Ever heard of Myspace? It's a great site to share your life for all your friends to see. It's a great site to find old friends that you've went to high school with. It's a great place to meet new people. There's so many things you can do it's really quite amazing. Similar sites like Myspace that offer the same concept are: Facebook, Xanga, and Hi5 to name a few. But, what about when you have children on these sites? What can you do as a parent to protect them?

Now, I'm not an expert, so the advice I'm going to give you is strictly coming from me, as a parent.

I realize we can't control everything that goes on in our child's lives, but we can sure be aware of what goes on around them. When I started looking at my daughters Myspace, I couldn't believe all the things I saw. I figure there are a lot of parents out there that either don't care what their children are doing, or don't know what they are doing. That's why if you're a parent this is something you should read.

My first bit of advice is for you to find out if your child does have a "space" on one of these sites. If you are not sure ask your child, chances are they will tell you. If that doesn't work you may have to get creative to find out. One way is to sign up yourself, and do a search for your child's name. If that search leads to a dead end, you can search by age or location.

If you established that your child does have a Myspace, you should know how to be in control of their activity's so that you are comfortable, and they can still have fun. Even if you trust your child immensely, it is unbelievable what the other kids are doing.

I suggest for you to know your child's sign in name, and password at all times. Then go through their friends list. It may take awhile. My daughter has a lot of friends. One of my rules is that she can only add friends from school, or the area. Unless of course they are family members. However, if they are from other states, she's not allowed. Another thing I suggest, look at all the profiles of their friends. Go through them, make sure there aren't any drinking, drugs, or gang activities displayed on any of their pages. If I find anything like that, on any of her friends pages my daughter has to delete them. Also, read what they are writing back and forth to each other. Know what goes on in your child's life. Make sure you child's page is set to private. You can even set it up to where only people who know their last name can add them as a friend. This is just a little extra bit of security. Make sure they do not have any personal information displayed such as their address or phone number.

So, lets sum up these rules.

1. Find out if your child has a Myspace

2. Know their sign in name, and password (at all times)

3. Know their friends, and where they are from

4. Read their emails (no, it's not snooping, it's protecting)

5. Make their page private

6. Make sure they are not displaying any personal information, such as an address or phone number.

And, if you really want to know what's going on in your home, purchase what is called a KeyKatcher. This is a device you plug into the back of your computer, where your keyboard plugs into, and then plug your keyboard into it. It will log every key that is stroked. It's very easy to use, and works great!

Please feel free to ask me any questions, if I can help out I will. Also, please feel free to add to this if you have any extra advise or recommendations.