Kids meeting up with online friends behind parents' backs

[AB Asks]

Apparently, children are increasingly meeting up with people they meet up with on the internet without their parents' knowledge. A new study found that 20% of the children asked, had a friend online that they had met up with. But only 7% of parents knew about what their kids were doing. The survey also revealed that a number of kids gave out their full name (30%), home address (12%), school details (46%) and family photos (9%). Do you monitor what your children do on the internet? Is it a problem?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6706565.stm

[~Wingnut~]

Both my daughter's go on the internet to play games. My eldest is 9 and the youngest 4. I have parental controls set up and both of them know to come and get me if anything pop's up on screen that they don't understand. My MSN is set up for only people on my buddy list to contact me and even then it is just family that are on there.
My daughter usually says that she is going to send an e-mail to her friend before she does it and I can access all e-mail accounts anyway. I trust my daughter and know that she will not go onto sites other than what are saved in favourites.
I have also talked to both of them about strangers on the internet and how sometimes you may not be talking to who you think you are, not that they do but at least they are aware for when they are older and probably using MSN with their friends. They know that if they go against my rules then they wouldn't be allowed on the computer again, so they wouldn't risk it.
The computer is in our livingroom as well btw so I can always see what they are on.

[Carakeel]

My grand daughters (11 and 13) both use my computer on occasion to chat to friends on various sites and msn. I do regularly talk to them about Internet safety and I do monitor their usage of the Internet. Luckily they are intelligent young girls who do listen and, as we are very close, have even invited me to join in their online chats on many occasions, which is so nice. But will I ever see them as being safe on the Internet? No, none of us are and so we must always keep a watchful eye, especially on our children and grandchildren. At the same time though we have to take care not to be over-protective. Sharing the experience and guiding is better than over-restricting their use of the Internet, I feel.