Parents of teens confront Web safety

About three years ago, Suzanne Stanford and her teenage daughter sat in front of their home computer, looking at a satellite photograph of a house in Newport Coast. The house was where her daughter lived part-time with Stanford’s ex-husband, and the picture was remarkably vivid ? it even showed that the barbecue’s lid was off in the backyard.

But the clarity wasn’t the most amazing part. Stanford had located the house, and zeroed in on an image of it, simply through the information her daughter had posted online.

Stanford’s daughter, now a sophomore at Corona del Mar High School, had created a personal page on Myspace.com, a website where thousands of teenagers nationwide post profiles. Stanford, the vice president of Internet safety affairs for the Children’s Educational Network in Escondido, was planning to make a presentation to families about Myspace.com, and she prepared by checking how much a stranger could know about her child.

“Since I wasn’t too familiar, I signed up for Myspace.com and I pretended to be a 15-year-old kid that lived in the Newport area,” Stanford recalled. “I just put in there that I’m a 15-year-old kid and I’m interested in drama and singing and things my daughter was interested in. Then I started looking for friends, and much to my surprise, I found my daughter.”

Since Stanford’s daughter had posted her picture, last name and city of residence on Myspace.com, Stanford logged on to the white pages and located the address. Then, going onto Google Earth ? a website that permits users to look at satellite photos of neighborhoods ? Stanford zoomed in to her daughter’s driveway.

“She almost fell off her chair,” Stanford said. “I said, ‘What if I was a bad guy? All I would have to do is lie in wait for you.’ That’s how easy it is.”

KEEPING A CLOSE EYE

Stanford’s concerns aren’t rare; in the last few weeks, the topic of Internet safety has hit the Newport-Mesa community more than once. Police officers have spoken to parents at both Ensign Intermediate School and Newport Harbor High School about the lives that many teenagers lead online. Last week at TeWinkle Middle School, around 20 students were suspended when administrators found their pictures on a discussion page containing violent comments about a classmate.

It is impossible to say how many students in Newport-Mesa have pages on Myspace.com ? many users change their names and identities on the site ? but surfing the Internet still plays a huge role in the lives of most young people. Parents, in the meantime, can either impose strict rules or wish for the best.

“A rule in our house has always been no chat rooms,” said Michele Graham, a parent of two Newport-Mesa students and the president of the Harbor Council Parent Teacher Assn. “We have one computer, and it’s in our family room, so whenever you’re on the computer, there’s always an adult in the room.”

Shortly before the TeWinkle incident, Graham ? whose son attends the school ? relayed a message about Myspace.com to all of Newport-Mesa’s PTA presidents. The message urged parents to closely monitor their children’s profiles on the site and to establish rules about meeting strangers online.

Though some parents forbid their children from going on Myspace.com at all, others permit it ? but still keep a close eye. Robyn Moss, who has two children at Corona del Mar middle and high schools, said her 13-year-old daughter had a page on Myspace.com but that she checked it for content.

Moss added that after the suspensions at TeWinkle, some of her friends had ordered their children to remove their profiles from Myspace.com. However, she said she trusted her daughter to go on the site.

“She doesn’t give too many details out,” Moss said. “She has a few pictures of her friends. She doesn’t say what school she goes to.”

Others, including Estancia High School parent Mirna Burciaga, said they had created passwords to turn on their home computers and kept them secret.

“My children, I don’t know if they are doing that [surfing the Internet] outside the home because you never know what they do with their friends,” Burciaga said. “But what I did probably over six months ago was say, ‘You are not going into the Internet unless I am at home.’ ”

TRUST IN THE KIDS

The Internet may harbor dangers, but it also harbors major resources for any student ? which makes supervision difficult at times. Moss said her daughter was sometimes unable to do biology research online because she and her husband had blocked certain websites.

According to many students, trust is the main method that parents use to monitor teenagers’ online activities. Amanda Knuppel, a junior at Corona del Mar High, said she had spoken with her parents about the seedier aspects of the Web, but that they allowed her to make her own judgments when she logged on.

Most older teenagers, she added, have the sense to responsibly navigate the Web.

“I think that with age, as much as we like to fight it as kids, a lot of maturity does develop among people,” said Amanda, 16.

Trevor McDonald, the junior class president at Estancia High, said he had a profile on Myspace.com but rarely used it.

“I never really have time,” said Trevor, 17, who noted that his parents don’t impose any Internet rules.

Moreover, as Stanford pointed out, not every teenager needs a parent for protection. After she pinpointed the house on Google Earth, her daughter took down her Myspace.com profile and created a new one without her picture on it.

In its place was an image that no one could link to Newport Coast: a still shot of an Ewok from the movie “Star Wars: Episode VI ? Return of the Jedi.”