quote:Lester's mother told The Saginaw News that her daughter has "never given me a day's trouble. ... I just don't understand with all these new laws protecting America how a 16-year-old kid could get out of the country."
Translation: It's not my fault. It's not the kid's fault. It's the government's fault.
Posted by Princess Leah (Member # 6026) on :
Because soooo many of those new laws totally focus on making it really hard to get *out* of the coutnry... [snarky comment about immigration debate]
Posted by Phanto (Member # 5897) on :
Talking to underage children should be outlawed.
Posted by Euripides (Member # 9315) on :
Myspace. Yuck.
Posted by Tatiana (Member # 6776) on :
I wonder if the girl is from an abusive family? That is a possibility the article, the police, and so on, seem not to have considered.
Posted by Palliard (Member # 8109) on :
Oh, *pshaw*. YOU were never underage, you were born 40 years old. And your mother never forgave you for it.
Posted by docmagik (Member # 1131) on :
There's a longer article you have to give up some info to read here.
See, it goes something like this. The girl told her parents she was going with a friend to Canada. So, she goes with her Mom to the bus station and the Mom wants to wait with her. She keeps telling her Mom it's okay, Mom, go, I can wait for them. The Mom insists on staying. The other family never shows up.
Mom calls Dad, Dad calls friend's family, friend's family says there's no such trip. They take the girl home.
The next day, Mom goes to work and leaves the daughter home alone--girl calls a cab, splits, and when Mom gets home, the girl's not there.
Mom's suprised.
Posted by T_Smith (Member # 3734) on :
Theres a new MySpace news article every other week, it seems.
Is it because some teenagers do stupid things? Is it because MySpace itself causes people to do stupid things? I think theres a MySpace horror story every week because its a story that requires minimal journalism skills, combining people being less than bright, and pointing a direct finger blaming a site that is popular for teenagers primarily to use the site as a scape goat for responsibility. And people (primarily parents, whom the articles are targeted towards) eat that up because its a horror story with a simple to understand cause and effect: "MySpace means your children will run off to meet with older men, or will cause your children to be engaged in deviant behavior."
I believe this because it seems anytime something like this happens, there's the phrase "On MySpace" right in the headline. Of course, I would probably laugh if I ever saw a headline "Nothing Bad On MySpace Today, Police Will Try Again Tomorrow."
Posted by pH (Member # 1350) on :
People enjoy soliciting me for prostitution on Myspace.
I've also met many, many cool people on that site, including my boyfriend, but the solicitation stories are funnier.
-pH
Posted by docmagik (Member # 1131) on :
The internet is like the whole world in a box.
Just like parents wouldn't hand their kids the keys to the car, day after day, and just say, "Go! Go wherever you want, talk to whoever you want to talk to!" parents shouldn't give their kids free reign in the internet.
It's not a privacy issue. It's a keep your kids safe issue.
Myspace is like sending your kids to a giant club full of all kinds of people. Some good, some bad, lots of them perverted, and a bunch there because they're hoping to score. It's not the only place like that on the internet, but it's by far the one the most kids have decided they need to hang out at.
It may have at one point been a cool place for kids to do thier thing, but it's become a pedophile shop at home catalog.
Posted by Tresopax (Member # 1063) on :
quote:Just like parents wouldn't hand their kids the keys to the car, day after day, and just say, "Go! Go wherever you want, talk to whoever you want to talk to!" parents shouldn't give their kids free reign in the internet.
I think you may be looking at the situation backwards. The problem here is not the internet - given it is just as possible she'd meet someone in real life that would convince her to run away with them as it is she'd meet such a person on the internet. Internet or no internet, she is going to have to interact with people in the world. The real problem here is that for some reason the girl had the poor judgement to run off and leave the country, and was able to get away with doing it.
Instead of worrying about the internet, what parents should really do to prevent this is not let their kids run off. If you raise them in a way that they may want to do that, then I don't think keeping them off the internet is doing much if anything to proect them.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:it is just as possible she'd meet someone in real life that would convince her to run away with them as it is she'd meet such a person on the internet
I dispute this.
Posted by Tresopax (Member # 1063) on :
Put this single case in perspective. This site suggests that 1 in 7 kids run away from home at some point, amounting to over a million a year. 23% travel 50 miles or more from home. I seriously doubt those million kids are all meeting people over the internet and would have been safe if they weren't allowed to go online... I'd be willing to bet the vast majority who were persuaded to do it, were done so by someone they had actually met in real life.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:I seriously doubt those million kids are all meeting people over the internet and would have been safe if they weren't allowed to go online...
That's not a particularly viable argument, Tres.
Posted by Tatiana (Member # 6776) on :
Kids run away for valid reasons, too, like abusive families.
Posted by Joldo (Member # 6991) on :
You know, saying the girl isn't bright is far from true. She may be lacking in sense--and we don't know if there's abuse involved here.
She is extremely intelligent and resourceful to do this. And it must have taken some guts.
Posted by Tresopax (Member # 1063) on :
quote:That's not a particularly viable argument, Tres.
It isn't an argument at all, but it does happen to be true. The million kids who run away each year are not, for the most part, doing so because of the internet.
Posted by Boothby171 (Member # 807) on :
I'd rather have my kids train on Myspace than in the "Real World." No one actually gets hurt on Myspace.
And I have kids. Two of them. On Myspace.
And I've got special permission from the government to actually talk to them. I can, like, poke my head into the famly room and say, "Hey, [insert kid's name here], you on Myspace?" And he can say, "Dad, piss off! I'm on Myspace."
I've talked to them about the pedophile concerns, and the pr0n bots, and the other dangers. My daughter has already blocked a few odd ones. Better to be able to practice on-line than IRL. And I can keep track of what they and their friends are doing.
It's called.....parenting. Duh!
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:It isn't an argument at all, but it does happen to be true. The million kids who run away each year are not, for the most part, doing so because of the internet.
If it's not an argument, it's a non sequitur. Because the salient point here is that she DID run away because this man contacted her, and I disagree that she could as easily have been contacted by a man in MeatSpace. Whether people run away for a lot of reasons has nothing to do with the reason this girl ran away, or whether that reason is substantially more likely to come into play over the Internet.
Posted by Tante Shvester (Member # 8202) on :
I was with a bunch of uncles and aunts and cousins today, and the topic came around. My son is the oldest of all the grandkids in his generation, so a bit of a trailblazer, I guess. They asked me if I allowed him to use the Internet. I told them of course. They asked if I allowed him to go on MySpace, because there is so much news about bad things with that. I told them that he wasn't involved in MySpace, but that was his choice -- I hadn't forbidden him. He's a good kid and has my permission to use the computer.
"But there was some girl about his age who ran away to Jordan because of someone on the Internet on MySpace!"
I told them that he has my permission to sit in front of the screen and type, but that he doesn't have my permission to run away from home and leave the country to meet a stranger that he encountered on the Internet.
"Can you see the difference?"
They were having a little trouble with the difference.
Posted by MidnightBlue (Member # 6146) on :
quote:"She's just gorgeous, and she's always said she never needed a boyfriend," said Shawn Lester, standing on the front porch their home. "She said when she was ready, she would find a rich man."
quote:"The police told us that whoever this guy is, he has money," Shawn Lester said.
Apparently she decided she was ready. Posted by Tresopax (Member # 1063) on :
quote:Because the salient point here is that she DID run away because this man contacted her, and I disagree that she could as easily have been contacted by a man in MeatSpace.
People meet people everyday in the "real world". Why would it be any different for this girl? Do you think most girls meet their boyfriends over the internet?
quote:Whether people run away for a lot of reasons has nothing to do with the reason this girl ran away, or whether that reason is substantially more likely to come into play over the Internet.
But it does illustrate that this is only ONE case in a million, and thus that it is no reason to think that keeping your kid off the internet is going to make them safe from wanting to run away. The only thing it will do is take away one method through which she can meet new people - but unless you are going to take away ALL methods through which the girl can meet people, she is not going to be safe. She can still run away with boyfriends from school, guys she meets on the street, neighbors, someone at work, her penpal, the pizza delivery dude, or any other random person she happens to come across at some point. That there exists one case in which the meeting took place online does not suggest the internet is more dangerous than any of the above. I'm sure there exists quite a few more than just this one, but I suspect that the number pales in comparison to the number of kids who run away with people they met in school. Should we keep them out of school too? It would be safer, if all we are concerned about is preventing them from running away.
If you REALLY want to keep kids safe, teach them NOT to want to run away from home with prospective romantic partners. That will protect them from a million possible run-away scenarios rather than just this one. (And seriously... if a parent can't keep their kid from running away, they definitely can't stop them from doing something as easy to do as getting on the internet.)
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:People meet people everyday in the "real world". Why would it be any different for this girl?
*blink* Have you dated someone you met in MeatSpace? Have you dated someone you met over the Internet? Did you notice no difference? I contend that the two are very different environments when it comes to hookups.
quote:thus that it is no reason to think that keeping your kid off the internet is going to make them safe from wanting to run away
Is anyone making that argument?
quote:That there exists one case in which the meeting took place online does not suggest the internet is more dangerous than any of the above.
You might want to check the stats on that one; this is not an isolated case. There's a REASON that MySpace is becoming well-known as a place for teenage hookups and pedophiles.
quote:If you REALLY want to keep kids safe, teach them NOT to want to run away from home with prospective romantic partners.
Amen. And keep them away from MySpace, Facebook, etc.
Posted by docmagik (Member # 1131) on :
See, to me, Tante's attitude is the one who has it backwards.
I don't see a difference between "sit at a keyboard and type" and "sit at a club and talk."
Parents seem to think that these conversations matter less because they're on the internet. I don't think that's true for kids. I wouldn't even think it would be true for anybody who's immersed themselves in Hatrack.
But the fact is, it's actually a little MORE dangerous than if this were a club in real life, simply because pedophiles, perverts, and even just regular guys their age who want to score have learned this is a place they can go for those things. In other words, it's turned into one of THOSE kinds of clubs. And parents should no more let their kids into MySpace than they should let their kids into one of THOSE kinds of clubs.
That's not saying it's the internet's fault, per se. But even if what Tres says is true and the child is only "equally" likely to run away with someone they've met on the internet as they are in real life, doesn't that mean we should excersize equal care about the kinds of places we let them go on the internet as we do in real life? Moniter the friends they're making online equally as well as we do in real life?
And not make the mistake of considering them as being somehow safe, simply because at this moment, they are in our nice, warm, house in their own room with the door closed?
Posted by pH (Member # 1350) on :
quote:*blink* Have you dated someone you met in MeatSpace? Have you dated someone you met over the Internet? Did you notice no difference? I contend that the two are very different environments when it comes to hookups.
I've done both, and the worst stories I have come from people I met in MeatSpace. Which isn't to say I haven't met creeps on the Internet, but uh, it's the Internet. You can just push the little X in the corner. If you meet someone in real life and he turns out to be a complete creep, you could end up in some ACTUALLY dangerous situations.
I don't think Myspace is the real problem here.
-pH
Posted by Tresopax (Member # 1063) on :
quote:*blink* Have you dated someone you met in MeatSpace? Have you dated someone you met over the Internet? Did you notice no difference? I contend that the two are very different environments when it comes to hookups.
I don't think you can "date" over the internet. But you can meet and talk to people just the same as in real life.
quote:Amen. And keep them away from MySpace, Facebook, etc.
And school too? And keep them in the house all the time? Why are you not also including these? For that matter, why not keep them off of Hatrack? It should be noted that adults on this forum regularly send out general invitations for get-togethers in other states. It would be easy for some kid to meet someone on Hatrack and get the notion into their head that they want to meet sometime.
Why don't you keep them from anywhere they might meet anyone without your explicit approval?
Here's why I think - because social life is important for any person, even kids. And they need to go out into the world and do things, such as learn in school, walk to their part-time job, etc. You can't just keep them away from it all. The benefits outweight the potential dangers.
But the implication with that is that the internet is not similarly important - that nothing is being lost if kids simply aren't allowed on sites like myspace or hatrack. I think that is a confusion by parents, who didn't grow up in an internet world. It's easy to say "just don't do it" when you think there is little benefit from doing it, even if the chances are one in a million that something bad would happen. But when the kid wants to do it, and knows not to run off with random strangers, he or she would be right to question why they should not be allowed to take those benefits from it when they know they have the very minimal level of judgment needed to realize you don't fly to the Middle East to meet some guy on myspace.
quote:Moniter the friends they're making online equally as well as we do in real life?
How many parents can name all of their 16-year-old daughter's friends - including ones they only know from school or other places where the parents isn't with them?
[ June 12, 2006, 10:27 AM: Message edited by: Tresopax ]
Posted by docmagik (Member # 1131) on :
Tres, let's focus like a laser beam here.
Is it a bad idea to monitor and control your child's internet activites at least as well as you control their real-life activities.
For example, if there were no "internet" involved in this discussion, but we were just talking about a real-life club that was known to be a hangout for perverts and pedophiles, would there really be a problem in stopping your kids from going there, simply because there are guys like that at the mall, too?
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:Which isn't to say I haven't met creeps on the Internet, but uh, it's the Internet. You can just push the little X in the corner.
Until you progress from chatting with them to actually meeting them. And not everyone is able to successfully distinguish the creeps from the decent guys over the Internet -- something made considerably harder by the fact that it's easier to LIE over the Internet.
quote:And school too? And keep them in the house all the time?
It should be an indication to you of the weakness of your position that you need to take my argument to ridiculous extremes in order to respond to it.
Restricting access to portions of the Internet is both more practical and less restrictive than, say, forbidding a teen from leaving the house. Moreover, as in the real world, there are places on the Internet -- like, say, Hatrack -- where the presumption can be one of trust (although even here, people are reluctant to ever discuss meeting minors, for obvious reasons, and minors are never invited by tradition without their parents). MySpace is not one of those places; in fact, MySpace is almost the exact opposite of such a place. It's even worse than a dating site like OkCupid, since it wasn't intended from the beginning to be a hookup site and therefore lacks even basic safeguards.
Posted by pH (Member # 1350) on :
I think that people in general are MORE vigilant with their creep-dar when it comes to people they're meeting from the Internet than with people they meet in real life.
-pH
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:I think that people in general are MORE vigilant with their creep-dar when it comes to people they're meeting from the Internet than with people they meet in real life.
I think that entirely depends. Everyone has different trust levels, and different things trigger different warnings. Certainly in the case of Internet romance, not having to rely on physical attraction to break down the first barrier IS a substantial emotional lubricant. It's much easier to spin pretty words in a chatroom than in person, especially if you can cut and paste out of Word.
Posted by Tresopax (Member # 1063) on :
quote:For example, if there were no "internet" involved in this discussion, but we were just talking about a real-life club that was known to be a hangout for perverts and pedophiles, would there really be a problem in stopping your kids from going there, simply because there are guys like that at the mall, too?
Of course not, but that would be an extreme comparison to myspace, unless the club contained millions of people in it, of which only a tiny percentage were perverts/pedophiles, you could easily ignore and avoid anyone who you didn't already know or want to talk to, and where anyone you didn't already know probably would never find you without a great deal of searching. Have you been on myspace or facebook? Hatrack is as much a club as they are.
quote:Until you progress from chatting with them to actually meeting them.
Yes, but if you don't let your kid meet someone from the internet, that isn't an issue. Again, if you can't keep them from running away to meet someone, I don't see how you can keep them from doing something as easy as going online without you knowing it.
quote:It should be an indication to you of the weakness of your position that you need to take my argument to ridiculous extremes in order to respond to it.
I just want to make sure the point is so obvious that nobody could deny it. There are in fact some dangers that you are willing to put a kid through.
quote:Restricting access to portions of the Internet is both more practical and less restrictive than, say, forbidding a teen from leaving the house.
Bingo. But how restrictive does it have to be before it warrants taking the risk of letting a reasonable kid be in a situation where they could meet someone they'd want to run away with? Would you not let a 16-year-old go to a party where there might be people you don't know, for instance? What if it were some sort of extracurricular activity? Would you let them play an online video game?
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:But how restrictive does it have to be before it warrants taking the risk of letting a reasonable kid be in a situation where they could meet someone they'd want to run away with? Would you not let a 16-year-old go to a party where there might be people you don't know, for instance? What if it were some sort of extracurricular activity? Would you let them play an online video game?
I think one of the beauties of parenting is that you can take these on a case by case basis. As it stands, MySpace is clearly dangerous in a way that a soccer team is not.
Posted by Tresopax (Member # 1063) on :
quote:As it stands, MySpace is clearly dangerous in a way that a soccer team is not.
quote:In early 2005, Jimenez, an auto mechanic, became the coach of the 13-to-14-year-old girls soccer team called Dos Naciones, or Two Nations, playing in the Tiffiny's Soccer League in Vista.
He employed tales of curses and angels and said he had a terminal disease in an attempt to persuade the girls he coached to have sex with him, according to court records.
What are your stats on myspace that make it 'clearly' more dangerous?
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
To be honest, I consider the stats on this -- on both sides -- to be largely conjecture. I haven't found a SINGLE stat I'm willing to cite; the government's own research on this is highly skewed, and the fact that it's skewed to "my" side on this one doesn't make me any more likely to trust it.
Posted by docmagik (Member # 1131) on :
Tres, really. Most youth groups, including the Boy Scouts, 4H, and most youth sports leagues, have systems in place specifically designed to screen out, say, convicted sexual predators. Are they foolproof? No. But there are at least some type of screening systems in place. There is accountability. Accountability that doesn't exist on MySpace.
A system that is sometimes ineffective is not the equivelent of NO system.
Either way, wouldn't this all be a call for greater involvement in a kid's life, not a more limited one?
Obviously, we're not saying the only way a parent would get involved would be to prohibit access to things. That is simply one tool in a broad toolbox parents have in dealing with the various social activies children are or could be involved in.
To act like a parent's decisions on social activies are binary (all events can only permitted or banned) is just silly. There's a spectrum ranging from unrestricted involvement to unrestricted involvement with supervision to limited unsupervised involvement, etc, etc, etc, that, as Tom said, gets decided on a case by case basis and is free to change at any moment on any one issue or individual.
Jeez, do I really have to explain all this?
Posted by docmagik (Member # 1131) on :
I guess what I'm saying is I'm confused whether you're arguing that banning children from certain activities is an unviable parenting option in and of itself, or that MySpace is simply far safer than we're willing to admit.
Posted by Tante Shvester (Member # 8202) on :
quote:Originally posted by docmagik: See, to me, Tante's attitude is the one who has it backwards.
Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
Are you puzzled by the fact that your attitude is apparently a sentient being, or by the fact that he think that it's wrong?
Posted by docmagik (Member # 1131) on :
I can stick a couple of extra words in there if it's still too clear for you.
I am nothing if not incoherent.
[ June 12, 2006, 12:15 PM: Message edited by: docmagik ]
Posted by Tresopax (Member # 1063) on :
quote:To be honest, I consider the stats on this -- on both sides -- to be largely conjecture. I haven't found a SINGLE stat I'm willing to cite; the government's own research on this is highly skewed, and the fact that it's skewed to "my" side on this one doesn't make me any more likely to trust it.
Then what is it that makes it so 'clear' to you that myspace is so much more dangerous?
quote:Tres, really. Most youth groups, including the Boy Scouts, 4H, and most youth sports leagues, have systems in place specifically designed to screen out, say, convicted sexual predators. Are they foolproof? No. But there are at least some type of screening systems in place. There is accountability. Accountability that doesn't exist on MySpace.
A system that is sometimes ineffective is not the equivelent of NO system.
And what about Hatrack? Or online video games? Or the mall? Or a video arcade? These have no such systems.
quote:I guess what I'm saying is I'm confused whether you're arguing that banning children from certain activities is an unviable parenting option in and of itself, or that MySpace is simply far safer than we're willing to admit.
The problem is not with the idea of banning, really, although I do think that would be unneccessary. The problem is that you seem to think the issue here is with myspace, when really that is a detail that is almost trivial. It'd be like reading a a story about how some girl ran off with a guy she met in church and then reacting "We need to be more careful about monitoring out kids in church!" The issue there is not really the church, and the issue here is not really myspace.
The real issue here is why did this girl think it was okay to run away? A 16-year-old should have been taught at least enough judgement to know it's a bad idea to run off to the Middle East after a strange man. If she doesn't have that judgement, she's going to be at risk EVERYWHERE she might meet someone who'd give her the idea to run off, whether she is monitored on the internet or not. And if she does have the judgment to realize she should not be running off like that, she's probably safe no matter how unmonitored she is online, at least as far as running away goes.
Let me put it this way: The danger in this case did not really come from myspace. She could have met this person in many other ways. The danger came from her attitude towards running away to meet him, and that danger would continue to exist no matter what precautions the parent took towards myspace in particular.
Posted by Sharpie (Member # 482) on :
I'm with Tante on this one (not to get Tante points, of course). I also have teenagers who spend time on the internet, all in different ways. My middle sons mostly play WoW. My oldest son is actually about to marry someone he met online, a marvelous girl from Scotland. She is fun and smart and is way politer to me than my own children . And I would never have known her without the internet. What does this mean to this discussion? Nothing. Anecdotes mean nothing, ya know? Good anecdotes, bad anecdotes -- they are not statistics.
What means something is the relationships that parents have with their teenaged children that give them at least an idea of how to help their children be "safe". My 15-year-old daughter has a myspace account. She loves it. I check in on it probably more often than she realizes. I also look in on her livejournal, at least the entries that are not private (and she knows I do this.) And I take walks with her and talk about life and other stuff. I respect her, and I respect her choices... and I know that she is not just some "15-year-old myspace kid". She has her own strengths and weaknesses. I have seen her deal with creeps that have said inappropriate things to her, and I've been both sad that she had to do such a thing and proud of her for the way she did it.
She knows that I trust her but that I know she is ONLY 15 and that there are rules that I have that are there to help her grow up strong and well. But that is what we parents do, right? We: 1. make sure we know as much as we can, 2. we keep them safe as much as we can, and 3. we prepare them for adulthood.
And yes, one of my rules is "you may not run off to meet some guy in some other country." Even my grownup son had to put up with me "meeting" the family of his fiancee, first in emails and phone calls and more recently in a whirlwind visit from the Scottish bunch.
If you are involved with your kid, that's 95 percent of the battle won right there.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote: And what about Hatrack? Or online video games? Or the mall? Or a video arcade? These have no such systems.
I'd actually argue that Hatrack, the mall, and the video arcade all have such systems. Hatrack Chat didn't have such a system, which was one of the reasons I was uncomfortable with it.
Posted by pH (Member # 1350) on :
Truth is, once your kids get a license, if they have free access to a car, you can't do all that much about where they go or who they meet. And once they leave home, if they go away to college? Forget it. Wouldn't it just be better to teach them how to figure out for themselves what kinds of people are trustworthy?
-pH
Posted by Tante Shvester (Member # 8202) on :
I have absolutely told my son what is acceptable and unacceptable behavior. Running away from home is in the unacceptable list. But at 15, I think that he needs to have some controlled exposure to the wide world, and that it does him a disservice to keep him overly sheltered. The computer is right in the middle of our living space, just outside the kitchen. Anyone can walk by and see what he is up to. And we do. I do not approve of him having a computer in his room behind closed doors (to his dismay, but, tough cookies). I do know his friends in the neighborhood, and they are good kids from good families. While I haven't met his internet pals (and they do instant message all the time), I am able to see the kind of stuff that they write back and forth (Mom! Stop looking over my shoulder!), and he does talk to me about it. I am not prying, I do not read all his correspondence, but I do have a fair idea of what goes on with him online. He is learning how to handle strangers and their inappropriate behavior just fine. Sometimes he will tell me about something and ask if he handled it right. He's a good kid, but still a kid, and still learning to develop proper judgment. I think a good way to let it develop is through exercise.
I'm not too worried about him on the internet. Call me naive.
Posted by Sharpie (Member # 482) on :
And if my 15-year-old says "Mom! Stop looking over my shoulder!" occasionally, I shrug it off, but I have also made it VERY clear that if I feel like she is being too secretive -- and this is entirely in my judgment -- then I'm going to be pushier. That's just the way it is.
Posted by Tante Shvester (Member # 8202) on :
quote:Originally posted by Sharpie: I'm with Tante on this one (not to get Tante points, of course).
25 Tante Points to Sharpie!
Posted by docmagik (Member # 1131) on :
If you read my first two posts on this thread, I didn't blame MySpace. I pointed out parental idocy, which I agree with you is to blame in this case. Absolutely.
Blaming MySpace is as silly as the parents blaming the government. There really is more to it.
However, it does not automatically follow that banning a son or daughter from MySpace is somehow bad parenting. I'd say the opposite--unbridled MySpace access was part of their bad parenting.
We might dissagree on the degree of "Bridling." Sharpie's chosen a less severe means of dealing with the MySpace issues than I would. Tante is taking precautions that suggest more interest than his original "he's just on a keyboard typing" seemed to imply (thanks for the clarification).
But look, I talk with the teenagers--who I interact with daily, albeit not as a parent--in my life about this. Nearly of them have been solicited by the types of predators pH has found humorously inept. How many of them have been approached by people who are less inept? How many people have figured out it's important to come across as "cool" instead of creepy?
Granted, most of even the more competent ones are stopped before they get to the point of dragging kids off to Botswana. But seriously, no matter what the odds, this is one lottery I don't feel the need to get my kids involved in. Especially when there are alternatives.
Look, I was getting propositioned by so-called-yeah-right-women on dial-up Commedore 64 BBSs as a teenager, back when the internet was still just a gleam in Al Gore's eye.
The internet is condusive to sexual predators in a way that no physical location ever could be. It requires equal, if not greater vigilance than it's real world equivalents.
I think we all, in reality, basically agree on the principles of this (and that's what I want to discuss, is principles. Obviously, the specifics will vary with each individual parent, and I'm not going to try to tell you that how you choose to deal with the issues is wrong. I understand that I can't make that call.)
I think those in dissagrement with me think I'm somehow saying that it's preferable to control what your kids do as opposed to mold who your kids are.
I don't feel that way at all. I absolutely feel that the main responsiblity of a parent is to create civilized children, who will become civilized adults.
However, there are some instances where my concern for my child's safety override my desire to give them freedom.
There are places I would forbid my child to go in real life. I would then trust them not to go there when I gave them the keys to my car. If at some point I discovered they had violated that trust, I would, justifiably, take away those keys.
Same thing with the internet. I will not give them a computer in their room with the door closed. I will forbid them to access certain cites. I will use the degree to which they hold to my admonitions as a means of guaging their trustworthiness.
As Tres pointed out, there will still be lots of opportunities for them to experience the kinds of things that build character. They will still be hit on, they will still be offered drugs, they will still have lots of opportunities to get into trouble.
Again, I'm not argueing the specifics of how parents in this thread have chosen to deal with the MySpace problem.
I am arguing the principle of whether or not it's okay to ban your kids from certain physical or virtual locations based on the relative safety of those places.
Posted by pH (Member # 1350) on :
I will again repeat that the least inept predatory individuals I have encountered I've met in the real world and not on the Internet at all.
-pH
Posted by Sharpie (Member # 482) on :
Woohoo, Tante Points!
I'm saving up.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
You're also working in the music industry. See the above "sleazy club" reference. Posted by Tresopax (Member # 1063) on :
Well, I would argue that myspace is a relatively (in comparison to other things they could do) safe thing for teens to do, IF they have reasonably good judgement. If have the sense to not go running off to meet someone you've spoken to there, and if you don't post details about where you live, and if you keep overly private stuff off the site - or if you just make your site private so only authorized people can view it - I think the threat is close to zero. IF they lack that good judgement and do something more risky, things could get more troublesome though.
Truthfully, I think one way to deal with myspace would be for parents to make it painfully clear that they are reading their kids sites, perhaps by posting semi-embarrassing messages once or twice. That should drive home the message of just how public their myspace account is.
[ June 12, 2006, 02:37 PM: Message edited by: Tresopax ]
Posted by pH (Member # 1350) on :
I'm not talking about people in the music industry. The degree of sleaze of the people I've met in the music industry has been much, much lower than one would ever expect.
I mean classmates in college, guys I met when my friends and I used to go bowling on Saturday nights in high school, people at the arcade...places where, in general, kids hang out, and parents don't worry too much about them.
-pH
Posted by Tante Shvester (Member # 8202) on :
quote:Originally posted by docmagik: Tante is taking precautions that suggest more interest than his original "he's just on a keyboard typing" seemed to imply (thanks for the clarification).
doc
How can my name get any more feminine than it is?
Posted by docmagik (Member # 1131) on :
:: blushes ::
Guess I need to brush up on my Yiddish.
No, seriously, I know you're a woman, and I even did a gender check on your post just to be sure I got it right after my post, saw the "Mom, stop looking over my shoulder" line and reassured myself that I'd gotten it right, but did not actually recheck what I'd typed.
Please forgive.
Posted by Phanto (Member # 5897) on :
It could be: Tante (NOT A GUY, A GIRL) Shvester (WHO HAPPENS TO BE A GIRL).
Or:
Sarah Shvester.
Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
How about "Lady Tante (Not a MAN, A WOMAN) Shvester (WHO HAPPENS TO BE A WOMAN), whose real name is Sarah*, and who has given birth to a child"
*I'm not sure what Tante's real name is. I just went with and expanded on Phanto's example.
Posted by Uprooted (Member # 8353) on :
Or "The Female Hatrack Poster formerly known as Tante Shvester"?
(and just because I can say this here and not be totally off the current topic . . . I'm a girl too!)
Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
How about "Lady Tante (Not a MAN, A WOMAN) Shvester (WHO HAPPENS TO BE A WOMAN), whose real name is Sarah*, and who has given birth to a child"
*I'm not sure what Tante's real name is. I just went with and expanded on Phanto's example.
Posted by Tante Shvester (Member # 8202) on :
I'm Shvester Esther.
Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
How about "Lady Tante (Not a MAN, A WOMAN) Shvester (WHO HAPPENS TO BE A WOMAN), whose real name is Sarah*, and who has given birth to a child"
*I'm not sure what Tante's real name is. I just went with and expanded on Phanto's example.
Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
Right, I knew that!
Posted by John Van Pelt (Member # 5767) on :
quote:Lady Tante (Not a MAN, A WOMAN) Shvester (WHO HAPPENS TO BE A WOMAN), whose real name is Sarah*, and who has given birth to a child
See, that's exactly what's wrong with the Internet. You never know who you're running off with. Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
Right, I knew that!
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
quote:Originally posted by T_Smith: I believe this because it seems anytime something like this happens, there's the phrase "On MySpace" right in the headline. Of course, I would probably laugh if I ever saw a headline "Nothing Bad On MySpace Today, Police Will Try Again Tomorrow."
I know that if I had done something equally stupid as a 16 year old, my parents wouldn't be the ones blaming everything on myspace. Maybe the power of communication does allow monumentally stupid children (or even intelligent ones) to magnify their ability to do stupid things, but the internet is a tool like any other, and there are wrong uses. IMO, the parents who go directly to blaming the site and trying to have it shut down are covering for how little they actually raised their child (a fact which is reinforced when something like this happens and the parent refuses again to acknowledge the child's free will in the act, but instead blame the internet).
Posted by Tante Shvester (Member # 8202) on :
quote:Originally posted by T_Smith: =I would probably laugh if I ever saw a headline "Nothing Bad On MySpace Today, Police Will Try Again Tomorrow."
You could write for "The Onion".
Posted by T_Smith (Member # 3734) on :
That would be beautiful, actually, and I think I would enjoy it. Shucks darn, though, I have no mastery of the English language.
quote:IMO, the parents who go directly to blaming the site and trying to have it shut down are covering for how little they actually raised their child
I agree.
quote: Maybe the power of communication does allow monumentally stupid children (or even intelligent ones) to magnify their ability to do stupid things, but the internet is a tool like any other, and there are wrong uses.
Of course there are. Adults who use them to meet young people and mess around are misusing it. The way that I see the whole mess, is that young people think it's private, and use it as a way to act exactly how they would act if their parents/gaurdians and authority figures weren't around. Its not that they are magnifying their stupidity, only magnifying how often they are stupid.
That said, I fully support parents telling their kids that they will check their myspace activities so long as they are under 18.
![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
![[Confused]](confused.gif)
![[Wink]](wink.gif)
![[Laugh]](graemlins/laugh.gif)
doc