Thank you to guest blogger Laura Levitt.
I have mixed opinions about friendship networks and kids. I do not allow my 12 year-old to add adults as facebook friends because I don't think it is appropriate. I may be a bit on the cautious side with my kids, but I don't even want him becoming a fan of any bands or musical groups, because often times these are not official artist spokespersons. In many cases it can just be an adult posing as the band. I do not allow him to be on myspace either, because it is all centered around music and it gets tricky.
I feel comfortable with monitoring some of his friendship network activity. He has his own laptop now which he got for Christmas and has limited satellite internet time. I cut it off at about the two-hour mark. There is absolutely no internet time allowed if he is grounded. He gets to use the computers at school, so I don't think I'm being too strict. My son's Facebook profile is connected to mine and that way I can see that he only befriends kids his own age and family members. I won't even allow him to be linked to friends of the family, because adults are more likely to forget that they have to have child-appropriate content. I don't want Joshua to be exposed to the private lives of adults just yet.
