Saturday, May 24, 2008

Warning to parents

Please, please, please monitor what your children are doing online. Read their blogs, their MySpace pages, their Facebooks pages, etc. Watch the videos they want to post on YouTube --- before they post them.

Do not let your children post their email addresses publicly. Do not let them email or instant message or chat with people they do not know, especially adults.

Be careful about what personal information your children post. Is it really wise for them to be posting pictures of themselves, their families, their church, their home, etc. for all the world to see? Do you really want to give potential online predators or con artists ammunition to use against your children or your family?

Please protect your children. Please.

This post, along with my entire blog, is copyrighted. Please read and honor the copyright notice on the bottom of this page. Thank you.

5 comments:

  1. It's kind of silly to comment on my own post, but I didn't want to put this in the body of the post itself, lest it become a distraction from my warning.

    I was shocked that the naive young 15 year old with the blog I'd written about in a previous post actually posted her own email address --- and then was trying to get me to email her! Where are her parents? Are they possibly so naive as well?

    Please...let's be careful out there. Keeping our daughters home is not going to protect them if we let them correspond with complete strangers and, via pictures and personal information, practically give strangers directions and an invitation into our daughters' homes and lives!

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  2. Mhmm. As you've pointed out before, it's dangerous enough when we as adults put info "out there" for anyone and everyone to read.

    And FWIW, I think commenting on your post was a good idea, saves detracting from the weight of your Titus 2 rebuke below.

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  3. Hello Rebecca,

    I found your blog by clicking on your name at True Womanhood. I cannot tell you how much I agree with your post (along with the others regarding the young girl's blog)!

    Our eldest daughter just started a blog about a week ago. She loves to write and is quite good at it. My husband gave his approval after long deliberation with the stipulation that she be 'anonymous'. In other words, other than her first name, there will be no pictures of her siblings or family. Regardless of how adorable we think our children are and would love for all the world to see - regardless of how much we enjoy photography, etc, etc, in our estimation it is just unwise to give out such information and expose our children to the myriad of surfers on the world wide web.

    Only pictures of the dogs and other 'non-identifying' shots will be allowed. We've even instructed relatives to be careful not to give any personal identifying info if posting a comment on her blog.

    I agree that it is our job to protect our children, and our daughter is of legal age too! Still, we want to be careful without being suffocating. Only one of the younger siblings is allowed very minimal supervised access to the web, and for the others it's non-existent.

    So I think your warning is appropriate and I hope more people will heed it!

    Keep up the good posts. I'll stop back more often. I enjoy your writing!

    Blessings!

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  4. Just a quick P.S. to my earlier comment. Our daughter won't be doing any 'preaching' on her blog either. She certainly doesn't feel qualified to do so nor, thankfully, does she think it's her place at this time in her life.

    One of my favorite movie quotes is from 'Scrooge: A Christmas Carol' starring Alistair Sim. The quote is: "I don't know anything. I never did know anything but now I know that I don't know anything."
    It is amazing what age does to a person! I wonder what the world (or at least the blogosphere) would be like if people were more apt to be 'quick to hear and slow to speak'. I like the verse in proverbs that says even a fool is considered wise when he holds his tongue.

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  5. Rebecca,

    I sat up 'til midnight reading all of your 'Fall to Grace' and 'Aftermath' posts last night. (I wasn't sure if I should post a comment there or here since they are from almost a year ago.)

    Anyway, how can one get a hold of the study lessons you did with Mike or get in touch with him? Are they online or only available via email? Very interested to know - to say the least.

    To be 'very' brief - the Lord has me in a place that I find somewhat similar to where you were and I want to get to the "JOY!!" spot!

    Thanks,
    ~Denise

    PS - If you would prefer to contact me via email, I think the moderators at True Womanhood have my email address and I would be okay with them giving it to you. ~D.

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