Sunday, August 05, 2007

Parents of teens: Please read!

Teens today are no smarter than the teens of yesterday. And protecting them isn’t any easier. I’m learning this as I attempt to successfully raise a teenage daughter. The wonderful age of the internet. I love it not only for its ease of use in this business but for keeping in contact with friends, school projects when time to get to a library is limited and searching out a business website or product I may be interested in. It has its uses, if one, it’s one thousand of them. The world wide web keeps our world connected but the other day it could have torn me apart.

I am writing this to all parents of teenage children. I thought I was doing everything right. My daughter’s computer next to mine in the dining room. In passing I would always peer over her shoulder to see who she is talking to. I have talked at great length with her the danger of internet predators. We have watched T.V. programmes about the issue and just how serious it is. I have preached, prodded and thankfully prayed that she be safe. Someone was listening to my prayer.

I saw her chatting on a Sunday afternoon and walked over to see who she was chatting with. There was a conversation screen on the monitor, someone complaining about a baby cousin’s birthday party he had to go to. He had asked my daughter if she wanted to help him out, she thought he was joking and replied “No Thanks LOL”. I asked who it was she was talking to as these kids all use silly handles and there was no display picture to view. She said it was her “EX”. Assuming it was the boy she had “dated” recently whom had been to our house for a few dinners and played some fooseball I suggested she go along and help him out. They agreed to meet outside a Tim Horton’s and I had arranged to have her father drive her as I was on my way out.

After dropping her off he was headed to the park with our other children when he realized the name she gave in the car did not ring a bell so he turned around to question her about it. As he was pulling in he noticed a guy get out of his car in the parking lot, light a smoke and walk around the building. Her dad walked up to her and questioned about who she was meeting. Knowing she was caught she admitted she had never met him before but had talked a lot to him online. Naturally her dad flipped out giving her a lecture about meeting someone this way and what she could have possibly been getting herself into. He made a scene which embarrassed her but justifiably so.

When I came home later that evening her father told me what happened. I have a chat program installed on her computer where I can view her chat conversations so I checked it out. Even after the lecture her father gave her she still sent this person an email apologizing for leaving and gave a false description of what she was wearing so that if he had in fact been there he would not think it was her that was being taken away by her raging father. He replied saying he had left before she arrived but that they would get together soon.

Now, it could very well have been a 13 year old kid….but it could well have been the 40 yr old man having a smoke who drove away without even gong into the store. What a scary thought to think that you have done all the right things and put that trust in your children to make the right decisions then they go off and do something so foolish. It was a reality check that teens are no different now than when we were there. They still know it all, can take care of themselves and have parents that just don’t know what it’s like to be 13. In fact…..I am so out of touch with what it’s like to be 13 that I now have my 13 year old doing laundry, yard work, painting…any work I can find for her to do the entire summer. I have made her replace her computer for a book she must have read by the time school let’s in and the phone replaced by a pen and paper for her to journal her wonderful summer spent at home with mom. I sense some great bonding time up and coming. :rolleyes:

Parents…..please be nosey. Read their emails, know who they are talking to, question where they are going when they leave the house. It’s not an invasion of their privacy, it’s our job as parents. I would rather have my daughter around to hate me than not have her around at all.

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