So… now for part 2 of our ongoing “privacy” debate with a 10-year-old. Earlier today I wrote about my daughter’s discovering secret gmail account. Upon doing so, I blocked gmail on the laptop, but didn’t say anything else. The girls had taken the laptop upstairs (something we had allowed them to do provided the door stayed open), so I went and retrieved it, saying only that it would no longer be allowed upstairs. When pressed for answers, I told them we’d discuss it when their father got home (that’s always good for causing a few minutes of mental distress).

All day I could tell something was bugging my oldest daughter, but I didn’t discuss it any further with her. After dinner, she asked my husband what he needed to discuss with her. He said, “I think you know.” She asked, “Does it have the letters g and m in it?” He confirmed her suspicions. She then screamed, “You’re the meanest parents in the whole world” before throwing herself on her bed in tears.

And that’s where I found her about 20 minutes later (still sniffling). She asked me, “so you know all about the stuff I did?” I nodded. Then she said something I wasn’t expecting: “Both things?”

[Here's where I did some really fast thinking so I could act like a responsible parent even though I had no idea what "both things" were.]

I responded, “We log everything on that computer (which is true).” She questioned why it took me three days to talk to her about it. I reminded her that I don’t spend all day reviewing her computer usage, but that I perform spot-checks periodically (this morning being one of those times). Then she proposes: “So tell me what I did.”

I counter with: “No. God knows all our sins, but He still requires us to confess them to him before offering forgiveness. It’s the same here.” (Ohhhh… that was good! Don’t know where I pulled that one from…) It worked, because eventually she said, “Does the second thing start with an f?”

WHAT? My 10-year-old created a Facebook account behind my back?!?!

Inside I am flipping out, but outside I am cool as a cucumber (who knew those acting classes would come in handy for parenting?). I nodded and then told her how she had broken the law by signing up for a Facebook account at age 10. She said, “I didn’t read those statements, I just clicked Agree.” Nice.

[Sidebar: I search Facebook and found the account - she had already uploaded a photo, played Yoville, and gotten 12 friends!]

We then had a good heart-to-heart about peer pressure and picking good friends (friends who don’t tell you to create secret email and Facebook accounts, for example). She just wants “to be cool,” and I get that. I told her this is a good lesson to start learning young, because she’s going to be faced with a whole lot more dangerous suggestions from friends as she grows up. She still doesn’t understand why things like unsupervised email and Facebooking can be dangerous, but that’s OK. She is only 10. I don’t want her to imagine all the horrible things that could happen… at least not yet.

In the end, I guess we all learned something. For starters, she learned we really do monitor her computer usage (in case she was wondering how much she could get away with), and we learned that we really do need to monitor her computer usage (in case we forgot how quickly our kids are growing up). We also started a healthy conversation about friends that will probably continue for the next decade or so.

[Note to self: install keystroke monitor ASAP!]

About a year ago, my daughter (who was 9 at the time) started asking for her own email account. This, I suppose, comes from having parents who make a living using computers. In any case, after researching our options, we found lots of suggestions online for using free web-based services like Gmail to setup and monitor a child’s email account.

Ultimately, we decided to set her up with a Verizon account (we use Verizon for Internet access, and have multiple email accounts with our service), because we specifically wanted a desktop-based email solution. Why? Because it forces her to use Microsoft Outlook to check email (you can’t check a Gmail or Yahoo account through Outlook unless you pay an additional fee). Microsoft Outlook has some filtering tools that can be particularly helpful to parents hoping to restrict who is able to send their children messages. (Read more on how to set up Outlook to filter your child’s email.)

The filtering tools mean that I see a copy of all messages going through her account. This has been particularly helpful for me to find out what’s important to 10-year-olds. You know, stuff like whether school will be canceled because of snow, which teachers pick their noses, and which boy has a crush on which girl.

This has worked really well for almost a year. But, our now 10-year-old is a whole year smarter. She’s recently decided she “deserves privacy” in every facet of her life, including her email. Her father and I beg to disagree. We’ve told her that while she’s living in our house, we have a right to monitor any and all communication with the outside world. Lest you think this sounds a little like Big Brother… try reading the news headlines with regard to who’s trying to do what to our kids, then we’ll talk.

Anyway, today I did a spot-check on the email she’s received over the past few days and found a reference to another email account. Apparently, she emailed her friends on Saturday to tell them she had set up her own Gmail account, and that they should only write her at that account, for privacy sake. Ummmmm… have I mentioned she’s 10?!

So I quickly brought the laptop into my office and adjusted the parental controls for her account. I blocked mail.google.com (as well as mail.yahoo.com just in case she gets any bright ideas). Then I left the computer sitting out to wait and see what happens when she tries to access her precious new Gmail account.

To be continued…

Microsoft Outlook has some filtering techniques that can be particularly useful to parents trying to restrict who sends their children email. You can use a free email account from your Internet service provider, as the company probably provides its users with several. We use Verizon for Internet access, so I added a free sub-account for my daughter, giving her a personal email account.

Remember: Never use your child’s real name in her email address, and strongly caution her about never revealing personally identifiable information online.

After you’ve set up the email account in Outlook, you can set up some “rules” to let you monitor your child’s account, and also help prevent spam. First, you want to set up a rule to prevent any email that doesn’t come from a list of pre-approved senders from reaching your child. In Outlook Express, select Tools > Message Rules > Mail. When the Message Rules window appears, click the New… button, as shown below.

When the next dialog box appears, place a checkbox in the first option under “1. Select Conditions for the rule.” You want Outlook to start looking at emails to determine whether the From line contains certain email addresses. Now that you’ve made that selection, move down to #2 to specify what should happen to an email that isn’t from anyone on your pre-approved list. Scroll down in the list to locate the option labeled “Do not Download it from the server.” This will cause Outlook to leave any message from unknown senders out on the email servers (and not in your child’s inbox).

Finally, click the link labeled “contains people: in the third text box to identify who is allowed to send your child email. At this point, you can simply type in the email addresses of your child’s friends and family, or you can import them from the address book (if you’ve already set that up). After you’ve identified your approved sender list, don’t click OK yet. We need to make one more customization in this window first. Click the Options button to reveal the follow selections:

By default, Outlook thinks you want to only apply this rule if the message contains the addresses you just selected. But we want to change that. Select the second option titled “Message does not contain the people below” before clicking the OK button to exist the Rule Condition Options.

At this point, you have told Outlook to preview all email messages before downloading them to your child’s computer. Outlook looks at the From line to determine whether the sender is on your pre-approved list. If it is not, Outlook will leave the message on the server.

So what happens to the messages left on the server? That’s up to you, as the parent. I am also checking my daughter’s account, through an email reader on my computer. But I don’t have this message rule on my email program, so I see every single one of my daughter’s incoming email. If a message comes in that she does need to see (such as from a new friend who is not yet on her pre-approved list), I then go into that message rule on Outlook to update the list.

Note: When replying to email, most people leave the previously sent message under the reply. This is true for kids as well, and gives parents a chance to see the whole chain of email correspondence for each message.

What about messages your child is sending (as opposed to receiving)? By default, Outlook saves copies of the sent email in the Sent Items folder. You could simply log on to your child’s computer and review the sent messages periodically, but what if she deletes them? You can set up another Mail Rule to send you copies of that email, so you’ll see every email, even if it’s deleted.

None of this is fool-proof, because a computer-savvy child can edit his own approved senders list once he figures out what you’ve done, or simply delete your rules. However, in my opinion, a child who does that doesn’t deserve to have an email account at all. (Sorry kids!)

So apparently we in the Maryland area are a bit strange. We do crazy things in the name of raising money for our kids’ schools, their sports teams, and anything else we can think of – all as an excuse to eat, drink, and play games. Having grown up in this area, things like basket bingos and bull roasts are nothing new to me. But any time I meet someone from elsewhere around the country, I am reminded that not everyone parties this way.

Last Friday night, my kids’ school had a free family game night. For this particular game night, we played bingo. Seated next to us was a family who recently moved here from the Oregon. The mom commented that in Oregon, bingo is for occupants of retirement homes. Ha – not in Maryland! We love our games.

And lest you’re thinking of bingo being playing in those smoke-filled lodges or VFWs, think again. Basket bingos are typically held in a school cafeteria or church hall, and are definitely smoke free. Each game has a prize in the form of a Longaberger basket filled with various other sundries. (Families and local businesses sponsor each basket and fill them with whatever they wish. Sometimes you get a basket full of Mary Kay products. Other times a family will use a theme like “movie night” and fill the basket with related items.)

Basket bingos typically raise somewhere in the $4,000 – 5,000 range for the organization. Even in this recession, basket bingos held around here typically sell out. My daughters’ school is holding their annual fundraiser bingo on March 12. Tickets are $12, which gets you a stack of cards for the night’s games. There are plenty of other opportunities to drop some cash throughout the night, whether it’s on snacks, bingo dabbers (you mean you don’t have your own?!), or extra cards.

Next on the list of events no one else in the country apparently does is the bull roast. Wikipedia actually has a very brief page dedicated to explaining what this event entails, and then specifies it typically only occurs in the Maryland area. How wonderful that we are famous for this non-stop eating festival! Yes, a bull roast is basically a big all-you-can-eat buffet. You pay around $40 per person to benefit the sponsoring organization. Then you pig out (or is that cow out?) with your friends. My husband particularly loves the slight variation on this called “Bull and Oyster Roast” – he claims he once ate 25 raw oysters at one such event. Ewwww. (Sorry, Wyeth.) These events can raise anywhere from $5,000 – $10,000, depending on the size of the event.

So there you have it. If you’re not from Maryland, I’ve just helped you learn something new. Maybe you could help raise funds for your organization with one of these events? Enjoy .

When the earthquake struck Haiti, we were immediately concerned for our friend, Kez. She’s an American nurse who lives in Haiti ten months out of the year, volunteering with an organization called Angel Missions Haiti. They help identify children who have medical needs that cannot be treated in Haiti, and find a way to bring them to the US to be treated. (In case you’re wondering, Kez spends the other two months of the year working as the camp nurse at Chop Point Summer Camp in Maine, which is of course how we know her.)

We were all thrilled to find out Kez not only survived, but has been caring for hundreds of refugees in a field near her home (or what’s left of it). She has been able to secure additional supplies for her refugee camp, and continues to care for them as she is able (with God’s help). She is blogging about how this catastrophe has changed her life and the lives of those around her. Here’s a brief tidbit of her latest post. Please keep Kez in your prayers and click through to read the rest.

A new life – I used to have a life. It is gone. Can you imagine that? Everything that you knew, everything that made up your day – gone. Now, I have a new life, but it does not resemble my old life.

I used to have a job, several jobs actually. They are gone, buildings disappeared into piles of rubble and patients disappeared to the countryside. Now, I have a new job, but it does not resemble my old job.

I used to have friends. They are gone: dead, injured, or evacuated. Now, I have new friends, friends that I love, but they do not resemble my old friends. (Continue reading…)