Spying on kids' Facebook pages

I've made my share of parental missteps, but one thing I did right was this: When my son asked to create a Facebook page in eighth grade, I required him to friend me and his dad. I assured him we’d be “silent” friends, and that once he garnered the hundreds of followers all the kids have, we’d blend into the crowd and no one would even realize we were there.

This has worked out great — while I haven’t commented on his posts electronically, I have from time to time walked over to his room to tell him why I think something he posted is inappropriate or might hurt someone’s feelings. This was a great learning experience for him. I haven’t had to discuss a post with him in a long time. His dad was good at noticing what time our son was online — sometimes in the middle of the night, when he should have been sleeping — and calling him on it.

I feel bad for parents who didn’t make this a condition from the start. They have to resort to snooping. And apparently many have no problem doing so: According to a survey by AVG Technologies, 60 percent of U.S. parents of teenagers are comfortable spying on their kids’ Facebook accounts without their knowledge.

I don’t blame them — I side with them in believing a parent’s obligation to know what might be going on in a child’s world trumps the child’s right to privacy online.