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Encouraging Heroes. You can be one too.

I discovered tonight that one of the older boys (who is 13 going on 30) tried to friend someone on Facebook that he doesn’t know. This individual is a friend of a friend, and wasn’t so sure about a child making a friend request. End result: I was notified late this evening.

The big question here is: How do Hubby and I as parents keep him safe from himself? Because oh. my. goodness. This child is convinced that he’s infallible. Some days, it’s truly breath-taking.

And irritating.

I delivered what I thought was an inspired speech the other day. Among other things, I explained that I’m not holding him back. I’m building his foundation. Anyone building a structure is going to inspect the elements for soundness, and if an unsound piece is found it will be replaced. So when it seems that I’m attacking, it’s actually the case that I’m trying to replace an unsound idea or practice.

He was not impressed.

Some day he’s going to come back and read this and recognize the truth of my words, most likely because he will have a child of his own who is repeating history. (deep sigh)

In the meantime. We have to figure out as parents how to make sure he’s protected and at the same time let him do some experimenting and going out on his own. This is not so easy. I want to just monitor every word, but that’s not going to prepare him for adulthood. Another idea is to friend all the people on Facebook that he’s friended. (This may have a desirable effect on a certain young lady who seems more than slightly smitten.) Do you think that’d weird people out too much? “Hey Dude, your mom friended me on Facebook.”

I’m thinking it’s not completely fair that parenting in the online world is so new and uncharted.

Earnest Parenting: advice for parents whose children are far too sure of themselves.