HW 7: Monitoring Your Middle-School Children's Writing On-Line

I believe that it is important for parents to be involved with their children's on-line chats. In the early years of teenage life, guidance is vital to the success of a young adult. While some teens are responsible with the information they provide to the World Wide Web through LiveJournal and Blurty, others can be very unwise with what they say. Emily Nussbaum depicts the down side of the on-line chat world in her article, "My So-Called Blog:"

In such an unstable environment, it's no wonder that distinctions between healthy candor and "too much information" are in flux and that so many find themselves helplessly confessing, as if a generation were given a massive technological truth serum. (Kline and Burstein 351)

Many young teenagers are not yet mature enough to distinguish what they should be revealing to the entire web. Parents should be concerned with that their children are writing on-line but this does not mean that they need to be pouring over their child's every on-line chat or journal. Granted children need to learn things on their own but there comes a point when a child's safety could be in jeopardy. Putting your full name on your LiveJournal is a big no-no or using someone else's name can lead to major concerns. When Emily Nussbaum went to a high school to investigate the popular on-line journaling, she found out what one student was discussing with the entire web:

Over the course of a monthslong breakdown, she posted graphic descriptions of cutting herself, family fights, sex. It was all documented on her Web log, complete with photos and real names. (Kline and Burstein 358)

This would be overwhelmingly disturbing to the parents of this troubled girl. With serious situations like this, it is the responsibility of the parents to make sure that their child is safe. If a child needs further help then the parents need to get that for them. Every teen goes through their different phases but exploiting every detail of them selves is not acceptable. There is a fine line between venting about your bad day and making yourself completely vulnerable to unsafe situations. Although parents need to give their young teen's boundaries, keeping up on the events and emotions of your child's life is just as imperative.