In article ,
Scott wrote:

Lately, DD has taken to IM-img (Instant Messaging) her
friends. In principle, I suppose, I have nothing against
this, although I prefer it when she emails, at that
leaves a virtual trail that is lacking with IM.

I'm just curious what others' have done as far as
restricting IM. DD has a friend who as far as I can
tell would DIE without IM -- and when DD is at
the friend's house, that's mostly what they do, to
the detriment of things like homework. (This
friend is also, I think, only very lightly supervised,
but that's another post entirely). That's a problem
I think we have a handle on.

Also, I assume there are software packages one can
put on your machine to capture and hold the IM
messages. Has anyone a recommendation? We
have an iMac running panther, or maybe tiger.
That's what she does her IM-ing on, the computer.
We have no cell phone, so we've not had to deal
with phone messaging.

Scott DD 11 and DS 8.8


Except when there was an obvious problem, I have never monitored my
kids' conversations with their friends, and that would include
electronic conversations. I'm not sure what your perception of the
problem is. If it is that they are NOT doing homework, then focus on
the homework issue.

Your kids have conversations with friends out of your hearing all the
time. That modern technology has extended the WAYS they can do that,
somehow people have gotten the idea that the new forms of communication
need a sort of monitoring that they would never consider for the old
forms: would you put a bug in your daughter's bedroom, or follow her to
school with a long distance microphone? Do you eavesdrop on her phone
conversations? Why do you think the IMing is more dangerous/more of a
problem?

By the time IMing became routinely possible, my kids were older than
your kids. For friends with younger kids, the only things they've done
is make sure the "buddy lists" are people they know in Real Life, NOT
people they've met on the net. In some cases, they've also imposed time
limits, because they'd find their kids up in the middle of the night
IMing friends and they wanted that stopped.
--
Children won't care how much you know until they know how much you care