Do you want to share?

[miss.cinders]

In the past 6 months I have discovered alot about my teens I didn't know before.
Some things that I am not happy about, some things I am glad I know so I can keep an eye on.

Thought I would share a couple of things that might help someone else. Lately I've been having massive issues with my DS15, Facebook being one of them.

Facebook - Recently I have discovered my teens have Facebook accounts. They weren't created on the computers at home, or on their computers from school. But on their mobile phones WITH NO CREDIT! Facebook is FREE on their mobiles. I didn't know and I nearly blew a fuse when I found out. We 'had' an agreement, no FB until they were 16. Well they broke that agreement obviously... but I thought letting other Parents know this little bit on info I just discovered might help them - because as I am finding out FB and teenagers is a bad mix.

School laptops - my 2 teens in yr9 recieved laptops through that government thing this year. They can't access bugger all on them because they are 'locked' to an extent. But I discovered if they have an older friend with a TAFE email address, they use the TAFE friends login and can access the whole internet, not just the sites deemed safe by the DET.

I'm all ears for anything anyone wants to share.
I'm not liking technology anymore since my kids are getting older.

[diannescruffy]

We've had an interesting 6mths too with our DS15. Earlier on this year we found out he was smoking, I was devastated, all his mates smoke so he decided to join them. Both my boys have facebook and I am friends with them so that I can see what's going on. My DS12 also got a netbook last year through the school, he has created a home account where he can access the whole internet when not at school. When at school there are certain sites/games which the school have blocked but even then DS12 told me some of the kids have managed to unblock them.

Regards,
Dianne

[JBM]

modern technology i think makes things a bit harder. good luck

[mrsmac]

How come teenagers can get access to everything on school computers and the teachers cant ??? We can't even access hotmail at school LOL.

I was stunned at how much drugs were around when my DD started to go to parties, she used to tell me about what she had seen and it blew my mind! DD1 has always been very open with me and that has helped our relationship a lot.

Its a scary time isn't it!! Last yr one of DDs younger friends had an unplanned pg and that was all a very large learning experience for a lot of them.

[Madham]

technology is a hard one with teens, i restrict my DD (14) to an extent but i set her account up using my email address and therefore all requests etc i can see, also for about 6 months i didnt even give her the password so to log in i had to be home and i had control so to speak of how long she was on etc until i trusted her enough to not add random people and watch the content etc. Yes is difficult to monitor but its also hard for them when everyone else has facebook and its almost the only way they communicate sometimes, i would love for them to get on the phone and have a proper conversation like we had to, but its not how it works now. sadly
I also use the password thing to my advantage if she is misbehaving and loses her priviledges so she cant sneakily get on one of her friends phones to use it i change the password. Free facebook is the enemy sometimes.