When you find your teenagers MySpace and it happens to be set to “private”, you need to ask yourself, what doesn’t my child want me to read?

MySpace has this option for younger teens, if you log on and tell them that you are 14(they never verify age)then they are automatically set to private. When your child has his/her account set to private, it will not allow you to read anything in this account, basically you as a parent have been blocked unless you have been accepted by your child as a "friend". If your child has a head’s up that you are concerned or that you are looking on his MySpace, then they more than likely will set it to private. This makes it a bit more difficult as a parent to just nilly willy read what’s going on.

You have 2 options if you hit this roadblock.

1. You can be satisfied to just read what your child writes to his friends (but since you can’t get onto their friend’s list you have to just keep trying different friend’s names) it’s kind of a hit and miss game, and you won’t be able to read what the friend’s are replying back with. So it really is just a one sided conversation and you might not be able to get all the facts you need.

2. You can be sneaky and sign yourself up for a MySpace account under a disguised name and age (pretending to be a peer from another school district) and ask your teen to become a “friend”. Then you would have access to all information. The problem with doing this, is that you have to come up with pictures (supposedly of yourself) of teens and this can become difficult.

My recommendation is that if your child is using MySpace and is set to private. Then a sit down conversation is in order with your teen. If they want the privilege of using MySpace then they need to get out of private mode or lose the account. But this would give the teen a tip that you are aware and monitoring. So it’s your call.

If you are concerned that your teen is hiding things and they are set to private and you don’t want them to know that you are trying to get into their MySpace, there is another option. Buy a good spy software that will monitor everything your teen is doing on the computer and download it to your personal email.

Parents of teenagers who want to be informed visit our website and learn how to stay one step ahead of your teen. MySpace for Parents.com

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