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Do You Ever Read Your Child's emails?
Just like all things that become popular, Myspace quickly became the “cool” thing to do amongst younger teens and kids. Unfortunately, this trend has opened a Pandora’s box of trouble for those trying to protect their kids. Anyone can find and contact your child on Myspace depending on their settings, but even so, an internet predator is savvy and if they want to make contact they will find away. This is a story of a young girl whose parents did not monitor Myspace with tragic consequences.
On a Labor Day, September 5, 2005, a young college freshman named Taylor Behl went missing from her Virginia Commonweath University (VCU) dorm. She was 17 years old and at school only an hour and a half from her hometown of Vienna, Virginia. After numerous inquiries and searches her relationship with Benjamin Fawley a 38 year old amateur photographer was revealed. They had met briefly during a visit to check out VCU in April of 2005 and continued their relationship online afterwards using Myspace and other blogs or online diaries. Ben Fawley had several online diaries and made countless relationships with women by offering to photograph them. When he was arrested a number of child porno videos were found on his computer. His criminal record has convictions for assault, battery, aggravated assault, petty theft, and other charges. When Taylor used her online presence to communicate with this man did she know these things about him? Probably not. Taylor was a curious young woman who got messed up with the wrong man and things ended tragically for her and her family. Do you want this kind of internet predator taking an interest in your child? Should consider starting to monitor Myspace and see what is going on with your kids?
There are people who say that to spy on kids is wrong and that to monitor Myspace doesn’t give them the privacy they need. So if you tell your 15 year old daughter that she is free to have her blog and her Myspace account for the world to read, do you think she is ready for the responsibility? 15 and 16 year olds can seem mature and responsible, especially to their parents, but in reality they still have the judgment of kids. Myspace and online blogging was never meant for children, this is how an internet predator can take advantage of this weakness to get to them. So if you want to be the “friend” parent and let your kids go online unsupervised, you have to know that they might not be doing what they say they are. Sure you can trust your kids, but how do you really know what is going in their internet life. Step one is to talk to them and be open with them. Find out what they think about Myspace and see how much of an internet life they have. You don’t need to spy on kids to develop this sort of open dialogue with them or even monitor Myspace to get them talking. You might find out all the information you need to know and can even ask to see their Myspace account. This is great as a step one and for some parents to spy on kids will not be necessary, but if your child has been caught in any other type of delinquent behavior to spy on kids may be necessary. The other issue is that many times you can tell your kids you will monitor Myspace, but they can simply create another profile and try to hide it from you.
Myspace was never meant for kids, but it is a great place for an internet predator. Once you use the manuals offered on this site, you can see just how easy it is to get online and be an internet predator. You will also see why to monitor myspace and to spy on kids is not really a bad thing. You are the parent, you have a responsibility to protect your kids and if you must spy on kids to do this then so be it. Kids spend hours a day online and who knows what they are doing. When you go online you can see hosts of profiles created by kids who don’t get understand their actions. Don’t you want to know about your son or daughter’s hidden life? Of course every parent thinks their kids are smart and maybe they are smart, but they are still kids using adults tools.
Keeping your kids safe and protected is more important than being their best friend. Leave being their best friends up to their friends. Your job is to monitor Myspace to protect them from a potential internet predator. No one wants to spy on kids, but reality has changed and protecting them is your number one concern. No one else can protect them like you can, so don’t be afraid to do it!
