Middle schoolers on Facebook, Myspace, and other networking sites!

Thank you all for your insight. So [not sure if I mentioned this before] but my son has his own laptop in his bedroom, as his school gives writing and other homework assignments almost in excess [if he didn't have his own computer, I'd never be able to use mine]. I guess I should tell him he can only go on in my room.

my daughter uses my space to keep in contact with family from all over California and TExas. Her cheerleader friends also contact her this way when we are off season. the trick is to supervise. The computer is in my room so I see everything that is going on.

I have a myspace account and a facebook and I'm 14. I've had them since the beggining of middle school. It's not a bad thing to have an acount in those sites, but you need to remind your child that there are people out there that mean no good to him and will try to hurt him in some way. Ask him to have his profile private and to only accept friend requests from people that he knows. And you as a parent make sure that he isn't talking to strangers online or talking trashy. If he's online and you happen to pass by him and he switches the page as soon as you appear, then that might mean that he is hiding something and thats when you need to talk to him to see what is going on.

You know give him what you feel safe and comfortable with but also I wanted to remind you that myspace has the opportunity for you to create the account and have it private only for his friends, his friends on the list will be the only ones to see his pictures and read posts. This you can do on account settings and then click privacy.