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« Be sure to listen even if you don’t like what you hear | Home | Cruel MySpace Hoax drives teen to Suicide »

3 things that all parents should tell their Blogging teens

By Aurelia | November 17, 2007

There is no question about it many teens and preteens are actively blogging. As teen blogging rises, so do the concerns. Some of the concersn are: risks from exposing to much information to possible predators, cyberbullying, blog addiction, and interruption with homework and studying.

Blogging can actually be an entertaining and educational hobby. But, there are pitfalls your teen may not be aware of that you’ll need to let him/her know.

Here are some suggestions as to what to talk to your teen about:

Personal information about yourself and others needs to remain private. This not only includes your address and phone number, so that the child predators don’t get any ideas, but the secret your best friend shared with you yesterday is also off-limits.

Blog posts can come back to haunt you. Blogs are open for the entire world to read and the posts are going to be there for a very long time. So, not only are your high school teachers able to read it, but the information may be available to the college admissions officer who will be doing a background check on you in a couple of years.

Keep your password to yourself. Don’t allow anyone else to post on your blog. Log all the way out of the service when you are done. You do not want anyone posing as you and posting gossip or negative comments.

The positive thing is that many of the teen-oriented blog sites now have privacy options that let users restrict who can view their site, giving access only to people they know. If you are concerned about your childs online blogging safety, you may want to suggest or insist their teen use those access controls.

P.S. For more free information on keeping your teen safe online, visit —> http://www.parentingmyteen.com/internet_safety_for_teens.htm

Topics: General ChitChat |

One Response to “3 things that all parents should tell their Blogging teens”

  1. Sharon Says:
    November 29th, 2007 at 4:08 pm

    Good tips!We live in a very scary world today and it is very important that we educate our teens regarding internet and blogging risks.

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