But my teen isn't on MySpace.

Have you heard that one before? Have you said it yourself?

Many parents feel sure that their child would never get into trouble online, and many don't. What if yours did though, and you had no idea what was going on until after the phonecall? Would you wish you had paid more attention? Would you wish you'd only known more?

Most parents are and want to be good parents. No one brings a child into the world and says to themself, "Now I will just let them fend for themself and just cross my fingers and hope it turns out ok or that someone else takes care of them." Most of us want to do our best, want to give them every possible chance at growing up to be a fine, upstanding member of society and have a future filled with happiness and love.

Sometimes the world just gets in our way. Life sometimes moves ahead at breakneck speed and we just don't know how to keep up with everything. While technology races ahead of our ability to understand it, our kids benefit from it the same way we as children, learned things that our parents just shook their heads at.

So let's just agree that as parents, we'll share what we know, what we learn and what we discover, with each other and we won't judge each other based on whether each of us is more (or less) informed. Let's just do it for the sake of trying to stay in step with our kids. Their future depends on it.

This Saturday (because it is still Saturday where I live), I'm going to share with you, a list of social networking sites that your child may be a member of, using (wisely or unwisely), without your knowledge. I'm going to suggest that you, as a parent, do what you find is best for your own situation, to make sure you know where your child is online. For some families, the child will readily disclose their memberships to the parents, agree to some monitoring, and will follow parental rules and guidelines. In some cases though, the child will not co-operate and the parent will have to educate themselves and make it their business to learn how to check their computer for signs and evidence of where they've been.

Some will say an outright ban in those cases, is how to handle it. Some will realize that this only works at home and a child determined to do as they please will use internet access at a friend's home, a library, school or a paid half hour at the mall to sneak around behind a parent's back. Remember... they are teens, and they sometimes think they are "old enough" to do as they please regardless of your rules. It isn't about you, you're not a bad parent if that happens. It's about growing up, wanting to be an adult before they're actually ready, brain chemistry, logic and all those things that make us sometimes believe our teen is actually less intelligent than when they were ten.

As a parent, what you can do is become familiar with these sites and know to look for them in your computer's history and cookies. Any teen is familiar with how to clear history and so a good rule to have in place at home is that no one but a parent is permitted to clear the history. If they protest, you know you have reason to be worried. Make the rule and stick to it. If the rule is violated, make the repercussion be the loss of computer use. Be serious, be firm and don't back down, and then... make it a habit to check the history.

If you see social networking sites visited, take the time to check them and see if your child has a profile somewhere. Even if they don't, knowing what kinds of people they're befriending online is also something you as a parent, should want to know. Most kids online today will report having met in person, someone they "met" online. they often don't view it as dangerous. Once they see a photo and talk to the person via instant messaging, they let down their guard and consider the person to be someone they "know". This is true particularly if the person is another teen.

As a parent, I have my own profiles at some social networking sites so that I can log in every now and then, and see what's going on. I don't talk to others, don't send messages, and I don't reply to any either. As an adult, I'm aware of the danger to myself, of appearing to be initiating contact with young people online. I have though, simply by being the virtual equivalent of a fly on the wall, learned where the bush party is that night, who is telling their parents they're somewhere other than where they're supposed to be and I have even managed to assist in thwarting an attempt made by some kids, to make an authority figure (who shall remain nameless) appear to be a pedophile. Online, just as any blog owner can attest to, people sometimes do things they would never do in "real" life, because they mistakenly think mischief online is less of a crime than mischief offline. Teens are no different.

The nature of being online sometimes makes teens behave in a way they would never do offline. Extremely sexual conversations and very provocative photos, lists of drugs used, personal information such as phone numbers, addressses, schools attended, birthdates and other similar information are all things I've seen while browsing around to check on my own children. I've seen the profiles of teens whose parents insist "they would never do that" where indeed, they are doing it.

Make it your business to know what your child is doing. Privacy is a fine concept but honestly... how would you feel if your child was putting up posters at the local mall or community center, with a provocative photo, name, address, phone number, date of birth, school attended and the location of the party they were planning on attending that night? Would you think it was a violation of their privacy for you to know what they've been broadcasting to the entire population of your city or town? The internet is no different. It is a public place, and if your child is posting information on it, they are no longer doing anything "private" and you are not violating privacy any more than if you'd gone to the mall to check the community notice boards.

So to help you better inform yourself, I'd like to share with you, this list of sites you can start with. In my experience, the most common ones are MySpace, Nexopia, Xanga, Facebook, LiveJournal, and Vampire Freaks. There are more sites than are on this list, and I promise I'll be bringing those to you also.

If you do nothing else, please at least visit some of these sites, click around and read a bit. I promise you, your eyes will be opened.

Wikipedia's List of Social Networking Sites

Next Saturday, I'll be talking about what your teen may be doing on MSN. Until then... why not join in on the conversations over at the Fuelmyblog Forums?