Parents Beware: Mean Girls

Related Categories: General Family,

About a year ago I made a posting about my daughter's page on MySpace.com. Social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook, and photo sites like Photobucket offer kids freedoms for which they are seldom prepared and can lead to predatory and harrassing behavior.

Last Thursday, ABC Primetime ran a news special about Mean Girls.

The topic was how cruel and mean adolescent girls can be toward each other but also to young boys. It focused on the use of web as a medium for "love letters" and taunting. It seems more and more teenage girls are using social networking sites, IMs, text/SMS, emails, etc. as their devices. This goes way beyond the note-passing and backstabbing of my day.

My wife and I sat down and watched the show with our 9-yr old daughter. She exhibits none of this behavior and has not experienced it so far. However, we wanted to prepare her for how fake and two-faced girls can be. She'll either be like her dad and brush their dirt off her shoulder; or she'll be like her mom and confront them on the issue. She's been on the internet but she's not that saavy (which she'll quickly learn I'm sure).

The thing that stuck out to her the most was the fact that girls are actually sending indecent (think girls-gone-wild) pics of themselves from web and phone cams to boys they like. We're talking girls in 8-10th grade in panties and bras!

So Parents Beware! Get on these sites and find out what your kids are doing. Is it an invasion of privacy? -- not if they aren't paying you for the cell, ISP, or rent!

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