, so you have to loosen those apron strings at some point. He’s never given us a moment’s worry, so I trust him. The fact that he let me see the FB invite says there is a level of trust from him, and I hate to blow it by overreacting.</p>
<p>He went to a slightly smaller party a few weeks ago with some of the same kids. The difference for me was that I knew the parents well, had been to their house to socialize, worked on the same school committees, etc. Interestingly, he said he didn’t enjoy the party that much and even called and asked me to pick him up early. These kids are kind of A-list kids, popular, hard-working and some are kind of preppy (as preppy as his alternative school gets!). He said he didn’t know any of the music they played (indie, but he’s into classic rock). This guest list is a little larger and includes more friends who are in his usual social circle. Those are the kids I know well and don’t worry about!</p>
<p>We live in a very small community where we know or know of almost all of the kids our go to school with (graduating classes of 120 or so). That makes life a little easier. We are somewhat high-profile parents as we have bother been heads of various community groups and organizations so people know us and our kids. This is the kind of community where if I see someone elses kid doing something stupid I either say something directly or call the parents. </p>
<p>I do think the best thing you can do is let him know you trust him and his judgement. Also let him know the consequences if he makes a bad decision. We were never foolish enough to think our D wouldn’t drink but she was always smart enough to do it in moderation… We never had to pick her up from anywhere but she knew she was better off calling us and taking the lecture than trying to hide things. The one cardinal rule is never lie to us. She learned early that the consequences for lying were much more severe than the consequences for what she actually did. I would say it has all worked out well as she has spent the last two summers living with us and not avoiding us… She usually hangs with us and watches movies with friends or whatever. Hopefully the 17 y.o. son will be as accommodating!</p>
<p>It sounds like we have trustworthy kids. Just be prepared for the mistakes and know you did your job when they come to you for advice. We’re no longer as stupid as we were 3 or 4 years ago. LOL</p>
<p>pmrl-you sound a LOT like my parents! I learned in about 7th grade that there was nothing that was worth lying to my parents about, because they’d only find out later and be extra mad because I lied to them.</p>
<p>Now that’s not to say that I’m the perfect child…my parents don’t know about everything I do/have done, and there are some little white lies that happen every now and then. But for the most part, I tell my parents everything.</p>
<p>Same thing happened with me as well…they loosened the reins quite a bit when I started driving. I really had no rules, except that I had to maintain good grades or they would no longer pay for insurance or gas (and they still pay for both :)). However, they were VERY disappointed when they found out that I was driving other people when I wasn’t supposed to (in CA, we can’t drive others under the age of 20 until we’ve had our license for a year or if there’s an adult in the car). Again, I should’ve just told them.</p>
<p>OP: I would try and touch base with the parents. If they’re not going to be there and you don’t know the kids throwing the party, I don’t know that I would even go, let alone let my children go (but then, I’ve never been a partier).</p>
<p>We have a similar law here in Ohio but it wasn’t in effect for her. It is for our son. He still has restrictions on who he can take and there are curfews in our city. We do know that he will occassionally take the extra person with him somewhere or come home after the city curfew. He also knows he does it at his own risk. If he gets caught, he pays the ticket and the increase in insurance or whatever other ramifications there are. </p>
<p>No kids are perfect Grace. There is a difference between white lies and outright lying… I don’t want to know everything our kids do unless something goes wrong. Then I expect we will be the first to know. It is to protect them…</p>
This guest list is a little larger and includes more friends who are in his usual social circle. Those are the kids I know well and don’t worry about!</p>