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Your Kids (Still) Don't Want to Be Facebook Friends
Filed under: In The News, Research Reveals: Teens
Do you think Mark Zuckerberg is friends with his parents on Facebook? Credit: Marcio Jose Sanchez, AP
Just because your kid doesn't want you to be intimately involved in her online life doesn't mean she's doing something bad. Rather, it probably means she just wants you to respect her privacy. After all, how willing were you to let your parents eavesdrop on your telephone conversations when you were a teenager?
But take comfort in the fact that you're not the only one who can't stalk your kid online with permission. According to a survey released today by Kaplan Test Prep on social networking trends and practices among teens, 35 percent of teens whose parents are on Facebook say they are not online friends with their folks.
Of that group, 38 percent of teens say they've simply ignored Mom or Dad's friend requests, according to the survey, so don't believe it when your kid tells you he never received your friend request or poke.
And, in the age of helicopter parenting, 16 percent of teens who say they are friends with their parents on Facebook report that their parents forced them to friend them as a pre-condition for being allowed to create their own Facebook profiles.
However, there are some parents and children who mutually decide to keep their Facebook lives private from one another, a press release from Kaplan Test Prep points out. For some, the thought of their kids seeing any photos they may be tagged in from the '80s -- or even from last year's office holiday party -- is enough to encourage two-way online privacy.
Although teens may not want their parents poking around their online lives, 82 percent of them report that their mom and dad are either "very involved" (44 percent) or "somewhat involved" (38 percent) in their academic lives, according to survey results.
"Although for generations high school students have come to accept and even embrace their parents' involvement in their academic work and the college admissions process, Facebook continues to be the new frontier in the ever-evolving relationship between parent and child," Kristen Campbell, executive director of Kaplan Test Prep's college prep programs, says in the release.
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ReaderComments (Page 4 of 4)
1-18-2011 @ 3:29PM
June said...My children are adults and we are all friends. However they are also friends with my nosey sister. Sometimes my kids write things like song lyrics as their status and their friends respond and it is like their thing. My sister takes this to my Mom saying they are depressed or in finanacial need or whatever the song implies. It makes me crazy but they friended my sister because they felt they had to. Facebook can cause problems if people are not careful.
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1-18-2011 @ 11:59PM
keni said...This must have been written by a 16 year old. I don't want to be friends but if I don't have passwords the kids don't use the computer, period. I rarely monitor their online activites because they've given me no reason but I wouldn't hesitate to look in if I was concerned. And yes, I'll read the texts that are recieved on the phone I'm paying for if I like. Ifd my kids want to have a private conversation they can do it the old fashioned way, face to face. It's a lesson we all need to learn, anything written anywhere online is not private, its out there for the world to see for eternity. Not making people my friend doesn't mean my facebook account is private, it's been hacked repeatedly
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1-19-2011 @ 5:25AM
CJay said...I am not sure about taking online safety advice from two individuals
who don't appear old enough to have pre-teens and teens. Particularly when they are offering that advice with a beer in their hand. Glad I saw who wrote the guide!
I have a wonderful relationship with my children, I've raised them
right and I will continue to remain involved in their lives and monitor their activity on Facebok. It's not always about what your children are doing as much as it is about what other children with univolved parents are doing. When you remain involved you have the opportunity to catch cyberbullying and other concerns which your
children may need help resolvng. Even the best children raised in the best homes by the best parents may not always feel comfortable coming to their parents and may think they know how to handle the situation until it's snowballed into something out of control. When parents remain involved they help nip things in the bud preventing the crisis.
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