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since i know you're all dying to know

End result of talk with hypothetical daughter about hypothetical situation:

Computer use limited to homework, under my watchful eye, for at least a week.
Grounded until further notice.
She has to write a letter to the family member (my grandfather) she disrespected.
And other sundry slave-labor type stuff.

I do believe she's really sorry.

Oh, she deleted that blog entry.

Comments

Ah, there's nothing like getting caught with one's hand in the proverbial cookie jar. I like to think I was spared a life of crime by being forced to apologize to the store owner from whom I stole a warm bottle coke when I was a wee lad of ten years old

now you have to figure out... is she sorry for what she did, or is she sorry that she got caught?

Nice timing as my daughter just asked me "Hey dad, how can I get one of those websites you type about?".

I'm thinking around the same time she will be allowed to date. Thirty-seven sounds good to me. :-)

Holy crap! I just had that same conversation today with my own 13 year old. Except she's banned from the computer till she apologizes in person for putting that crap on her aim profile about her friend.

Glad I'm not the only one. ;)

Good Parenting! I like the letter to the offended family member. We have had a couple of late night "Get that statement off the Internet!!" moments in our house too.

A good and rightious lesson on being a speedbump on the information highway (bannable phrase?) before, say, doing the same thing via an employer's computer. :>

Nice touch with the apology.

Now I feel doubly stupid--I did not realize she'd insulted her grandfather when I commented earlier. That might have changed my remarks some. But it sounds like you had a good resolution to the whole affair--and I'm still not a parent (knock wood, knock wood, knock wood).

Michele, I think it's great that you came up with the correct answer despite the wealth of "advice" you got earlier. Natalie is a lucky girl, even if she doesn't know it yet.

Parenting teenage daughters is a thankless task. Ours are 17 and 13.

So until she thanks you (when she's 32 or so)...thank you.

Ain't much but it'll have to do.

All sounds good to me. Words and actions have consequences as the hypothetical daughter learned in theory. The fact that she's sorry is a good thing.

Well, now she'll just do her bitching in a diary under the bed, like in the good old days. Can't be googled, y'know.

Excellent resolution, IMHO. Much more than most parents are willing to give these days, and she will (eventually) thank you.

Nice job, mom, sounds like a great resolution.

Interesting that you banned computer use for a week. Last night my husband discovered that our 9 year old boy had visited a number of sexually explicit websites. (Apparently he didn't know that there's a record of websites visited on the computer). We banned all computer use for a month, including school work. If he has a paper or a project he has to do, he's going to have to write it out neatly. This will probably be the biggest punishment for him, since his penmanship ranges from atrocious to barely legible, and for him to make it legible takes a while.

The whole computer issue is a tough one. My 11 year old's skills probably exceed my own (and the 9 year old is getting close) so I know they can find what they want on the web. And as for parental controls, we removed those a while ago, because they wouldn't allow access to legitimate websites that our kids needed to visit for school projects. Our solution is to closely monitor computer use, along with everything else, and to make it clear to them that we will respect their privacy up to a point, but at their age, they can expect no privacy when it comes to certain things. So far, they've both accepted that with minimal complaint.

hmm, very interesting to see some parents' points of view.

My mom doesn't know very much about the computer. I have to help her whenever she gets online to find what she wants, so I know my brothers and I could get away with a lot, and she'd never know.
I don't know exactly what these kids all say in their blogs, but I know I'll never show mine to my mom. It's basically my diary- I write everything in there. Lots of times, I write either in my blog or on paper when I'm upset or venting- and the computer is usually where I go, as I don't at all fear my mom finding what I've written. She's found notes and diaries and things before, all "accidentally" of course, and tends to assume I totally and completely believe whatever I wrote in some fit of rage or momentary depression. I'm not saying any of you were wrong to discipline your kids for certain online behaviors or anything... but just thought I should say something that helps defend the kids a little. Blogs, livejournals, xangas, whatever- basically, they're an online diary- just like the one you used to hide under your mattress.

Jenny, they're online diaries that anyone can read. That includes people who will use that information to hurt you or blackmail you, or something as trivial as embarass you.

Diaries are great--the ones you keep under lock and key--and I'd go ballistic if anyone read my kids personal, paper diaries. The minute you start keeping it on the Internet, and projecting that into the world for all to see, parents have a right (and a duty) to monitor it.

If you won't read it out loud in the park, in front of your parents, it shouldn't be on the Internet.

We keep the puter out in the open, by the kitchen table. Everyone can see what everyone's doing. including me. Keeps ya straight.