A Parents Guide On How To Use MySpace. Learn Who Your Teenagers Are Talking To And What Is Being Said.
This site is for parents who refuse to “look the other way” or bury their heads in the sand in the hopes that their teenager will make it through this phase unscathed and all will be fine. If you are like me and want to know who your child’s friends are...where they are spending their free time...and just what they are up to when they are at the infamous sleepovers
, then this is the website for you. Let me reiterate that this site is intended to be used as a “tool” for parents who suspect suspicious behavior or "at risk" behavior of their teen.
This website was started for parents who have children using My Space
an online meeting ground where teenagers and some adults go to meet people or just talk. I was shocked to learn some of things my teenager was doing when I accidentally got onto My Space... now I know that trust is something all parents want to have with their teenagers, but let’s face it... Teenagers tend to lie!...So my belief is that trust is something that is earned and something that should be cherished, not given away and taken for granted.
This website will show you how to sign up for MySpace (actually not hard at all) how to browse and search for your child and or his/her friends...
slang words
that they use for drug references...and some hints that I have found personally helpful on monitoring my teenager. I’m not proclaiming to be an “expert” on these matters or even slightly skilled with my computer knowledge. I’m just a mom who was sick and tired of being lied to and was in fear of her teenagers safety...my little cub was treading on some dangerous ground.
Don't Piss Off Mama Bear!
Let's Get Started
The first thing you want to do is get yourself a MySpace account Follow the instructions on how to sign up for a new account, it’s very easy and it's free. I suggest that you don’t use your correct name or age and keep your email account private, you don’t want your child to know that you are basically spying on him/her.
After you have established your information then go to the top of the page and click on search, this will help you locate your child’s account and or some of his/her friends accounts. Scroll down to find a friend where it gives you options on name, display name, or email address. If you don’t know your child’s display name (the name they use on their account that shows up for everyone to see), and since it is more than likely that your child has an email address that you are not aware of it’s best to click on name. Put your child’s first and last name and press find, if a huge number of hits come back then you can narrow it down by going to the top of the page and press on area, it will give you options on 5,10,20 etc….this is miles to whatever zip code you put in….I usually push 10 to 20 miles of my zip code. This will narrow down your search. Then simply scroll down the page looking at state and the picture (if there is one). If your child didn’t put in the correct state then you have to look more closely. Look at the last login date and see if it is recent…..if you find one that you think is close then click on view profile, this persons account will pop up (unless it is set to private) but we’ll get into that obstacle
later.
You can see the picture that your child has decided to use for their main page (it might not even be a picture of your child, but it usually is) directly under your child’s picture is “view more pics” click on this to see what pictures your child has posted. I’ve seen some scary things by doing this, lot’s of pictures of drinking and pot smoking, but then again there are some nicer photos too. So take a deep breath and click on it!
The next thing you can do after you have established that you’ve found the correct person, is simply read the profile and see how your child is describing his/her self, is it accurate? You can then scroll down and read all the comments people have left, if you read something disturbing like, “last night was so much fun, we’ll have to party again soon”, then double click on that persons picture and it will pop over to their site and you can read what your child responded back with, and hopefully it will be innocent enough with a “yeah, making those cookies was so much fun! My kind of party!” This is time consuming and tedious, but necessary to keep our children safe. I find it most useful to check after the weekend….usually Monday or Tuesday is when they like to brag about their weekend adventures, and after a 4 day weekend…Watch out!….they have an awful lot to say. Remember this is an on going process, it will require daily checks on your part in order to stay one step ahead of your teen. Make sure you delete the
history on your computer every time you go to your MySpace account, if you don't do this your teen might find out you have been monitoring
them. Let's keep in mind that it is our teenagers job to be rebellious and test their boundaries but it is our jobs as parents to make sure it doesn't get out of hand...give yourself a pat on the back and know that you are doing this out of love for your child.
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