OK...Here's the short version of the story...I became aware yesterday that my son had a personal site on MySpace.com (without our permission)so I got his user name and password and logged on. This site is FILLED with sexual and suggestive pictures, surveys, etc. that kids are putting on their sites. (Also, MySpace states that kids must be 14 to sign up but many kids are signing up and just lying about their ages because MySpace does not
verify that.) As I clicked on the related sites of my son's friends, I saw that pornographic sites have the abilility to enter kids' sites under the guise of being a friend. One site in
particular was incredibly frightening and dangerous. It invited the kid to click onto this particular site which was hooked up to a webcam and offered pictures and videos of "Live Teens". This site was not only pornographic but was also predatory in the way that it tried to lure kids to the site and to participate.

We talk a lot about the dangers of the internet in our family because I was abused as a child so this is not a new topic in our family however when I talked to my son, it was obvious that he (and his friends) think that they are
"safe" because they don't put real addresses or ages down. As I showed him what I was able to find as a fairly computer-illiterate mother (I found links to some kids' schools and the schools' addresses, I found very specific info about kids that could lead to their identity, etc.), he began to realize that I knew what I was talking about. The frighening thing (besides the fact that he disobeyed and had a site in the first place) is that kids today think they are smarter than any predator out there and that nothing can happen to them. This makes them even more vulnerable.

Please...If your child has an account on MySpace, get on there and check it out. Even if your child's site is fairly benign, check out what it is linked to. This isn't just
"rebellious" kids who are doing this...It's a lot of OUR kids...Kids who homeschool, kids from church, kids from youth groups, kids from
Bible study. What is happening on this site is dangerous. Please check it out.

If you have any more questions, just post them.

writing mom,
Amen. That place, and Xanga and FaceBook are awful. If someone committed to doing a Christian center for teens, it would be fabulous because this is how they stay in touch with each other. Sad that it's been polluted and perverted.
Keep the computer in your living room and look over their shoulders a lot!
Blessings,
Christine

We just found out yesterday that friends of ours from church found out there 14 y/o DD has a site. Actually, their son'd wife found it, went on it, and discovered a suggestive conversation with a male in California. Just too scary!!!!

I agree, we have to supervise carefully. My kids all have a MySpace account. But we have very specific rules for it. They may only have buddies (or whatever they call it on there) that they know in person, they may only send/receive messages from people they know, and they may only be on-line when my husband or I are home to supervise. They don't have Internet in their bedrooms, only on the family computer. My son now has his own laptop, but he's 19. My oldest daughter will have one once we get in our house, but she'll be almost 17 and has proven to be very responsible with her Internet use. My younger two want Internet in their rooms, and have not given us any reason to think we can't trust them, but we've told them they have to wait until they're older, probably 16, and only then if they've proven they can be trusted. They never accept messages from anyone they don't know (and I mean they have met them in person, not just "know" them on-line). We've talked to them all about the dangers and they are very aware and careful about that. I think MySpace can be a great thing, as long as it's handled responsibly and well-supervised. There are some suggested ads, I agree, but a pop-up blocker stops a lot of them. My girls tend to ignore the rest. If there was ever a problem, or they showed we couldn't trust them to follow our rules, they'd be off-line real fast. My mom even has a My Space account, and she got it specifically so she could keep an eye on her grandchildren. My husband and I have them, too, and we do check in on our kids' accounts now and then.

I definitely agree. Supervision and constant constant reminder is good. I too would not deny that my daughter has a myspace accounts, she even has 2 accounts. I asked her to read some articles about the danger it could bring to her such as abuse and identity theft. One of the articles I ask her to read was about a Mr. Pratt who was not accepted in the job he was applying due to his myspace account which was showing all his partying and his kind of interests (source ). So my daughter promised me that she will not interact or meet some stranger she met from myspace.

I just hope that our kids will make the right decisions with proper guidance from all of us, parents.