There’s been some discussion on various blogs about the appropriate age for kids to get their own cell phones and how much freedom they should have on the Internet, whether its e-mailing, IM-ing, setting up a Facebook account, or surfing the Web.
I find it’s helpful to gather information as we’re making decisions in these areas, so I’ve been interested in reading comments on those blogs. Also, netlingo.com proved to be a good online resource.
A section for Parents and Educators (about halfway down the landing page) includes a link to the Top 50 Internet Acronyms Every Parent Should Know. I won’t provide the direct link here, because the phrases refer to unseemly activity. I don’t want you to be mad at me if you clicked without knowing what you were getting into. But if your kids are text messaging, you should read the list and be aware.In that same section for Parents and Educators, you’ll find a list of Alarming Statistics. A quick scan, and you may rethink the extent of Internet and cell phone access you allow your kids. If nothing else, you’ll be more aware of the dangers and concerns.Finally, if you’re like me and find yourself rather ignorant of even the most basic acronyms, netlingo offers a very long list of Internet text messages (mixing both tame and unseemly acronyms) here. Look it over, try out a few of the friendly, tame, harmless ones in an e-mail and you’ll feel oh-so-trendy.I’ll close with some shorthand that makes me grin, because not only did my friends and I use it long, long ago, in a pre-Internet, low-tech world of folded notes passed down the row of desks in math class, but also my grandmother and I closed our snail mail letters to each other with it:
XOXO
Oh…you have definitely hit a “hot button” for me, and one issue that I have gotten onto a soap box about…I only have about 3 that really get me climbing up there and this is one of them.:) Does that make you run for the hills? As mom of 5, with 2 teens and 3 more coming, it’s unbelievable to me how naive parents are about this issue. I am talking about my wonderful, Christian friends with no privacy services installed, no monitoring etc of the internet. Can you tell I have been down this road…this year… when my blessing of a son came to me in tears over what he had been exposed to on the internet. Not once, but multiple times (and this with a $150 service that we had on our computer). Monitor, Monitor, Monitor…it’s not about not trusting them, it’s about a slippery slope that goes down hill REALLY fast.
How’s that for a first time visitor comment….hee heee
So I see the best ones still stand. XXOO to you too. : ) (I think I’m going to try out some of those trendy ones soon. I’ll let you know if I feel any different.)
My kids aren’t quite that age yet, (and homeschooled, so the need for cell phones is slim . . . now) but I feel like I’m getting left behind. I always want to be “clued in” to what’s going on because it’s always less than we actually do know. You’re so right with this one, and I’m hoping in the next 4 years I’ll on top of it as much as possible. I don’t have teenagers yet but doesn’t it fall back to helping them develop quality friends also? I pray all the time that my kids will be an influence for good, but that they will be surrounded by good also. Is that selfish to want that for them?