My son just recently had his thirteenth birthday and he asked me if he could start a Facebook page. He’s been asking for over a year and it’s always been NO up until this point. I did allow him to start a Bebo Page at age eleven that I monitored closely. However, he has an older sister that has a Facebook page and I allowed her to start her page at age thirteen. This is why saying “NO” isn’t going to work anymore. My daughter also had a Bebo page that I made her delete when she started her Facebook Page. I don’t allow them to have more than one social networking page at a time. Up until this point my son hasn’t had his own personal email account and I’ve dreaded coming to this day. This coming weekend I will allow my son to register his own personal email account and I’ll allow him to start a page on Facebook.

These are my terms:
1.) I know all the password information
2.) I’m his Friend on Facebook
3.) I’ll check his email and Facebook accounts randomly
4.) I’ll subscribe to his Facebook page

YES Parents! You can subscribe to your child’s Facebook page (anyone’s page really). You’ll be alerted every time there is a status update, they edit their profile, share photos, links and notes. Isn’t this AWESOME! It might not be awesome if you have a stalker but, for concerned parents like me, it’s a plus! Now, you do have to enable the option, and if you get to a point that you don’t want to subscribe anymore you can disable the option.

Okay, here’s the How To…
Make sure you have activated Facebook Mobile Texts on your cell phone. To activate Mobile Texts, go to the Mobile tab on the Account Settings page, click “Register for Facebook Text Messages,” and complete the steps that follow. If your carrier is not listed in the drop-down menu it means that it is currently not supported for Facebook Mobile Text. If you aren’t able to get this service definitely talk to your mobile operator to let them know that you are interested in this service.

After you’ve activated Facebook texts, you can subscribe to your child’s status updates by going to his or her profile and clicking the “Subscribe to SMS updates” link beneath their profile picture. You can also manage your subscriptions from the SMS Subscriptions tab of your Edit Friends page.

Now I can have a piece of mind and keep a close eye on both my children s Facebook activities. Hope I’ve given other parents some piece of mind! AND… That’s it for today’s Facebook lesson. If you’d like more information on ways to monitor children on Facebook and privacy setting you can refer to my previous post and read my review on the Facebook Guide For Parents.