social networking

[SquarePeg]

Whilst there are lots of negatives regarding social networking sites, I feel they have helped my son. He has very poor spelling and it´s hard work getting him to work on language skills.

He is into messaging friends and doesn´t want to be embarrassed by his spelling so he is constantly asking me how to spell words and is improving. (He hates writing at school, it´s like getting blood out of a stone). Messaging gives him the motivation to improve his spelling.

My daughter is going through a lot of teenage emotional stuff at the moment and is in contact with many young people all over the world including New Zealand,Canada, USA, China and Poland. She has been much happier lately. She has been sharing her problems with these "virtual" friends and has discovered that there are thousands of other teenagers like her who have problems with school, parents, friends etc. She no longer feels she is the only one, that she is on her own and that nobody understands her. She is a very private person and bottles up her feelings so it is good to let it out.

Of course our kids need to learn internet safety but there are positives to these sites.

[Zevispaz]

I had an online journal as a teen, where I was with a group of other teens. I'd say it made my emotions easier to deal with, especially when I had other people saying I was completely justified in being that upset.