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IM
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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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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