While having the parent create an account and friend it to their child's account is a good compromise between the parent being able to monitor activity and the child still having 'control' of the account, it still doesn't address the issue of the child creating a second 'private' account.

What many parents are failing to realize is that the social networking age is really very little different than our own teenage years of hanging out in Arcades, pizza shops, roller rinks, or malls.

It's simply a gathering place. When a child is out of his/her parents' sight (literally or figuratively), the parent has to trust that the child will use common sense and good judgement. This kind of trust can only come from encouring children to be open with their parents; and that's not always the easiest thing to do.

this there anyway that you can get my daughters myspace password with out her knowing .. i see her writting messages to boys out of state ,but i really cant see what they say,im just worried that she might do something they ask her to do shes only 14 her url is user.viewprofile&friendid=34012359&MyToken=81a8d6b8-5567-4023-99c1-367661597707 thank you

Ok my son is 14 and has a myspace. Now like most parents i try to make sure hes as safe as he can be and he tells me his password and also tells me that his email is saved onto myspace, one account is but it doesnt work. Today i got on aol and i tried to copy and paste something but when i saw it it was a saved messgage between my son and his friend my son said 'I GAVE MY MOM MY PASSWORD AND TOlD HER MY FAKE EMAil SO NOW SHE CANT MONiTOR ME ON MYSPACE...AND i Will NOT TEll HER MY EMAil' well he was telling the truth , he will not tell me the email! please tell me how i can get his email just to make sure my sons not in any harm.
-tracy

Short of installing a spyware key capture program, I have to say that I don't know how you would be able to figure out what account he's using and what's going on. I'd be pretty upset if I were in your shoes because the duplicitousness of his behavior is uncool, but teens need to break away and do their own thing anyway, so if he's a good kid, you can probably rest assured that he's doing relatively mild rebelliousness. :-)

Can you tell me how I make an account so others cannot see comments? I only see under privacy settings: under 18, friends only but no option to see profile but not comments.
Thanks

I have to be concerned with the fact that there is alot of coddling going on. I do not want to be my childs friend, I want to be a parent. Being both is not an option, because you must enforce the rules and friends do not punish each other. So, what ever happened to the fear that parents have over their children to let them know that the "option" of not doing what they are told is just that? How do we gain control of a situation when the child knows they have the upper hand. I think, as a parent, you must be in a position of power and not a position of equality.

everyone is always doing everything to myspace y not facebook r yearbook?????????

how can i look at my kids private set my space account?

i'd like to delete my profile.How do I do that?pleasse help me my father doesn't want it up no more contact me at the email given up above thank you

this might kind of defeat the purpose of the rest of this forum, but im a teen and i want to know if there is a way to stopmy mum looking at my myspace. this is not because i have dirty or rude stuff on it,because i fel it should be my personal space (as plyed by the name), as i never get any privacy anywhere else. Tble is i dont know how she looks at it. Can you help?

If someone asks your child what school they go to in real life, you have no problem with your child answering, right? Do you allow your child to wear a shirt that has the name of their school on it? You don't know who else hears this or sees the shirt, from the school they can tell the city, or if your out of your state, the state also. This is a bit like Myspace, however you can't control everyone who sees your shirt in a mall. (Also there are sometimes bumper stickers on your car.)
There's one amazing age-ist that writes for several newspapers around here that at one point wrote "I'd tell them that I'll randomly sit down beside them and say 'Let me see', and if they did anything rebellious at all twice; I'd immediately revoke their access at school and at home until they turned 18.) This was about someone who was around 10. If you're this kind of person, your child is probably talking about how stupid you are, and you are indeed stupid, which is why they want to close the window.
You don't get mad when your child makes the newspaper, do you? Imagine how many people see it?
Heck, I was in the frontpage main picture recently. That means the picture is now online, my name is now online.
So just from doing anything people could find out what city you live in, where you go to school, an d what they look like.
Anyone ever looked up how many people have committed sexual crimes in your area? There are a lot in mine.
Teach your child what to do and how to act, you can't control them forever, and they need to now what to do. (Or "protect" them, as you may want to call it.) Contrary to popular belief, no magic fairy comes to your bed when you turn 18 and magically makes you responsible.
In truth, it's probably easier for teens to monitor their parents internet usage, than for parents to monitor their Teen's.
To the person concerned about getting around your parents: you can run several instances of your desktop, there are plenty of sites to get around it, you can create many accounts. The easiest way is to only do myspace at a friends house.
But you need to talk to your parents about it, and if their IQ is still <80 in the sanity department, search for information in your state for emancipation.

I built and control all of my kids Myspaces.

I have all of the codes and passwords, we have 6 computers in the house, all in one room.(My husband builds them.)

There are no computers, video games, or televisions in the kids rooms.

Why CREATE the Sociopath?

The *trust issue*, is NOT an issue.

Why?

Because there is no such thing as a child having privacy.

Tell me what they need it for. They have a life away from my house.

Here is the reality.

If my child commits a crime, just one bad decision. It's my fault, at least thats what the courts will say.

If they do anything it's on me, the responsible adult.

Somehow people got the idea that children were little adults... they aren't.

Children are little HUMANS, there lies the rub.

Humans have issues. Humans will do things wrong.

All of my teenage daughters are virgins, I didn't allow dating, Many people told me that I was too controlling. Not so... I kept them busy with other things, they didn't have time to miss it.
(I spent TIME with them. I sacrificed MY free time. I put them first.)

When they go to the Dr they want me in the room. I can ask any question I like. Now that 2 daughters are adults they are very choosy and they may ask my opinion but ultimately It's on them as adults.

When my son got a girlfriend and he was an adult, he asked me to take her to the Dr for a Check up and Birth control.

MY children know that they can trust me, My children know that I will help them and back them up. It's not about *my house my rules*, it's about

..I'm not trying to go to jail for something YOU have done.

So no, as long as I personally am responsible for what my children do, There is no such thing as privacy. You get that when your grown, you move out and your paying your bills.

My point was proven when my son got a roommate that was an idiot.

He called and said, "I completely understand why you did what you did, you weren't just protecting yourself, you were protecting the rest of the kids AND ME!"

That's is what parents do.

We are the bad guys, we say no, and do whats BEST for them.

NOT what they want.

What do if My child hids their comments? Is there a way that I can still view them without making them think that I am suspicious of something? also, what do I do about the "Messages"? Only my child can see them and I don't know whats in them? How do I know if my child isn't lying to me when I ask them if they know this person?

What my wife and I did was to install a monitoring program called Spector Pro. It not only has all the traditional features of a computer monitoring program (screen snapshots, keyslogger etc.) but it has MySpace and Facebook recording features that show you everything that is done on those sites.

You get the login info, profiles that are being viewed, who is viewing them, the whole nine yards. You can Google the name Spectorsoft and find it.

Can anyone that has a my space be able to tell who has viewed their my space?

yes i can: google "star counter"

my mom is very protective and wont let us have a myspace account and all of our friends have one and thats all they use sometimes and no one uses e-mail anymore so how do we talk i told them they can have my user name and pasword but its still a no and my dad dosnt care as long as its privet and my dad wont talk to her is it safe? what should i tell my mom to let me have one? i want one. please help me!

not allowed to have a myspacee:[[

You sick people !!!

Hello, I had a comment reguarding this, just a comment not a question. This does not need to be responded to, but I am outraged by this. I understand that parents want to keep an eye on their children, but c'mon. If your not confident in how you raised them, then simply don't let them have a myspace...if you don't trust them, don't let them get on the computer, but don't spy on them. That's just ridiculous. This is comeing from a sixteen year old and if you spy on them and take over their myspace, or whatever else, they'll just rebel more and learn to sneak behind your back. Once again if you don't have confidence in how you raised them, don't friggen let them online, but don't go on a website and ask someone to hack your childs myspace, or whatever. It's pathetic. Handle it yourself without spying, thats just dumb.
-fobchick

I understand why parents would want to monitor their child's MySpace. Please understand however the trust issue is not always with their child, but lies within who their child is talking to online. You can fully trust your child, but that does not mean that you trust everyone else.

The world is a sick place, and its difficult to balance how much to tell your children. Everyone tells their children not to talk to strangers. Does anyone tell them its because they will be kidnapped, raped, and murdered? Thought not.

When it comes down to it, some people are very gifted in taking advantage of the inexperience and how naive most children are. Those children who know how to protect themselves have probably already been "hurt" already. As parents, the majority of us have a wealth of knowledge acquired slowly over our lifetimes. We are supposed to use this knowledge to protect our children, and if monitoring their pages and scrutinizing each of their "friends" is what is necessary, then that is what will be done.