Learn To Be An Internet Spy

These days our kids spend more and more time connecting and communicating on the internet. Between IM (Instant Messaging), E-mails, Text Messaging, FaceBook and MySpace, our kids connect in more ways that we as parents just didn’t have access to when we were kids.  With us it was either face to face or on the phone conversation.  That was it.  But now days, a large percentage of our kid’s conversations from middle school through college transpire in some form or another over the internet.  And since it’s every kid’s mission to divulge as little information to their parents as possible and likewise, it’s every parent’s challenge to find out as much information as possible, if we are to stay “in the know” as proactive moms and dads, we have to become internet sleuths, or in truncated text-speak, IS. 

 

Why is this important?  Well for example, the other day my son tells me that he was at a party at a friend’s house and assured us that the parents were home.  However, in reviewing some of his internet communications we learned that not only were the parents not home but there was alcohol and smoking going on at the party,  Funny, how that didn’t come out in the typical “So how was the party” recap conversation we had with our son.  By being good internet spies we’ve learned certain code words.  When a kids says he needs a “band-aid” that’s code for AL (alcoholic beverage) and if a kids says he’s going to the “weight room” that’s code for a party.  Of course these codes are not universal and so don’t assume if your child says he’s staying after school to go to the weight room to work out that he’s really heading for trouble.  My point is simply this, that as parents we have a responsibility to pay attention to what’s going on in our children’s lives and to not naively assume that everything they tell us is the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help me God.  All I’m saying is that if you have teenage children in the house, you have a responsibility to be proactive in knowing what’s going on in your son or daughter’s life.  Let them know that being on the internet is a privilege and not a right and you expect them to both be responsible in their actions and communicate with their friends in an honest and proper way.  You should insist on knowing the login password to all their accounts and let them know that you have the right to periodically check their correspondence.  If you find improper language or behavior coming from your son or daughter, don’t stick your head in the sands of denial, deal with it.