Parents, Get a Clue: What Teens are Really Doing Online
Plus: Tips on How to Talk to Your Teen about Internet
Safety (and a Guide to Using Myspace)

Amber* got onto Myspace when she was 13. “It was easy," she said with a shrug. "All you have to do is lie about your age and give them your email address.” The teen, who is now 15, said, “I guess I accepted a lot of ‘Friends’ to my list without really knowing who they were.” On Myspace, Facebook, Xanga and other social networking sites, the goal is to acquire as many “friends” as possible, a virtual popularity contest that can add up to a whole lot of unknowns. That’s how “Mike,” a man posing as a teen-ager, started messaging Amber. Eventually, he suggested they meet, but before that rendezvous could happen, it emerged that Mike was really a 28-year-old delivery man from a nearby town. Amber had the sense to stop messaging him and remove him from her Friend List, but many other teens and pre-teens haven’t been so fortunate. In Texas, a lawsuit was brought against Myspace by the parents of a fourteen-year-old who was sexually assaulted by a man she met on the social networking site. The suit was dismissed in court, but the problem of how to protect teens online remains.

Video Games and Violence: What Every Parent Should
Know

What I typically suggest to parents is that they don’t allow violent video games in their home. If and when the issue comes up, that is actually a good opportunity to talk about their values, how to resolve conflicts and disputes in a non-violent way, which are useful conversations to have with kids. In any case it’s useful to convey your values to your children that violent solutions are not appropriate. Non-violent solutions can almost always be found.”

How to Keep the Violence Out of Your Home

It’s an undisputed fact that the more violence kids are exposed to, the more desensitized they become to it. But it’s not the violence that’s the problem for families now. It’s the delivery systems used to bring that violence into the home. James Lehman explains how to keep the violence outside your home and away from your kids.