Is that a picture of your daughter playing beer pong on Facebook?

If you have a child in 7th-12th grade, it's time to twirl your big toe in the uncharted waters of Facebook and MySpace. I am a big proponent of Proverbs 22:6 parenting and if we are to "train our child in the way he/she should go," we must better understand the key role social networking sites play in the lives of tweens and teens...even if they are not on the sites yet. In fact, I would argue that preventive parenting is far more valuable than reactive parenting. More often than not, I see parents take an interest in the social networking sites only when something has gone wrong and they are forced to log on and address the matter. That is, if they can even figure out how to get on the site and access their child's profile! I can't even begin to count the number of "emergency inquiries" that have come into my office from parents who have caught wind of some scandal their child is involved in and need a step-by-step tutorial on how to access their child's profile. This served as a motivating factor when writing my book, "Logged On and Tuned Out: A non-techie's guide to parenting a tech-savvy generation". Allow me to share a few more sobering, yet motivating factors that led me to write the book:

* pictures of girls in various states of undress (including church girls)
* pictures of underaged minors from my children's high school consuming alcohol (including church kids)
* pictures of grown adults hosting parties where underage minors were drinking
* countless cyber-bullying accounts and a few that were so serious, the victims transferred to another school
* a missing 8th grade girl at my son's school who was located several days later; I actually assisted the Detective in determining the last time she logged onto her MySpace page
* a depressed and suicidal teen girl who contacted me for help through MySpace and I was able to contact her aunt from her list of contacts. Her aunt confirmed that she had already attempted to take her life once before and nearly succeeded.
* a middle school girl who posted nude pictures of herself on her MySpace page and then claimed "someone" sent out a link to the pictures to her entire friend list. Unfortunately, my son was on her friend list. Fortunately, he didn't click through and notified me of the link.

All of the above instances (and more) leave me scratching my head and asking, "Where in the world are the parents?" This explains why I have so little tolerance for parents who defend their failure to monitor their children's online activities with the lame argument that to do so would be an "invasion of their privacy." Excuse me? Do they not realize that employers, teachers, law enforcement officials, sexual predators, and other parents are all too happy to log on and "invade their child's privacy"? In addition to training up our children in the way they should go, sometimes it is just plain necessary to protect our children from themselves. Which is why I wholeheartedly endorse adding monitoring software on your home computers to make sure your children are using technology in a responsible manner. Even if you feel you can trust your child, are you certain that those in your child's immediate peer group can also be trusted? What about the parents of your child's friends?

Last of all, monitoring software will help you stay tuned in to your child's peer group and give you a heads up to a variety of high-risk behaviors in your child's school. In other words, if your child is hanging out with a "bad crowd" and headed for trouble, chances are you'll know it and can hopefully, head it off at the pass. For example, I was recently tipped off by several other parents to a student at my children's high school whose dad hosted a birthday party for his son and supplied the liquor. I could hardly believe that a parent would behave so irresponsibly, so I logged on to Facebook to find out if there was any substance to the rumor. Of course, as predicted, there were numerous pictures of the party, thanks to the fact that most every teen girl owns a digital camera and is all too happy to document the parties she attends with multitudes of photos. (Yet another benefit of the social networking sites!)

What I saw, left me feeling nauseous and disgusted to say the least. There were pictures of kids doing a "keg stand" in the garage (they were held upside down by their friends while holding the beer tap in their mouths). Man, their parents must be proud! In another picture, Dad was posing with junior and senior girls and looking oh-so-macho. Don't be flattered Pops, of course they want to have their picture taken with you--you supplied the beer keg! But perhaps the most incriminating photo I found is one where Dad's "girlfriend" is clearly wasted out of her mind and barely able to stand as she is supported by two high school boys on either side. What a class act. She is holding a beer in one hand while she stares at the camera in a drunken stupor. Smile, girlfriend, you're on Facebook. I took it upon myself to save the photos to my desktop for now---you just never know when you might need "evidence." I don't personally know this parent or the students in attendance at the party or I would have notified some parents. This is your classic case of a couple of grown adults who are more bent on earning the "cool" label than say, behaving like responsible, grown adults. And trust me when I say that there are slews of them in every community.

And for the record, when I make a post like this, I typically get 1-2 comments that accuse me of being mean-spirited and claim that I should be praying for those involved instead of ranting about them. Rest assured, that I have in fact prayed for the parties involved. There is nothing wrong with displaying a righteous anger over ungodly actions that can produce devastating consequences and for that, I make no apologies. Besides, if I were "mean-spirited," I would have uploaded "girlfriend's" picture as the image for this post. So let's just say that it's a good thing I prayed. :)

My purpose in sharing these real-life stories is to serve as a wake-up call to the shrinking population of caring and vigilant parents out there who want to stay informed and engaged in their children's lives but aren't quite sure where to start. After a post like this, I get many inquiries about the monitoring software I use, so here is a summary of the product I use:

"MySpace and Facebook are the most popular sites for teenagers to hang out on the Internet," said Spectorsoft President C. Douglas Fowler. "Unfortunately, the information they post about themselves is available to almost anyone else using the Internet, and that includes millions of adults of all ages, thousands of whom are sexual predators trying to prey on young people."

Spector Pro 2008 helps parents by recording everything a child does on Facebook and MySpace - as well as all PC and Internet activity in general - so parents will know exactly what their child is doing. If a child updates his or her profile, posts pictures, makes comments about other users, sends messages, invites someone to be a friend, accepts an invitation from a new friend, Spector Pro for 2008 will record the information and make it easy to find by simply clicking on the clearly marked Facebook or MySpace tab.

"Anything a child does on Facebook and MySpace will be recorded by
Spector Pro 2008, and parents will be able to review that activity," said Fowler.

Spector Pro has been reviewed by PC Magazine, the most trusted computer publication in the world, on two separate occasions. Each time,
Spector Pro was selected as the magazine's Editors' Choice. No other monitoring software has received this distinction.

It's challenging to raise tweens and teens in today's culture. I view monitoring software as the training wheels for teaching our kids to use the Internet responsibly. Just as we would never move them directly from a tricycle to a 10-speed bike and give them a shove down the street in a very busy part of town, it is ridiculous to give them free reign to do as the please on the net, especially when so much is at stake. Monitoring software has provided me with the means to better protect my children...not just from others, but sometimes, themselves.

In next week's Virtue Alert, I will address some general rules to have when it comes to spot checking your child's MySpace/Facebook profile as well as, their text/picture/video messages from their cell phones. If you have a question (or comment) related to MySpace/Facebook or cell phones, feel free to send it as a comment and I will do my best to address it!