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Your children value their
independence and their privacy. But they may be opening themselves up online.
More children than ever are using online journals (blogs) to share their
lives.
In a perfect world, you could ask your teen if they keep a blog. He or she
would answer honestly. But this isn’t always the case.
Some popular online journal sites include MySpace, Xanga and LiveJournal.
These sites let each member use an alias. But many kids simply use their real
names anyway. They open their personal lives and information to the Web. As a
parent, you should know what's going on in your child's online world.
Most journal sites allow you to browse their members. But they tend to be
stingy with their search features. If your children have journals, you still
have a decent chance of finding them. Most are honest about personal
information like name, age and location. Let's use MySpace as an example.
They have a free search.
MySpace.com
First, go to www.myspace.com.
Click on search from the menu bar. You'll be taken to a page with search
options. Under "Find Someone You Know," you can simply enter your
child's name. Then click Find. Most members post photos, so you should be able
to easily spot your child in the search results.
Most children don't see a reason to lie about names if they're looking to
make friends on the site. But if you don't get any results, you can try
search for your child's e-mail address if you know it. Just go back to the
"Find Someone You Know" section on the search page. For the
"Select search by" option, select Email. Then enter the e-mail
address and click Find.
LiveJournal.com
LiveJournal requires an account for searching. If you're not comfortable
creating an account, you can still try searching the site through Google.
I’ll tell you more about that in a moment.
To create an account at LiveJournal, click Welcome>>Create an Account
from the menu bar. You'll need to enter your e-mail address and birthdate.
You'll also need to enter a username and password of your choice. Finally,
make sure that you choose "Free Account" so you won't be charged.
To search, go to http://www.livejournal.com.
Click Search>>Advanced from the menu bar. Select your country, state
and city. Under Journal Update Time, don't select anything. Under Age, enter
your child's age into both boxes to search for the right age. Under Interest,
I would leave it blank. Enter a word only if it's definitely a big part of
your child's life. Under Has Friend, leave it blank. Then click the Search
button.
Xanga.com
Xanga (http://www.xanga.com) offers
searching to only paid members. You can search the
site for free by trying a Google search of the site.
Facebook.com
Another site that has gained popularity is Facebook (www.facebook.com). Facebook's
interactivity, including searching, is available only to students. An e-mail
address ending with ".edu" is required to sign up or use the site.
So there's not much you can look into if your child is using Facebook. I
think it's important nevertheless to be aware of it. If you do happen to have
a .edu e-mail address as a college alumnus, you
should check out the site.
Of course, use Google
Then, of course, there's Google. Google can do pretty well searching only
your child's first name and city. It can often outdo even a site's own
search. You can search an individual site with the "site:"
operator. For example, you can Google search MySpace by entering "site:myspace.com" Follow that phrase with search terms
like age, location or interests.
If that’s not clear enough instructions for you, use Google’s Advanced Search
page:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?hl=en
Enter your child’s information in the Find Results area. Then, under Domain,
enter the Web site. For example, here you would type xanga.com
Google might be able to catch old journals. It caches (stores) pages that
might not exist anymore. If one of your search results links doesn't work,
try the cache. It's a link called "Cached" below each search
result. That's handy for journals that have been recently lost or erased.
Worried about intruding in your child's privacy? Think about all the
anonymous Internet surfers who do it without conscience. Shouldn't you know
at least as much as those strangers? Make sure your child isn't giving away
too much information, like addresses and phone numbers.
And the information you find can help you as a parent. It could tip you off
to bad influences in your child's life. It's worth knowing if your teen is
drinking, sexually active, or going through bouts of depression.
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