Rules

Peace -

Recently I found out my daughter had an email address and I made her delete it. Mainly because of her reasoning behind...online games. lol. She and I have a very close relationship but I do worry because she is getting older, developing and I want to protect her.

I know that other friends of mine have children with e-mails in the same age range but I am still uneasy... so I compromised and said she could use mine. Perhaps it's because I didn't have an e-mail address until I was 20 or so... but that was a different time. I think that there is a certain paranoia that parents have now because of everything that is out there that WASN'T when we were younger.

I don't allow her to go on sites that require usernames and passwords nor do I let her 'chat'. At her age (which is under 12) I don't think it's a good idea.

As parents - what are some of the more strict rules you have an why? I will list some of mine below to start off.

1) No TV or Phone Calls from friends during the week - It's time for school work
2) No Sites that require UN and PW
3) Be concious of the reasons why you want things. Be able to articulate your reasoning for things whether it's something that made you upset at school or why you chose to do something a particular way.

I don't expect all to agree... I just know what works for my cipher and what I know keeps my children safe. We can't protect them from everything... and we can't keep them sheltered to the point where they do a complete 180 when they leave. We can give them the tools they need to make smart decisions and for the mistakes we know they know they will make, they will be able to understand why it happened and try not to do it again.

Peace