The Reality of Travel Ball...

[NorthMS]

The only guaranteed privacy for my kids in my house is a door for the bathroom. More than a year ago, we found out my oldest was making real poor decisions by monitoring her text. Not drugs or gangs, but poor decisions. We had several very serious talks about trust, respect, and consequences.

Now, she's much more responsible and is making good decisions. Guess what? We don't monitor as much now. If keeping an eye on my kids make be an overbearing parent, then so be it. I see too many kids today act like no one at home pays any attention to them at all. I'll error on the side of overbearing.

 

[riseball]

There is good and bad in everything, I guess, but kids most definitely need to learn communication skills, and if they are going to throw something out there on a public "social media" page, don't get huffy when someone or everyone reads and shares it...

It is the sharing, re-tweeting, etc.is what people do not comprehend. It is no different than email. Although you expect that the rant that you sent me about the boss would be held in confidence, you have no control over what I do with it. People set locks their cyber doors to only their trusted circle. Unfortunately they fail to understand that they are at the mercy of the actions of those in their circle and who they decide to trust, and so on.

One of my favorites is Snapchat because "the picture it is automatically deleted and it cannot be saved." Yeah, like everything else there is an app for that.

 

[T.J.]

You mean permission to view information freely posted in a public forum? Where do you get such permission?

Hmmm....okay I see your point (duh is me ) But I'm not on any of those social sites you speak of (facebook, twitter, myspace, uvoo, instagram, etc.) so I'm not sure how much you can see or "view" other folks accounts. I thought you had to be a "friend" or something like that to actually see what people are posting. I guess it's time to venture out a little...huh?

 

[BobInMadison]

The only guaranteed privacy for my kids in my house is a door for the bathroom.

I have a wife and 3 daughters sharing a bathroom. They don't even get privacy in the bathroom. At any point, a sister or their mother could walk in.

 

[BobInMadison]

One of my favorites is Snapchat because "the picture it is automatically deleted and it cannot be saved." Yeah, like everything else there is an app for that.

Recently someone lost his job because his kids were making racist rants on Snapchat. Guess what? It WAS saved.

What really got the guy fired was his reaction, leaving a racist message on the answering machine of the father of the kids who were targeted in Snapchat. Amazing how technology baffles some people.

 

[grmerrill]

Out of curiosity, how many of you have girls on the team that come from really dysfunctional families? I'm talking about don't light a match when talking to mom because her breath might ignite. Or never knowing which of the four parents will cough up the tournament money? Or having to tell a player to stand in the middle of the dugout where the dad can't get to her to tear her a new one over the mistake she made last inning?

A lot has been said about letting the parents parent, but it seems at times it's the "parenting" we are trying to keep off the field.

 

[Cannonball]

Haven't read all of the responses and stopped at the insinuation that I am a bad parent because I don't have all of the social media stuff. It is hard to respond without seeming judgmental or sounding like my wife and I think that we are perfect parents. In short, I don't have any of that stuff. No twitter, facebook, ... We talk to our child. She knows she can talk to us openly and without judgement. She knows her dad will give his opinion and still love her. We try to never let her go a day without telling her we love her. I don't know this father and daughter but to suggest that I am a poor parent because I don't have that stuff is out of line. JMHO!

 

[Amy in AZ.]

My husband would not snoop, even if he knew how. Our now 30 year old son, almost drove me to a breakdown. I checked, I called people back that were paging him, I called other parents - and I concluded that 75% of the parents did not want to know it.

A psychologist took me to task for recording my son's phone conversations. That guy was an idiot.

So, do what you need to do. I am done informing other parents, though. And as far as my husband goes, he won't even open the phone bill because it comes to me.

 

[nanotech14]

Some of you parents put too much trust in 13-15 year olds to make adult decisions and that is creepy.

Because some of might have done a better job of raising our children are not relying on the schools, tv and the village to do it for us.

 

[Jojo]

I monitor facebook but she doesn't seem to have many friends on that, I assume because most kids dont use it.

Yeah they move around to medias that the parents don't know about.

Good thing my kids were brought up pre-social media, I don't think I could even stand for them to have it today. The addiction I see with it is so bad. Twice now I've seen kids running at practice still texting on their phones.