Then I started to fall into this routine. I started out looking at my daughter’s wall. Then I figured out which kids in their circle of friends didn’t have their walls blocked. I would read the posts, look at their pictures, etc. Then I would want to fill in the pieces of the story. I would check my daughter’s texts.

The sad thing is that I think it actually hurt my communication with my daughter. Rather than seeing her looking a bit dejected and asking sincerely about what was wrong, I already knew (and felt guilty about it), so I was probably more nonchalant than I should have been. I realized how horrible my invasion of her privacy was and I decided to focus on my own life. I had a friend change my facebook password so I can’t get in for awhile.

The best part is that my daughter is talking to me more than ever now and telling me many of the things I used to read. I will still check in if I think there is a real reason to do it, but I am going to try the old fashioned way of parenting for awhile… face-to-face communication with my daughter.

And a lot of people apparently need to get a clue about how Facebook works. No, just because your child friended you does not mean you can see everything they’re doing. There are tons of nuanced privacy controls that allow a user to control who sees what. Get with the program and read about Facebook in detail or log into your account and start checking the privacy controls out.

And no, just because someone has a Facebook account does not mean the whole world has access to their page. Anyone who has spent a decent amount of time learning about Facebook would know this. I’m 29 years old, and have no interest in showing my boss or professors or family or co-workers what I was doing over the weekend, even if I was just going to a bookstore or a BBQ. So my Facebook page’s privacy settings doesn’t allow people who aren’t my friends to see anything but my main picture and some very scant details (name, location, some groups I’m a member of). They also don’t allow family members who have friended me to see my wall, see tagged photos, certain photo albums, or tagged videos. I would like to assume I don’t have any family members who would poke around my Facebook simply because they’re nosy. But as this blog proves, you just never know.

When I was about 14 my mother read my diary. She had no serious cause for concern as her reason for doing this. I was a good kid: made good grades, my favorite hobby was reading, I’d never been in any trouble. Nope, my mom is just a nosy type of person and let the urge to poke around overcome her common sense. And when I found out she’d read my diary it seriously undermined my trust in her. To the point that I didn’t tell her a lot of things I wish I could have talked to her about.

Voice of Reason: I am on a public forum because I have (or at least think I have) good ideas about Child raising and this is an easy way to get it out

To almost every one else, If you are stalking your child without them knowing, stop. Now most of them accepted you as friends which allows you to see what they say which could be taken as permission however you need to consider one thing; You are NOT their friends. What you can get out of them face to face is fair game but what you have to electronically pry (spend more then 5 minutes looking for) is stalking to at least a dishonest degree. So for everyone who was ever a child, parents get out of your childs life besides what they let you in on

I mean do I know what I’m talking about? No. I’m just some yoohoo who saw this and was like “Hey- I should voice my opinion in a public forum. That will make me feel important!”

And yet, here I am, blathering on. Am I the type of person you want telling you how to raise your kid?

Maybe. But maybe I’m a serial killer. You don’t know.

http://www.theonion.com/content/video/facebook_twitter_revolutionizing?utm_source=videoembed

While I have never had cause or reason to read my children’s email, search through their Facebook profiles, or search their rooms, I have made it clear to them in the past that I am their father, I am responsible for them, and I would be within my rights as their father to do so. Implicit in that statement is a truth about the Internet.

Nothing is private.

Certainly there are degrees of privacy on the Internet. There is a reasonable expectation that when you write an email to another person, it is not going to appear the next day on the front page of the Washington Post unless the recipient gives it to the Washington Post, and that’s an important conversation to have with your teen, as well as the related conversation about picking a good password and NOT SHARING IT (a conversation the woman I am dating now are trying to have and impress upon her tweenage daughter.)

Now as to Facebook, while it is not in the public domain [which has a specific legal meaning], as suggested above, information from Facebook can be widely disseminated. So we come back to my original point — educate your kids about privacy on the Internet

As Jennifer points out, you should not be stalking your child on the Internet (be it Facebook, email, whatever), but Facebook, cell phone and email access are not rights, they are privileges. Simply because technology has driven down the cost of this and opened up the varieties of way kids connect to one another does not change that, and (also as pointed out above) gives the Bad Guys new venues to exploit potential victims.

Caveat Emptor.