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  #1  
Old November 23rd 04, 03:46 PM
Scott
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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

  #2  
Old November 23rd 04, 06:31 PM
Louise
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On Tue, 23 Nov 2004 09:46:00 EST, 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.


MSN Instant Messenger has an option to save all messages. So does
Trillian (which is a client for Windows that does messaging for MSN,
AIM, Yahoo, ICQ, and I think something else too.) I guess I assumed
they all did.

Our kids are older, so our response has more been to take it up
ourselves because this is another possible medium in which our kids
can talk to us. I can see that some young people really like the
assumption/culture of simplified spelling and grammar that goes with
instant messaging, and I also know young people who turn up their
noses at IM-speak and choose to use proper capitalization and
punctuation. In working with students of high school age and older
in computer laboratories, I've discovered that I need to tell them not
to IM during class and to enforce that expectation. At home, the
behaviour I try to model includes letting the person who comes up to
talk to me know that I'm in an IM conversation with so-and-so, passing
on greetings, then if the person wants to talk saying "Just a minute.
Let me finish this conversation and then I can pay attention to you"
and signing off the IM. When I want to interrupt someone else who is
laughing into his/her computer and typing madly as it chirps, I try to
treat it like a telephone call. "Could you please wrap that up so we
can talk about plans for the weekend?"

Louise

  #3  
Old November 23rd 04, 06:31 PM
dragonlady
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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

  #4  
Old November 23rd 04, 07:19 PM
Scott
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dragonlady wrote:
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?


IMing is fine if she knows to whom she speaks, and I'm
hoping that she does (that's our rule, at least). I'm
a little less sure what goes on at the other house. Of
course, our monitoring our computer won't solve that.
BH was actually watching an IM session (yes, she was POS),
and one of the boys DD was IMing told her to suck his..
well, you can guess what. DD had a nice respones of
Eew, and closed the conversation. It wasn't an actual
invitation, I don't think, but more of a generic statement
that boys will make. Still, it's alarming to hear from
a 6th grader. I was tempted to call his parents and
let them know about it, but I don't know them. But I
would want to know if my child was making such
inappropriate statements. I guess that is underlying
my curiosity in knowing what's going on.

My other concern is the time spent IMing vs. doing other
things. "I don't know how that window got opened!"
is a common statement. I think if she knows we can
monitor her statements, IMing will lose some of its
attractiveness. Maybe a strict time limit will help.

Thanks for your comments.

Scott, chief Luddite in family, DD 11 and DS 8.8

  #5  
Old November 23rd 04, 07:20 PM
Byron Canfield
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"Scott" wrote in message
...

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

Unless your children know how to clear it (and have done so), there is a
history file containing the entirety of all IM conversations in most IM
programs.


--
"There are 10 kinds of people in the world:
those who understand binary numbers and those who don't."
-----------------------------
Byron "Barn" Canfield
http://www.headsprout.com
"Where kids learn to read."

  #6  
Old November 23rd 04, 09:42 PM
Robyn Kozierok
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In article ,
dragonlady wrote:

Except when there was an obvious problem, I have never monitored my
kids' conversations with their friends, and that would include
electronic conversations.


I can't speak for the OP, but my issue would be making sure they
are only IM'ing with friends they know IRL or through some other
means I was comfortable with.

This probably means monitoring their buddy list and making sure they
can only IM with people on the list, rather than needing to monitor
the entire content of the conversation.

--Robyn

  #7  
Old November 24th 04, 02:20 AM
Hillary Israeli
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In ,
Scott wrote:

*messages. Has anyone a recommendation? We
*have an iMac running panther, or maybe tiger.

From the iChat taskbar, go to the File menu and choose open (keyboard

command is command-o) - you'll see a list of ichat sessions to choose
from. I'm not sure if there is a limit to the number of sessions ichat
saves by default, but I've got sessions dating back to March of this year
in my list...

--
Hillary Israeli, VMD
Lafayette Hill/PA/USA/Earth
"Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it is
too dark to read." --Groucho Marx



  #8  
Old November 24th 04, 05:09 AM
Iowacookiemom
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I have a 6th grader too. I wouldn't worry too much about the language; that
phrase is not used as an invitation as much as a put-down. Whatever they read
in IM they will be hearing outside of your control at school, etc. What I like
about IM is that I get a little glimpse into that world in ways I would not get
otherwise. Better, I think, to *talk* with him about things I see that I think
are inappropriate than to limit his ability to use a wildly popular
communication tool.

-Dawn
Mom to Henry, 12

 




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