Brave New World

I have finally taken the plunge and allowed Steph to get her own email address through my Comcast account. At least for now, I've established a "white list" of addresses that will be accepted so that she won't inadvertently open any XXX spam—and so she won't be able to email with people/companies we don't know. She's allowed to websurf quite a bit, and I worry that she'll sign up for something innocuous looking, like a contest or newsletter, and it will turn out to be a major spambot. Or, as she gets older, that she'll give out her email address to random people she "meets" online. I'll add email addresses to the list as her friends get them, but she won't be able to do that herself yet. I also said that, for the time being anyhow, I will reserve the right to read every message she sends or receives. And, I took some advice from a friend and gave a little speech about never saying anything negative about someone else in an email; these things invariably end up getting forwarded to the wrong person and coming back to haunt the original sender.

Lest you think that she is now sobbing into her pillow, let me assure you that she is so thrilled that I finally gave in that she doesn't even mind the restrictions! She is busily sending out messages now and grinning from ear to ear.

Comments

[pam]

We took all these steps when we let Bunny have her own email address on our home account. It's been a year or so, and it's going very well. Only had to have a sit-down talk once, a few weeks ago, and that was to break it to her that Bill Gates will never, ever send her a million dollars.

[Elena]

Good luck! It is really hard to maintain control over this once the genie is out of the bottle, so to speak. As a parent of teens, I'd suggest you reserve the right to monitor any and all Internet usage at your discretion. I still do it from time to time, and it is a good idea. Even "good" kids can get into a lot of trouble. Mine have unwittingly gotten themselves into some sticky situations. They become so computer-savvy, it's hard to stay one step ahead of them. P.S. Off-topic, but I just have to say that my husband saw Brad Pitt at a Yankee game last night!

[Rae]

When my 9 year old granddaughter got on the internet I bought her mom the book "Generation Myspace" so she could get up to speed on the web. A really helpful book.

[Leah]

We also set our kids up w/comcast addresses. One thing I did was set it up so that any email they receive is automatically forwarded to my email address. They haven't received anything inappropriate, but it does allow me to tell them when they've "got mail" as they rarely check it. Seems like IMing is more the thing for the teen crowd. My kids aren't to that point yet.