Be friends with your kids on Facebook? Maybe not.

photo by escapedtowisconsin

You wanna be cool and use the same social media as your kid does, you add him as 'friend' in Facebook. Do you think you guys are really friends now? Hmm, maybe not. Survey found 1/3 of children are ready to 'unfriend' their parents for 'excessive love.'

I had lunch with a friend the other day. As a single mother she works real hard everyday and has very little time for his junior high son. I asked her if he used social media such as Facebook. She said yes, but she has limited knowledge about what Facebook is and how it works. However she did mention she wanna learn to use Facebook so she could better keep in touch with her son, especially know more about his friends.

The other day there was a news report saying more seniors are using social media nowadays, especially joining Facebook. But this is exactly what the younger generations don't want to see and lost interest in Facebooking any more, "there are just too many adults and older people."

People use Facebook to keep in touch with friends, adding photos and updates from time to time. But some of these information is best keep as secret from the parents, such as a hangover last weekend or had a minor accident, or even worst lying about not being able to join family dinner because of extra workload while in fact partying with friends.

On the other hand, there are parents who are not sensitive enough and left "inappropriate comments" on the wall of their children's Facebook, such as calling their nickname or pretend to be making fun while it was really un-cool. This resulting 1/3 of children are ready to get rid of the parents from their friends list. There is even a website movement called "Oh Crap! My parents joined Facebook." The website gets at least 20 embarrassing submissions a day from despondent teens.

I think everyone should have his or her own privacy. Parents are encouraged to keep up to date with latest technologies, including having their own Facebook accounts, but no necessary being their children's "friend." I'm sure there are many other ways to keep an eye on your kids - and even if you're "friend" with your children, they can still hide something from you when they really don't want you to find out, they're smarter than you! related story

想做的不只是朋友？

那天和友人T吃飯，言談之中聊到當今熱門的社交網絡「臉書」。由於是一個單親媽媽，T覺得和孩子相處的時間不多，所以希望開一個臉書帳戶，透過網路去「觀察」孩子。擁有這種想法的家長不在少數，我也相當鼓家長去學用當下年輕人常用的社交媒體或熱門網站。

然而在臉書中與孩子做「朋友」是不是就能解決問題？當然不行。事實上調查發現已有1/3把父母加入成為「朋友」的小孩，已經準要把他們除名。因為很多和朋友分享的事情，不一定想讓父母知道。此外，也有一些「裝酷」的家長為拉近與孩子的距離，在臉書上留言，但卻弄巧成拙讓小孩很沒有臉，所以勢必與父母保持應有的「關係」。

以T的個案來說，應該要加入臉書與孩子做朋友嗎？我覺得主要視他們母子關係怎樣而定。然而不可否認的是，彼此之間還需要各自的隱私和空間，T可以透過其他途徑去觀察孩子有沒有變壞。如果小孩真的想要隱瞞家長一些事情，即使是「朋友」，也能透過修改「朋友」的設定，不讓父母看到某些資訊。