It's College Time: Do You Know Where Your Child Is?

So, you've been forced into mandatory retirement as a parent and are now only a consultant in your child's world. What do you do now?

When my only son left for college, he left with two "rules". Call home once a week and text if you are leaving town, when you are leaving, where you are going and when you get back. Although my son has always been a rule follower, it just didn't happen. He did let me know when he was traveling, but somehow the week would go by without a thought of calling home.

During his sophomore year he promised to do better. But THEN I found out how to keep up with what my son was doing on a daily basis, got cool photos of him with his friends, knew when he was cramming for an exam, found out he was thinking of buying a motorcycle, all kinds of information.

HOW? You ask. The answer is so simple it's frightening. FACEBOOK! I learned that all the college kids are on Facebook and they trade photos, comments, political views, issues on campus, and what they are doing periodically throughout the day, night, weekend, etc.

Since then, we have 3 college students in our family and one in high school. I know what they are ALL doing, and it's so much better than being a spy.

So, here is the low down for parents about Facebook. Facebook is an online social networking site, very much like Myspace, but a thousand times better in my opinion. You can only see someone's page if they accept you as a friend. Your student will accept you, because to not do so sends the message that they are up to no good. I'm friends with my son's high school friends who are scattered all over the country, his roommates, his girlfriend and his friends parents. I always know what's going on. Facebook also has thousands of applications within it that lets you send "Happys" to your child, blessings, angels to watch over them, buttons for their online bulletin board, bumper stickers and all sorts of wonderful things. These applications let your student know that you are thinking about them without them having to answer a phone call that might come while they are in class, in a study group, rushing to finish a project, or whatever else fills their seemingly 23 hour days. Even e-mails seem to get lost sometimes.

One Saturday morning I had a really fun conversation with my son. I called about 10:00 am and woke him up, with "WOW, I heard you had a great time at the costume party last night!" a groggy "yeah" followed and then I told him that he and his girlfriend where SO cute in their costumes. There was silence on the other end of the line and I said "the pictures are already on Facebook!" I now have that picture framed on my side board in a beautiful 8X10. They were really surprised when they came at Thanksgiving.

Do your student and more importantly yourself a favor and sign up for a Facebook account. It will give you a huge piece of mind and it's easy. Even our kid's grandparents are on Facebook, keeping up with what's going on. Join the 21^st century of knowing where your kids are AND what they are doing.