
How do I monitor my daughter's MySpace account?Dave, my daughter 15 spends a lot of time on my space. I have told her to make sure i always have her password and of course she will tell me and then change it. I want to know what is going on. Will you please help me before some creep gets her? I am a single mom and it would just kill me if anything happened to her. I know she likes my space and i really don't wont to take it away. I just want to keep track of her. I believe her name on my space is [identity masked]. Will you check it out for me and let me know? Most appreciated. As I have in the past, I turned to my colleague Kevin Farnham, author of the book MySpace Safety: 51 Tips for Teens and Parents, for his advice. Here's what he said: It's natural for parents to want to know what's going on in their teen's MySpace world. But what's the best way to do this? You ask your teen to provide you with the password to her MySpace account. She obliges, but then she feels like her MySpace account is no longer really her own. One reaction is to change the password to lock you out. Another common reaction is to create a secret MySpace account, while continuing to maintain the "official" account for viewing by parents. Given the login email and password to your teen's MySpace account, you have the capability to sign in, change settings, grant or deny friend requests, delete friends, delete comments, upload or delete pictures, read private emails, etc. This is really much more than you need to effectively monitor your teen's MySpace activity. If you request all of this, your teen will likely feel like you don't trust them to make any decision on their own. This isn't what you're seeking. You just want to be sure that she's safe, that nothing she's posting invites trouble. The best way for a parent to keep tabs on a teen's use of MySpace is for the parent to get their own MySpace account and become their teen's MySpace friend. When you do this, you're able to view everything that is publicly available on your teen's MySpace site, even if your teen has her account set to "private" (recommended to prevent unwanted contact from strangers). Since the site consists of information she feels comfortable broadcasting online to others, there's no reason she should object to you seeing her site as well. But, importantly, she still maintains control of her own account, and responds to all friend requests, comment postings, etc. As parents, we want our teens to learn how to interact with the world at large in a responsible manner. To do this, teens need freedom. MySpace is a fun place, full of jokes and laughter and teenage posing. But potential dangers do lurk, and teens are frequently unaware of risk. By having your own MySpace account and being your teen's MySpace friend, you can have an effective presence in your teen's virtual world. If you see anything that looks awry, such as a new friend whose MySpace page looks a bit shady, you can bring that up in conversation and discuss why you don't approve of contact with that particular person. Most importantly, by creating your own MySpace account and "friending" your teen, you establish your desire to be a part of this new "social networking" world, which has become so fundamental a means of interaction for today's teens and young adults. Wherever they go, as they grow into adulthood, you'll be there for them.
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Never miss another useful Q&A article again! Subscribe to AskDaveTaylor with Google Reader. 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. Posted by: deltabob at August 4, 2006 6:38 AMthis 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 Posted by: tanna at September 13, 2006 12:10 PMOk 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. 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. :-) Posted by: Dave Taylor at December 10, 2006 9:41 AMCan 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. 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. Posted by: concerned at January 25, 2007 12:02 PMeveryone is always doing everything to myspace y not facebook r yearbook????????? Posted by: none at April 25, 2007 5:32 PMhow can i look at my kids private set my space account? Posted by: Amy at May 7, 2007 2:47 PMi'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 Posted by: tierra baber at May 9, 2007 4:50 PMthis 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? Posted by: Teen at May 30, 2007 3:15 PM 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.) 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. 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. 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. Posted by: Hillary at December 5, 2007 1:41 PMWhat 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? Posted by: Kayla at February 4, 2008 3:38 PMWhat 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. Posted by: Scott at April 24, 2008 12:33 PMI have a lot to say, but ...
I do have a comment, now that you mention it!
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