I won't let my dd on my space, but it seems like I have seen posts about safer places for younger kids that are similar to this. I regulate all internet time, and the computer is here in the living room facing out towards the chairs, so that isn't an issue, but I was wondering if it is here that I saw some cool looking sites mentioned...

Thanks!

By Cocoabutter on Wednesday, December 27, 2006 - 10:47 pm:

It was here, in a post I started about a site that my son's friend wants to go on when he is at our house.

Club Penguin?

After giving this some thought, I have decided that I will not allow my son to go online to play anything but games on websites like Cartoon Network or Noggin, or educational sites like Ed Heads. I don't want him to get hooked on online social networking. It's way too early. It's too dangerous to be communicating with anyone online that he doesn't know. No matter how "safe" these sites may try to be or how well we watch over our kids, ANYONE can go online and give ANY age, especially predators wanting a kid to talk to.

He socializes at school and with neighbor kids. That is the most healthy way to get to know people early on in life. We as adults know that we don't really KNOW these people on these message boards, so we approach this type of communication with a more mature mindset. But kids just aren't ready for this kind of responsibility.

By Mommmie on Wednesday, December 27, 2006 - 10:48 pm:

Xanga.com is for younger kids. It still needs to be monitored though.

By Bobbie~moderatr on Thursday, December 28, 2006 - 01:07 am:

My oldest dd is 17 and a senior this year. She has a My Space and had a Xanga prior to that. Both programs are able to be made private. The reason so many kids have gotten themselves into trouble with these sites is that their parents haven't done their research before allowing the child to set up their accounts. The child, on the other hand, doesn't understand the importance of privacy when out in the world wide web and doesn't bother to set up the security that is provided by those companies for a very good reason. Until a problem arises most parents aren't even aware their children have a My Space. My daughter and son (15 in February, Freshman) both have friends that are forbidden from having My Space accounts, yet they still have them. But how many teens completely do what their parents tell them to do (or not do)? I know I didn't. If everyone else was planning to jump of the bridge, I would have been darned if they were going to do it with out me. I am of the mind, give a little and control it, give nothing and have no control.


By the way, my girls are only going to be 10 (March) and they get on line to play games and to do "research" as they call it. They don't have the ability to deal with the possibility of a problem yet. I am still the BIG boss in their world.

By Luvn29 on Thursday, December 28, 2006 - 12:05 pm:

I was looking for something that I can make private so only a few of her friends can be there. Is that a possibility? I don't want to allow her to socialize with just anyone that pops up. Can you have a private place like that where the only person or people that can visit the site or post or chat is someone with a password or something?

Thanks!

By Mommmie on Thursday, December 28, 2006 - 02:00 pm:

You can do that on Myspace. They can have private accounts not viewable to the general public.

By Cocoabutter on Thursday, December 28, 2006 - 04:03 pm:

Bobbie, I totally agree with you. My son is only 10, and I do not believe that he is anywhere near ready to go online to socialize, but he does play games and look up cheats to his favorite video games. The reason I brought it up before is that he has a friend who is a couple of years older and whose mom is not very observant. He goes on Club Penguin, and has asked to use our computer to go there, and I have said no.

I don't know any specifics about any of the other social websites. Sorry, Adena!

By Luvn29 on Thursday, December 28, 2006 - 04:53 pm:

Well, I went on and checked out Club Penguin, and it isn't what I am looking for. I just felt uncomfortable from the time I was on there because one "penguin" had a sad face, and we asked why, and they stated because no boys liked them. Another came straight up to us and asked our exact age. Another went to another penguin and cuddled up and sent up the "in love" sign. Another said "Does anyone need a girl?". So, it just didn't feel right to me.

I may just let Emily chat on my Messenger with her friend once in awhile with my permission. I just feel better about that. That way, I know who she is talking with. I'm just not ready to let her socialize freely with anyone on the web. And she's not wanting to, she just wants to chat with her best friend, so I think my messenger account will be best for her.

By Cocoabutter on Thursday, December 28, 2006 - 08:38 pm:

It may depend on what kind of messenger you use, but even some of them are prone to spam and solicitations.

What about just email?

By Bobbie~moderatr on Thursday, December 28, 2006 - 09:53 pm:

All your messengers can be blocked so that only your friends can contact you. Callie said once it is set up to block all others the only outside contact you have is if you go to a chat room.

My Space can be blocked, but the childs friends will also have to have a My Space to access the account. Which is the same with the childs friends and the messengers. You would need to contact the other parent find out which messenger they use and request they also apply the blocks and have your child added to the others messengers. And the chats should be monitored..

Open chats, by the way are a bad bad place for a child to go.. It is easy to go in as child... Which means any man with and issue has the potential to be talking to your child.. They just can't be protected in a chatroom.. I have had issues with my

By Cocoabutter on Thursday, December 28, 2006 - 09:58 pm:

After emailing my cousin who is a computer science major she said that as long as your dd creates her own messenger ID and only gives it to people she knows and doesn't leave it anywhere like a message board, she should be safe. She may get spammed, but it would be rare.

I used to have a membership to a couple of Yahoo message boards, and whenever I signed in to my Yahoo IM account, anywhere I posted as a member would show that I was online. People troll those baords and I got all kinds of wierdos IMing me saying "You look interesting!" or "wanna talk?" So I deleted all my memberships, but I never use Yahoo Instant Messenger anymore anyway. It was just to talk to my mom, but her computer went kerplooey a long time ago.

By Dawnk777 on Thursday, December 28, 2006 - 11:19 pm:

When strange people contact me, I just block them. I don't have my messaging programs up, all that often. I used to chat all the time, but it seems more and more, that I just want to have my own time on the computer and that's it.

Sometimes, I do IM with my daughters who might be on a different computer and we're all looking at Youtube videos or something, so we can comment with each other and send links to other videos, though.

By Luvn29 on Friday, December 29, 2006 - 11:44 am:

Thanks guys! I use Windows Messenger and neither my daughter nor I ever are on a chat room on-line, so maybe that wouldn't be a problem....

I was thinking only letting her give it to the one friend, and letting her chat with her on the messenger once in awhile.

Thanks for all the help everyone!