"My Space" on the Net

Tonight, on "The Factor" Bill shared a piece about a young girl who had published her own nude picture on her "My Space" sight. He asked his guest if this was really good for the kids or not.

Logo from Myspace.com website

Myspace.com is a free internet site that allows young people fourteen and older to have their own place to communicate with friends. They can limit their circle of friends, but they are in control of their "myspace" site. Bill had a guest who was defending this "as a much safer place than hanging out in town." One comment was that kid's aren't allowed to hang out as much these days because the world is so much more dangerous now.

Like any other public communication tool the internet can be used for good or for evil, but parents need to be aware of what their kids are doing on the internet. How do you know what's happening? Communicate with your kids, and take an active interest in their lives!

Remember that "Myspace" is not only used by kids but by adults as well, and set some guidlines for your children about information "not-to-be-shared" on the internet. In January of this year "Dateline" aired a program that included this statement from Internet lawyer Parry Aftab, "Pedophiles are using all of the social networking sites. And every other anonymous Internet technology to find kids. The social networking sites are where kids are." Like Bill says on the factor, we need to "keep looking out for the kids."

One great way that we can look out for our children is to help them build godly character and values. Those values need to be modeled in front of them. If we compromise on our values then they will feel justified in compromising theirs. Holiness can't be hammered into your children. It must be lived before them. Proverbs 22:6 says,

Train a child in the way he should go,
and when he is old he will not turn from it.

Tonight I visited several of our kids' "spaces" and found some interesting things. Some were encouraging and others were challenging. It wasn't hard to find them. I just did a google search.
Some might be critical of this interest I have in our kids. Let them them criticize. We need to just keep loving our kids.