Mereille

Today, I was doing dishes while my oldest son (11) used my computer for a while. At the kitchen table behind me, I might add.

So I sit down afterward to check my IMs and such. I open SL...Oh...that's not my name, and look the password has been saved.

The little bugger opened an email account with Yahoo, and used it to create a new SL account while I was cleaning the house! I have no idea where he went. His avatar was at a freebie spot when I logged it in. He hadn't joined any groups, or added any friends yet.

Now, I'm not one of the clueless parents who don't know what their kids do. And he is very bad at not getting caught. But if he, an 11 year old, can manage to do it I really worry about how many kids are out there in SL that we have no idea about.

Right now I'm pissed at him, pissed at myself, and pissed at LL for making it so easy to create new accounts.

__________________
I don't know why I think I can manage Second Life....just look at my First Life! Gah!

Decadent

Having hung out in the Welcome Area for the last few days, I can safely say that there are more people 10 - 18 using SL than I thought.

__________________
You suck, and that's sad.

Ned Easterwood

The little turkey!
Sounds like you need a guest login on your comp for the kids - or maybe you have one?

__________________
Ned

Bunns

When I worked at an unnamed club a while back, there was a RL 13 yr old working there. The owner knew he was 13 and said she was, "taking care of him". She apparently had taken him under her wing so she could try to keep him in SL without getting caught. He got a job as a stripper and told the owners of that club he was really 13. He's not in the game anymore.

__________________
"The country needs to be rescued. It was abused by its previous owner." ~Wanda Sykes

Macphisto Angelus

Children are all over the grid. LL will remove them when it is reported but beyond the "enter your birth date" field they have no more responsibility legally to do anything.

I would much prefer it go back to the pre 6/6/06 days when any kid on the grid had at least a hoop or two to jump through.

But yeah, the system sucks.

__________________
If life is just a joke, why aren't we laughing?

Sarah Nerd

There the ones that say "hey baby want to make sex with meeeeeee?"

__________________

www.SarahNerd.com
http://www.your2ndplace.com/sarahnerd

Macphisto Angelus

I am an adult, dammit!

Sarah Nerd

Well then yes! Lets get it on in a public newbie area with a 4 prim penis asap!!

Sarah Nerd

Maybe after he's out of trouble for lying, consider hooking him up with a SL teen account? Might allow him to play without the sex ect.

Pol

Only four prims?

Malachi

I have an 11 year old also. If there were standing rules that he violated, it's fair to be pissed at him.

But if I may be allowed to do what one would never do outside this context, I'd like to suggest a parenting approach which severely lessens the "omg look what my kid got into on the net".

I've been really open about everything with my daughter. As such, she knows that I'm the authoritative source on whatever she may encounter in print, on television, or the net. I've taught her to be critical of the validity of anything she encounters anywhere and that everything is subject to discussion, especially if she is puzzled or upset by it.

I have confidence that I could post one of her many email addresses here and ask people to throw the most offensive content or links at her as they could imagine and she would not be negatively affected by them. Her first reaction would likely be "Dad, some stranger has sent me some e-mail, should I even look at it". Even failing that, if she were to surf to goatse, it would generate a question a discussion of why people would do that and why they would post it. Perhaps the worst thing you could send her would be ill fortune befalling kittens, but even that would roll off her back or be brought to me for interpretation.

Perhaps this isn't the result of my stellar parenting, maybe she is just so constituted. Maybe it is because she isn't a boy. But making something forbidden only increases the interest so I don't forbid much. I don't know of anything within my home or accessible from my home which would turn her into the devil's playground.

I'd taken my girl on tours of SL when she was 8ish, I didn't take her into BDSM areas, but that's because I don't go there myself. She does understand that people have myriad and diverse desires, and she's going to encounter furries or stamp collectors who just may not interest her.

I'm not expressing myself particularly well this evening so I'll just point you at a blog that I prepared for my kid's friends parents which may be of interest to you: malachi's maladies: a discourse on children, the internet, and actual risk

caroline ra

The size of your prim count isnt important its how you rotate them, no wait ummm.... maybe you could show me

Eirik

Shaft, head, 2 balls.

I've even seen 3 prim cocks. Shaft, head, ballsack.

__________________

Mereille

All talk of prim...ahem...hardware aside for a second.

I waited until I was calm to have a little chat with him. I didn't want to do anything I'd regret, and knew I wasn't thinking clearly enough.

My main rule is to run things by me if he want to sign up for anything. In the past we have had stints with Toontown, EQ, DDO, City of Heroes, and of course WoW. And we've talked about some realities of online life. At least at a level that he could understand. When I first joined SL, we had a talk about it, and why I was firm about LL's 18+ age restriction. I have shown him around, and let him give me fashion, and home decorating advice on occasion.

In all honesty, I am probably too restrictive with him on the internet. But a friend had a bad scare a few years ago. His 13 year old daughter 'disappeared' at the movies for a few hours. He had let her play her own account in Everquest. Apparently, her guild leader (30-something, and married!) flew from Colorado to Maine for a RL meetup, and she connived to meet him at the movie theater. Then they went to a nearby Starbucks. Luckily nothing horrible happened, and she turned up at the theater an hour late, unharmed. It is always in the forefront of my mind when he is online.

Sarah, the Teen Grid isn't a bad idea. We have talked about that as well. I wanted to wait until he was actually a teen though.

You may now return to comparing prims.

Vaelissa Cortes

I don't know, the mindset of a child and many adult men can be pretty hard to differentiate.

Amelia

4skin
4play
--> 4 prims. Capisce?

Aodhan McDunnough

4nication

Amelia

Back to the OP post, I have no kid yet but I've been giving a thought to child rearing for some time. When it concerns the Internet, I am quite ambivalent. On one hand I am pretty sure I'd be horrified if I were to find a snuff video in his cache, or extremist hate propaganda. On the other hand ,I had pretty much a free rein over what I read as a child and teenager and I can't say I've been damaged by it. If anything my exposure has demystified many concepts and relieved me of my curiosity and attraction towards them.

In the end I've decided to be strict but open with my future kids, at least until they hit puberty. I'll install filters, loggers and timers and I'll make sure they understand that they are not to release any RL details or woe be them. But if with the onset of puberty they get clever enough to overcome my system I won't punish their resourcefulness. I just hope that if they are clever enough to beat me, a uni graduate in IT, then they should be clever enough to avoid falling into many of the traps of Internet.

Ned Easterwood

I knew you'd be fine. Totally forgot about it when I saw you last night. I'm glad - we had more entertaining things to do.

Arilynn

That is really frightening, Mereille. I can understand why you are concerned.

I will confess: I was one of the underaged girls running around a MMO. I was far under the age limit when I first started playing SWG. But as I was freaked out by the thought of all the weirdos lurking behind their avs with their pants around their ankles, I kept to myself for quite a long time. It was more than a year before I joined a guild and even then kept a low profile in guild chat, mainly because I didn't want to inadvertently reveal I was underage. I also didn't want to get to a discussion about using something like Ventrilo. But I did occassionally get a random tell from a guy that started with something like "Darth Invader eyes the lithe body of the young padawan and takes his overly large hands and....". Ironically, if I hadn't already found all sorts of filth and nastiness on the net by myself before SWG, I might have reacted differently (the same might have happened if my parents had ever clued me in to anything involving the lower half of the body). I just ignored those guys and kept swinging my lightsaber.

I think you have good reasons for your concerns. And, while I'm not a parent, it sounds like your approach to SL is reasonable and fair.

Pol

Great. Now you've given away all of Xcite's trade secrets.

Trisha Pinkerton

Without a doubt there are more underage kids playing sl, it makes me mad too (being a mother of boys) to think that they could very easy get on here as i have brought up my boys to be able to use computer safely but they have curious minds and as you have shown you can not watch their everymove kids can be sly when they need to be

Vampy_Cryotank

I don't have kids, so i can't really get too specific, but when i was a teenager, my parents just warned me about the potential creepy old men on the internet, and just told me to ignore anyone asking to meet me in real life or have cyber sex... etc. And i think since they were a little more lenient toward me, it's given me a chance to try things, and find out what i am and am not comfortable with... Kids are kids, curiousity will inspire them to look at or try new things, but that doesn't mean that they'll end up worse for it.. sometimes being too strict tells your child that you don't trust their judgement...

I've been told what's cool, and not cool on the internet with talking to strangers, and i think i've turned out just fine considering.. Although i think SL should have a warning on the sign up page that there is above 18 year of age material on the game, so that kids can make their own decisions on what is okay and what's not okay, and go from there.

__________________
-~!Vv--vV!~-
-Vampy-
I bite Back.

Ned Easterwood

11 is a little young to be making those decisions Vampy. And that was your parents' choice.

Aaron Edelweiss

Some women too, of course, they could just be 13 year old boys playing women