Xero

Lol I like the commercial where this 12/13yr old girl is walking around with her friends, and random kids at her school and stuff keep saying "hey stacy (making up name cause I can't remember it)" and saying something personal about her life, but she didn't know them and it confused her. And the one guy on her way home (who looks like an adult) goes "Hey stacy, what color underwear today?" and she looks really embarassed and the last person goes "Hey stacy, what are you going to blog next?"

As if the whole world needs to know about your kids' personal life, or what happened during their day. Long distance friends and family can receive e-mail. Get the kid a diary to hide under her pillow. That's what we got before blogging ever was. If they want to type it, sign off the internet and pull up microsoft word.

But I don't know if I would let my kids or not. I just know I don't really like the idea. I don't blog at all. I blogged two times in my life and had a negative experience come out of an innocent thing. I don't find it necessary to blog. It's my own business, nobody needs to know what's going on in my life unless I tell them. However I loved keeping a diary as a kid/teenager. If I had time, I still would do it now. I have a few little books I filled up. Why should any kid really need more than that? But who knows what I'll do when Eli gets there.

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Father Blogger

I am glad you are still open about kid bloggers although you personally do not like it. I can imagine your child being surrounded by another million of blogs when your child starts to know what a blog is.

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[i][b]Children are angels in disguise!

FooserX

I will not allow my child to blog.

I think the idea of online public diaries are laughable. The whole point to a diary is to write private thoughts in. Private thoughts are private for a reason - real thoughts and emotions can hurt others. Once people start writing their emotions online, they start to manipulate their words for their audience. They write what they want others to read.

They can write in a way to gain sympathy, hurt others, etc. Being real is very admirable in a person, but being TOO REAL in public...for everyone to see...it's just not healthy. People don't need to know our every thought.

Not only that...90% of bloggers write about crap that no one cares about other than them. In this day and age, people think that just having a blog means they are important...and the world needs tabs on them 24-7. It's so dumb.

I want my kid having a life....there shouldn't even be time to write about thoughts online when he/she could be studying, playing, playing sports, clubs, other activities.

Xero

That's cool FooserX, I agree.

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Father Blogger

This is what I am have been waiting for. It is good to know the cons too.

You're right - 90% of bloggers write about crap that no one cares about other than them.

Unfortunately, the numbers are increasing as blogging is getting more popular these days.

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[i][b]Children are angels in disguise!

BeaverMom

Just my opinion but.....I don't think children should be able to post online without supervision. Personally I monitor my childs computer with a computer program called Spector Pro.

I know some people are adverse to recording their child's activity, but the way I look at it is I am going to have to deal with whatever mess they get themselves into. Personally I think it is my duty to see everything they are doing.

evilbrent

...and social networks lead to friends... and friends leads to society... and society leads to the Dark Side...

...we're all dooooooooomed!!! Lock up your children! Blogs are putting them in danger!

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The world is not a bad place. Your kids aren't going to get herpes from having a myspace page.

You don't need to heavily monitor your kids on the internet, you just have to give them good information on normal safety practices, be aware of what they spend most of their time doing on the internet (hint: it rhymes with "OMG, lolol did you c da shooz Becky wuz wearin 2day?!?!???!!!!1111")

My advice is to have periodic blameless conversations about what they DO do on the internet. Guide, don't frog-march, your children through life.

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evilbrent

When you go on holidays to the lake and your son meets a girl down by the water and they start talking over a few days... you should follow him around 10 paces behind because if they start holding hands you need to scream advise on safe sex practice in his ear just in case he finds out about life on his own terms...

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Xero

I agree with BeaverMom. I'm still pretty young compared to a lot of you, and I can still tell you what teenagers do on the internet when unsupervised, it is not pretty.

And btw did you hear about the 13 year old girl (I think, teen years at least anyway) that killed herself over MySpace? Yeah, because she met a boy on there and they started talking and they had a little online relationship and next thing you know he turns on her and dumps her, and starts sending her message after message of extreme harassment, and all of her friends start sending her horrible nasty myspace messages, all tearing her down.

It turns out it was not a boy at all. It was actually the parents of one of her friends from down the street that wanted to get information out of her, and when they got it they harassed her. Look it up on YouTube to see the report.

So don't say Myspace doesn't hurt. Having a girlfriend is natural. The internet can be a straight up corruption to a child if you let him run wild with it. Think about it. You can find anything on here, including all the stangers in the world. I care a little more about my kids than that. But that's just me.

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PhilBilly

No my child will not be allowed to blog except for on a site owned operated and secured by me. There's just too many sickos out there.

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Yes! But, you can't just say it, man. You've gotta feel it in you're blood and guts! If you wanna rock, you gotta break the rules. You gotta get mad at the man! And right now, I'm the man. That's right, I'm the man, and who's got the guts to tell me off? Huh? Who's gonna tell me off?