Facebook

So Chris has a Facebook account now. Lest anybody be dismayed by my decision to unleash the horrors of the interwebz onto a young kid, let me be clear: I'm permissive…to a point.

He is allowed on Facebook, with the following caveats:

1) He doesn't have the password to his Facebook account. I have the password to his Facebook account. He doesn't go on FB when I'm not around.

2) His email auto-forwards to my email account. I screen everything. I'm invasive, intrusive, and nosy. If (and only if) I deem the message appropriate, I let him read it.

3) He is allowed on the computer only when his chores are done. His room is nearly always clean anyway, so this is an easy rule to enforce. (His room is usually clean mostly because he likes video games and knows that the only way he gets to play them is by cleaning his room. Parenting is easy when you have something precious to a child that you can take away. You can put that in your next book, Dr. Phil)

Do I feel bad about this blatant intrusion into my kid's privacy? Not even a little bit. As he gets older and I start trusting him more and more to make good decisions, I'll let off the leash a bit more. But he doesn't yet have the experience to make some of those good decisions. So I'll make them for him, and in doing so give him the opportunity to see how those decisions are made so that he can eventually make them for himself.

I'm not trying to raise a perfect kid. I know he will make mistakes, and I'm committed give him the freedom to make those mistakes. But…I will do my best to minimize the impact those mistakes have, and protect him from making mistakes that have dire long term consequences.

So yes, I'm equal parts permissive hippy (I let my kid play on Facebook!) and overbearing tyrant (I invade his PRIVACY and censor what he sees). I like it that way.

I'll probably let up when he is 18. Maybe.

For Janel, I'll let up when she is 30.

Or 50...