Monday, August 1, 2011

Watch Your Kids... Online!

I know I haven't posted much this summer. With all 3 kids home and lessons each day I'm been swamped so I haven't blogged much. But at the risk of being accused of only blogging to bitch about something I have to get something off my chest.

Now this would bother the heck out of me normally but lately I have been considering letting B go on Facebook to chat with her grandmother and grandfather. My son has also been begging for a page. Now with B  being 12 and A  10 I would have to fib just to get them on since facebooks only for ages 14 and up but since I will be heavily monitoring everything they do we are leaning towards letting them have a page. But on whim yesterday with this in mind I started snooping on facebook.

I was looking at a friends kids facebook page and was amazed at how much this kid was cursing! So I blocked her and sent her mom a message. Her mother said in response to my FYI about her 15 year olds potty mouth "That's how kids talk when their parents aren't around". To me this isn't ok. First of all you are around! She is doing it online and most likely while in your house! I realize kids may talk "big" when out alone but this isn't a case where they should be alone.

So this made me wonder what my own cousins would have on their facebook pages. It was soooo much worse!

1. First of all a 14 year old girl shouldn't have 295 friends. She doesn't know that many people in real life so she shouldn't have contact with that many people online.

2. Her settings were set to "Everyone" so anyone who finds her page can see her email, IM address, phone #, home info and pictures of her.

3. Speaking of picture, it was eye candy for pedophiles. They were taken mostly by her in front of a bathroom mirror on her cell phone trying to show cleavage and look sexy. Lots were labeled as "Sexy Bitch" "Fine Ass" and "You know you want to hit this". At 14?!?!?

4. Language. Her photos, updates and everything were laced with the foulest language. Those of you who know me know I have a potty mouth but what she was saying made me cringe.

5. Her hobbies and interests consisted of "Partying", "Smoking", "Sleeping it Off" "Being Sexy" and the pages she liked were "Pot" "and a variety of alcoholic beverages.

I was repulsed and disgusted and so ashamed of her and her parents who are either grossly negligent due to an abundance of ignorance or laziness. She is the type of gal criminals go online to seek out and they are doing nothing to protect her from herself!
I told my dad to tell his siblings about this because I don't think they have a clue... but why don't they?

You would never drop your child off at a party where you knew drug users and pedophiles may hang out so why would you let them surf the web without taking basic precautions like checking their online activities. It's not like this kid is hiding her info, after all she sent me a friend request!

If you don't do all you can to protect your children then don't complain when they use drugs, get pregnant, hurt or worse. Being a parent is a full time job and isn't limited to real life, internet, at home or away. You have to be a parent always or else you are failing in the most important job you will ever have. And I know parents can't stop everything and great parents sometimes go through hell with kids who act out and get in trouble but as long as you are doing everything you can and you know that, then you are a good parent. .

No comments:

Post a Comment