I was checking her blog and got worried by her post’s title, Good Girl Gone Bad. I thought, “What is this girl up to now?”. Then when I read her about ‘gone bad’ moment, I just had to laugh.
This is Jade, my now 14 going on 15 year old daughter. She is the one who got me started blogging just so she can have a blog. That was when she was 11. Since then she has moved on from our joint blog to her own. She has changed and discarded so many blogs, I couldn’t keep up with updating her links on my site. She is now trying her hand at designing her own layout that’s her design on her blog, but she is still working on making it work across browsers. Right now, it only looks right on IE. Firefox won’t show the main page, will show the individual pages, but some of the design elements are lost. So that’s the kind of thing that keeps her busy part of the time.
She and my other daughter Asi, are typical teenagers. They are all over the internet superhighway and it’s hard keeping up with them sometimes. I allow them a lot of freedom online but only after talking to them (until they were sick) about staying safe online. We keep the PC in a central area in the house but we also have a laptop that they can carry around even to their room if they want some privacy. I don’t have spyware on the computers, I pretty much trust them to do the right thing. Trusting them to do the right thing does not mean I don’t check on them once in a while though.
My friends laugh sometimes at how many social networking accounts I have and there is nothing on them but my user name. Yeah, that’s because I’ve been trailing the girls from Xanga to MySpace to Facebook and so on and on. They’ve been good about giving my their accounts so I can occasionally drop in and check on what they and their friends are up to. I try not to micro manage everything they do, but I want them to be aware that I’m aware and when I’m not, they need to keep me aware. I’m bummed that Jade won’t add me to her friends list though. She said that would be too weird. lol! Asi doesn’t care, so I’m on her list 
I cross my fingers that I won’t ever find anything to worry about, and I place my trust in their common sense that they will always do the right thing. But, they are kids and kids will do what kids will do, so I still keep one eye open at all times.
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my 15 year old son is on facebook and myspace. I allow him freedom but like you I’ve talked to him. I go back and do some checking up as well. He can only use our desk top computer in the study right off the family room where we all congregate. He wants a laptop but I’m more comfortable with the current situation right now. Also, through AOL he has time limits. He says no one else does but he isn’t the best time manager. Time is important given during football and track seasons he doesn’t get home until around 6 or 7.
The other extreme – I know a couple who are so strict about their daughter. She has to get permission from them to add an email address and no facebook or myspace. The parents are very strict in many areas and the daughter is becoming wild.
oh well I let them be too, but of course as you’ve said we need to check on them once in a while. ay parehas tayo, i’m everywhere too just to be able to track them down, pero ang difference natin, ginagamit ko sya, heehee.
Wise na din sila, they create new accounts, tapos di nila ako add…tama ka it’s a matter of trust, kaya pinababayaan ko nalang minsan. Pagsinilip mo naman yung webpage na binabasa nila, they’ll say to me, “Mom, do you know what privacy means?” yan ang aking little boy, mabuti si Ish mabait ^_^
Wow talaga it was your daughter who introduced you to blogging? That’s cool! Hindi kaya sya nagsisisi that you are now internet savvy as well kaya nababantayan mo na rin sya sa internet? hehe
Hi Girlie, oh, I know what you mean abut them being ‘wais’. Believe it or not, the two older ones, Jade and Asi are pretty open about their accounts. Guess kung sing ang malihim…. yung bunso! She’s the one who sounds like Josh…bakit daw I have to know everything?
Hi Watson, yeah, she kept begging me about putting up a website, but what did I know about webpages then? We first tried geocities, but that didn’t last long. Then we found Blogger, and we all got hooked! hehe! yeah, she didn’t think that far ahead