Parents Talk Q&A: Monitoring Social Media

Welcome to "Parents Talk," a new, weekly feature on Cleveland Heights Patch. Each week the Cleveland Heights Parents Council will answer a question on parenthood posed to them by readers or another member of council. Join the conversation by logging in and posting a comment below. We'd love to hear from you. 

This week's question : How do you handle your child's involvement with social media like Facebook, Twitter and MySpace? Do you monitor it?

Mariya Ali: Absolutely! I feel lucky because my 13-year-old is not as active with social media as many of her peers — she is not on Facebook or Twitter, nor is she permanently attached to her phone (we got her one before she started middle school).  However, she has had her own e-mail account for about three years now, and recently she began using her e-mail provider's version of a social network.  I monitor both.  My biggest concern is predators posing as her peers.  I have instructed her from the beginning to only communicate with her friends from school and not to accept any strangers as "friends." She comes to me every time she sees something suspicious or when she is not sure how to respond.  

Monitoring my daughter's electronic communications allows me to keep an eye on her well-being, as well as her safety.  Fortunately, I never stumbled on any serious problems, but I did get a glimpse of some girlfriend trouble a few times.  Knowing about that before she came to me to discuss the problem helped me to be better prepared — to anticipate her concerns and to know what questions to ask.

Katura Simmons: In my opinion all children should be monitored with everything they do, but most importantly when it comes to social media. My 12-year-old daughter has a Facebook page, an e-mail account and a cell phone, which I really didn't think was appropriate in the beginning. But she pleaded so much and we came up with an agreement. She can have them as long as she keeps the password the same so I can check call logs and all messages. Unfortunately, she did make some bad choices, and I was able to correct them quickly before things got out of hand. On a different note, my 14- and 16-year-old sons both have e-mail accounts that they really don't use; however, they do an abundant amount of texting. I have raised them all to work with me and for each other, so my sons and I came up with the idea of them asking to use my daughter's Facebook page to look up their friends and my daughter and I came up with the idea of her asking to use their cell phones because hers is dead. Children are more open to showing their siblings their drama before they show mom. So if there is something I don't catch and it looks a bit suspicious, they involve me without the child in trouble knowing. I guess getting to know your children gives you the understanding of when and how much to monitor each child.