Fantastic question Daisy! I do not have any children, but I teach middle school... so I get to hear about these dilemmas all the time. At my middle school, we had an assembly where a professional "acting" group performed skits about cyber safety and bullying. Perhaps you could mention this at a school board meeting or another opportune time.

Good luck! If it means anything to you, I share the same concerns about our children and youth.

Tx for your post. One thing we do say in our book, MySpaceUnraveled(.com) and in talks we give is that a lot of parents are surprised by what they see in MySpace. Partly it's because they (parents) are being exposed en masse, probably for the first time in history to this degree, to adolescent behavior and speech that they haven't before been privy to - behavior that has existed for eons. In the book, I likened parents observing teen social networking a little to tourists at Penn Station in NYC at rush hour, to them a huge public space populated by an extremely diverse cross-section of humanity moving at a fast pace. Tourists (parents) just feel like looking for the nearest exit, whule commuters just go right to their platform, get on their train and go home. Of course what you're describing's a little different because you know some of the kids, and their acting out, showing off, self-exploration, and risk-taking aren't what you (and probably many parents) feel is appropriate for their age. What's interesting about this situation is the opportunity it affords both parent-child communication and parent-parent communication. I liked what I saw someone else post about talking to your child 1st about how he feels about some of his friends' profiles and about your talking to some of their parents. There will probably be an impact on him if you talk to anyone, and you probably don't want him to be blindsided. I don't know of any organizations that talk to parents about all that happens in social site (practically all of offline life, actually). Many online-safety organizations focus solely on sexual predation, for which a tiny minority of teens are at risk. We think that's of limited help to parents (the engaged parents are least likely to have a problem). Many public librarians, especially those working with young patrons, have a pretty rich, rational view of youth on the social Web, and they're the experts I'd talk to about talking to fellow parents, if I were you. I hope you find something in this long post helpful. Happy holidays, Anne --
Anne Collier
ConnectSafely co-director

myspace??? Blocked at the router. There is no myspace at my house. No, Mr. niggabot, the anonymous proxy's don't work either. I am not a control freak, but I do have a say in what my children, the oldest (living at home) which is 16. OBTW, he doesn't have a cell phone either. Just my .02

I allowed my son to have a myspace account on the condition that I have his login and password and that I monitor it daily. I was absolutely horrified, not by his site, but his friends' sites. HIs 13 yr old friends have content on their sites that I would not allow him to watch on TV, see in a movie, hear in song lyrics, etc. I have a feeling that so many parents are totally unaware of not just the obvious dangers, but especially how their own children are portraying themselves on myspace. For whatever reason, I feel like I need to take the bull by the horns and speak out in my community. Start with PTA meetings, schools, churches, libraries, etc. Speak to parents, kids, teachers, community leaders, etc. Is there an organization that does this? Is there an orgainization that can help me do this myself?