Parental cheat sheet

MySpace

Nancy Willard, director of the Center for Safe and Responsible Internet Use, based in Eugene, Ore., suggests parents ask teens to show them their social networking profiles. On an irregular basis, say, " 'Hey, let's sit down and see what's going on with your online life,' " she said. It's a great way to get a sense of how teens deal with such issues as unwanted contact from strangers or posting personal details, she said.

While viewing their profile, note the URL, since she also advises occasionally checking the site alone, as well. She doesn't see this as violating a teen's privacy since it's public information.

If your teen hasn't shown you his or her site, one trick is to check the history file and click on their site from there. Parents can also search for their child's e-mail address, MySpace display name or key words (school, club, etc.) on Google.com to pull up a MySpace page. Another trick is to search for friends' names, and then look in their linked contacts for your teen's site.

If that doesn't work, go to www.MySpace.com. For the best access, you'll have to join. This is quite easy. If you don't want to use your regular e-mail address, create a free one from Yahoo, MSN or Google. Use this to sign up on MySpace (directions are posted on the site).

Once you're a member, you can search by keyword, name, e-mail, school, club, sports team or other organization.

For more detailed instructions, try www.parentsmartz.com (click on "5 Ways to View Your Child's MySpace").

To delete a MySpace account (yes, parents have that ability), go to www1.myspace.com/misc/RemovingChildProfiles.html. Parents log in as their teen with his or her e-mail address; if you don't know your child's password, click the "Forgot Password?" link on the login box and it will be sent to that e-mail address. Or parents can contact MySpace for help.

Parents can also file a complaint with social networking sites to remove photos from other users' pages.

Other networking sites include www.LiveJournal.com and www.Xanga.com.

Leet Speak is a type of code that replaces the alphabet with numbers or other keyboard characters to form words phonetically, such as "!" standing in for L, according to a Microsoft online primer for parents, posted this spring (www.microsoft.com/athome/security/children/leetspeak.mspx).

Once used by computer hackers and online games ("leet" stands for "elite" ), "leet has moved into the Internet mainstream," Microsoft notes. Besides making messages indecipherable for most parents, it's sometimes used to curse without triggering filters.

While it varies by user, some common replacements include 3 for E (what E would look like backward), 8 for B, 4 for A and 9 for G. As Microsoft explains, "leetspeak" could be written as "!337$p34k."

Still confused? Pick up a chunk of Leet Speak text and put it into this conversion tool: www.brenz.net/l337Maker.asp

Monitoring software

Parents can install software to secretly monitor their child's computer activities — including Web sites, keystrokes, instant messages and e-mails — but it should only be a last resort, Willard advises.

She recommends a graduated approach, starting with the least intrusive (such as checking the site history file) and bumping to more extensive efforts if teens actively try to restrict parent access (such as erasing the history file), break rules or act inappropriately.

Sites selling monitoring software include www.spectorsoft.com, www.safebrowse.com and www.contentwatch.com.

Stephanie Dunnewind