I would have done the same thing.

Chris,

There's no substitute for involved parents (or uncles).

Several years back my daughter did the same thing. She was 9 and at a friends house so they created profiles on myspace, during a sleepover unaware of the dangers. She didn't use it again, but a friend at work, who has my daughters email address, saw her pop up on people she might know and alerted me. Then I had the big talk, to explain the dangers. Now we are both friends on the same social network.. so I can keep an eye on things... and she gets how dangerous it is.

You did the right thing. Kids think they are smart and don't have a clue
the trouble they can get themselves into. If I had a kid, the only internet
access available would be someplace where I could check in on
them at any time to see what they are up to. Especially important if the
parents aren't computer savvy.

I'm so glad I'm not raising a tween or teen in the social media age! Parents definitely have to work together, keep an eye out, and do what you did...report it when you see something wrong.

This makes me think of a business opportunity. Parents who don't understand social media can hire a social media "babysitter" to check in on their kids!

We were presented with a similar situation a few years ago. I immediately notified the parents and they have since enlisted our help in monitoring the situation. Family is Family. You did the right thing Chris.

It happens all the time. I have done the same.
On other occasions, I have spoken with the youngster directly. It depends on how close you are to the person involved.

Kudos for doing the responsible community thing. We have to look out for each other's children.

I allowed my youngest daughter to create a Myspace page when she was 13. The reason I did is because she grew up on computers and we've explained the Internet to her. However, as she got more into her Myspace page she changed her photo and added a raunchy audio track. We found out from her older sister who e-mailed us and told us to look at her page. We just told her to fix it and she did.

She also watched the MSNBC series on "To Catch a Predator." with us so now we don't monitor her IMs and web surfing as much but dwe do pop in every now and then to show her we're not lax.

Amy - this is the approach our family has taken. We are all on myspace and we are all on facebook. The idea that adults can just make a blanket statement like "myspace is bad" and then think it is going away, is just really out of touch. I hear parents say that all the time and then get irritated when i explain about social media sites.

More and more tho, i see our local community joining in, not only to enjoy but to monitor. Kids are less likely to behave badly knowing mom and dad are in their 250 person network!

I've had two similar experiences. When my son was 13, I found his Xanga page open in the browser. He had posted some entries about going to the movies with his girlfriend and not watching the movies. His girlfriend had posted similar, not-quite-appropriate-for-public-consumption messages about him. She also had used her full name and town in her profile along with a few suggestive photos (nothing terrible, just typical teenage girl stuff).

I opted to call her Dad and let her know what I'd seen, primarily out of concern for her safety. It was an awkward call, but he was grateful. The two kids in question were outraged at the violation of their "privacy," but at least they learned a lesson that things they post in public online forums are in no way private.

Recently, my 9-year-old daughter showed me her Zwinky profile. To my horror, she had used her real name and city in her profile. She had also published several tween-girl-trying-to-be-teen-girl photos. Again, nothing outrageous, but definitely not stuff I was comfortable being available for public consumption.

She and I had a good talk about online safety. I let her keep the profile, but had her delete all the personally identifying information and pull the photos. I told her to stick to avatars for the time being.

No doubt about it man. High five.

I noticed recently that my nephew had put some details about his school and home on his website. It is on a site that is like MySpace but for younger kids. When I explained the potential problem to his mother she was shocked. But I was more surprised that she had not even looked at his pages.

Some parents want to trust their children. With the Internet, there is no such thing as trust. Parental duty dictates that a child's computer and what happens on it should be monitored. It's simply too dangerous to handle it any other way. If a parent can't monitor their child's online activities, the child should not be online -- it's like dropping them off on a dark street in a strange city and hoping they get home OK.

I'm not sure what are the risks you are talking about: according to people who have looked behind the hype, those sites are very safe:
http://www.uic.edu/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index....

And if you look at the statistics, having a step-father or an uncle is far more dangerous for a children then anything else — I'm not going after the author of the post asking him how he came accross that profile (I'm guessing searching on a the family name) but if your comments were rationals, that would have been far more a source of concern. Do you feel like it should be like that? No? Then why are you assuming someone pervert would use a medium that leaves so much traces and clues? As any Police officer: the last place you want to do something wrong is on-line. Once again: children are far more savvy then adults on those sites — and the reason they misbehave is because their personal experience never let anyone they have heard about in harms way.

I do think it is surprising someone would misrepresent their age — you don't say how old your niece is — but what is the difference with putting mommy's shoes, necklace and make-up? Would you send your kids to the shrink because they enjoy playing grown-ups? My niece is three, and she regularly pick up a box of crayon to here ear and says: “Hello?!”, or type on her father's laptop. That is different then saying you are 22 on MySpace —which is a, like everything, a toy to most pre-teenagers— but it's part of a children developement, as is far less reckless then riding a bicycle.

If you come across them doing it, you might want to put some bondaries “These are mommy's shoes, their are precious; if you want to dress up like me, ask me, and I'll ive you shoes you can wear.” or to make fake phones, or how to use a computer (or the privacy features), ask them about why they want to be older on MySpace — and you might discover that they have a worldview that is very different, or, like all teenagers, that they think 22 y.o. are lame, etc. Some might want to do it to circumvent the rules of the site, and meet 17 y.o. from the other high-school — nothing like your horror stories, but plausible endangerment if those are bad seeds. Some of these kids a great, and will might introduce your children to a new passion; some aren't, and without their trust, you won't know anythign about it until it's too late. Instead of banning them from using such and such sites (that they'll find a way to access anyway), you might want to talk to them about those other children, what's cool about them.

I guess the best reaction depends a lot on your niece's age and her personality. Instead of opening a 14 y.o. secret garden to her parents, you might want to either ask her about it, or ask her parents about where she is at, who are her friends, whether she has a MySpace account, etc. Depending on their reaction, you can tell what you know to either — but speed is not as much the issue as tact.

In addition to being mindful of where your children frequent on the internet, it may not be a bad idea to set up Google Alerts for their name or usual online handle.

If you're reading this blog, you are probably more connected than a vast majority of parents. Staying on top of trends is certainly important, but when it comes down to it, you simply need to instill in your children the dangers (in addition to the benefits) of an online presence. They'll still be kids and make their mistakes, but giving them the knowledge tools to make an informed decision at those times is very important.

>>It’s also full of scumbags who want to do nothing more than take advantage of children.

Wait, who's the scumbag here? She's the one lying about her age! She could meet some 23 year old guy online, start dating and next thing you know she's preggers and he finds out she's only 15 or whatever. Then he gets to go to jail just because she wanted to feel mature (the surest sign of immaturity is lying about your age to make yourself feel OLDER!).

If you ask me, your niece is one of those dangerous scumbags on the internet. How is a guy who wants to date a cute 22 year old a scumbag unless she's *obviously* underage/lying? Seems to me you should also think about those of us who might be snared in her evil trap. This girl is probably not as nice as you seem to think. Where there's smoke, there's fire.

@Vemrion - speaking from personal experience there, chief?

Thanks to everyone else for your (mostly) positive feedback and ideas. I use the Google Alerts already, and agree that it's a great way to monitor online activity. Also love the idea about the entire family having accounts, friending each other and being very open about our online identities and activities.

Thanks for posting this. Someone related to a member of my family who was under the age of Myspace usage had an account. It was public, listed the kid as over 18 and had pictures of half-naked women on it. I ended up reporting it to Myspace. I know the parents aren't exactly hands on and talking to them wouldn't do anything. So, Myspace ended up deleting the account. Now that he's over the age for having an account, he has one, but is smarter about it and has his profiled locked because he's still under 18.

I don't let my 13 year old son on the computer unless his mother or I are sitting next to/near him. He is only allowed to go to approved websites, cannot have Facebook/Myspace/Messenger accounts and mostly just plays computer games or uses the computer for homework research and interactivity (some very great learning sites out there). If more parents were keeping up on where their kids were browsing, these kinds of things wouldn't be happening.

Some good tips:

-Don't let your kids have a computer in their room - make sure the family used computer is in the living room or family room - it's easier to monitor that way

-Consider getting a laptop - you can have your kids move it to where you are, and won't be confined to one room yet still keep an eye on them

-Consider parental supervision software - We have some that comes with Windows Vista - It will let us know where he's gone, what he's done and even lets you block certain programs, websites and more. In fact, you can block websites by rating. Only want your kids to go to websites ranked G or PG? There is an option for that, too.

-Lock your computer. Be the one to log your child on. Don't let them have their own log-on password only they know. It can be hard to monitor that and they'll be sneaking on when you aren't around.

-Keep an eye on your child. You know where they're going when they leave the house. When they go online, they might not only be leaving the house, but the country (figuratively speaking) since they can visit websites made by people from other nations. So, shouldn't you know where they're going online?