Dad-O-matic - Latest Comments in Are You Following Your Kids?

Re: Are You Following Your Kids?

Jesse Stay — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 15:57:02 -0000

Ed,

I think it's a great move. My wife has a cousin who is a sexual predator, and he has a Facebook account. Who knows how many more of those there are.

Re: Are You Following Your Kids?

Ed — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 21:48:21 -0000

Okay, one more update comment if you'll indulge me :~) ?

An 'Official' update on what I was getting at;

http://blog.facebook.com/bl...

Re: Are You Following Your Kids?

Stu Andrews — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 01:36:37 -0000

Jesse,

I'd definitely be interested in reading and participating in more of this. So write away!

Wrote a big long comment here and then realised I needed to think more about this, get some clarity about it all. Thanks for spurring on more thought!

Re: Are You Following Your Kids?

Ed — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 21:02:36 -0000

In general, we should ALL be employing these measures:

http://www.staysafeonline.org/

Re: Are You Following Your Kids?

Ed — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 00:30:49 -0000

Jesse, I think this was an excellent post, and I'd encourage you to continue.
Terrific angle to elaborate on. This discussion matters as much as anything.

Re: Are You Following Your Kids?

Jesse Stay — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 23:05:31 -0000

Ed, it's definitely something to be careful about. That's why, to an extent, I always only allow "friends" to see pictures and information about my kids, and I carefully review every request I get. At the same time, I lock my doors, set the alarm, have a gun on hand, and teach my kids stranger-danger. I also get to know my neighbors so they know when to notice suspicious activity. With that, even if information gets out about my family and children, I'm pretty well protected.

Re: Are You Following Your Kids?

Ed — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 22:04:36 -0000

I'm going to Pre-pologize for going semi-OT again, k?

Great subject to blog about. Carefully.
My first thought when I saw the headline earlier was 'internet security'.

Anyone who answers in detail, or even a simple "yes", runs the risk
of exposing an online relationship potentially with a kid.

Keep it general.
I often tell the story of a friend online who described her day on
Twitter (which goes to FB and her blog), like this;

"So excited to get "husbandname" home today from trip!
Daughtername can't wait for him to see her miss 'anytown'
crown! You've seen such an excited 12 year old!"
See ya soon peeple! It's a 2 hour ride to airport,
and little miss is staying home to get ready"

She's got her home town and pics on her blog.
She's also known to be wealthy.

In other words:

"Hey stalkers and theives, my gorgeous 12 yr old is home alone
for the next 5 hours, we're loaded, here's the directions, thanks!"

If this helps one parent become aware, it's worth a few kb's :)

Re: Are You Following Your Kids?

Jesse Stay — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 04:30:04 -0000

Brian, you'll like my article on "small community" here: http://staynalive.com/artic... - We're bringing back the days of the small town atmosphere, and enabling it in a very large, connected world. These services are all tools to make that possible. Brings a whole new meaning to the term, "It takes a village"...

Re: Are You Following Your Kids?

brianjesse — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 04:26:08 -0000

@Jesse Stay wow great analogy and article, an uncommonly concise and informative read.

"If you show genuine interest in your kids ... all of the sudden you become human to them, and they become human to you"

Everybody knows this but it's hard to keep it in mind at every moment, thanks for the reminder.

As a high-school tennis coach I have "friends" on-line who are sophomores in high school, which can present other problems. They write stoopid stuff on my "Wall". Their sophomoricness occasionally crosses my "news stream" -- thankfully, the newest tools from Facebook and others make it easy to tune them out.

Danah Boyd said that these services are "networked publics" with rules similar to a public park. Adults are welcome as long as they don't act creepy and weird.