Important! Please read re: Underage Posters

I think that a child is going to find anyway they can to look @ something they are not supposed to. Kids at such a young age are hearing, seeing and saying stuff are saying things they shouldnt be, whether it be on the web, tv, radio, etc. I think it is almost impossible to stock a kid from getting on the net, unless you either a.) monitor them and sit in the room with them
b.) dont have internet at your home
c.) put blocking software on the computer
and even that is not guranteed to stop a kid if they are that curious. The same thing goes for the alcohol, drugs & tobacco issue.

Just how old was this kid that was on here?

I thought people join forums because they have something in common. I found this site because of my love of cats. Never considered age as being important!

Yahi,
I agree with your statement on the age part. Age, to be honest, should not be a factor in whether or not a person can join an internet board... Yes, maybe their should be a restriction on boards that have issues regarding sex, etc, but not on a cat board, or something similar. I ran a board at one time, and never considered the age thing an issue. I have been on fish boards when I owned fish aquariums, and believe me there are 10 year olds and above on there who can dish out just as much as a 27 year old can.

Originally posted by Tigger
Age, to be honest, should not be a factor in whether or not a person can join an internet board...

Click to expand...

Unfortunately, the Federal Government disagrees. As a responsible owner of a forum, Anne has made sure that we Mods know what the law is and enforce it.

Yes, we do come here because we all love cats, especially our own cats. But is that the only thing we talk about? No, it isn't. We do consider ourselves a "family site" in that we don't allow sexually explicit posts or bad language or flames, but some of the topics that we discuss and the level of coversation is simply not appropriate or understandable for kids. This board is geared for adults, but not limited to those over 18 or 21 as explicit sites would be. But kids under 13 have no business being here.

And quite frankly, if your CHILD is surfing the internet, a parent really should know exactly where they are going and what they are doing. That is also called responsible parenting, and I know quite a few people who do it.

Well, the gov't disagrees with a lot of things. This whole thing about responsible parenting gets blown out proportion. I can also say that there are a lot of quacks out there who pretend to be children just to be funny. I just dont see how this kid's parents could be called not responsible.
Ok, you know what, I wont say anything, since I dont have a CHILD myself and possibly can't understand. I do, however, have my opinions and can state them.

I'm kinda agreeing with Tigger on this-

You know what? I don't have kids either. So that voids that defensive statement. I may not have kids but I do understand responsibility. And allowing someone YEARS younger than the allowed age in forums online for literally hours on end (which she was) is responsible parenting?

You can certainly state your opinion here, but where the law is concerned it isn't a matter of opinion. Children under the age of 13 are not allowed BY LAW to be here. Age does matter.

And, I am not arguing, but could it have been possible that maybe the parents were not at home? I think it's wrong for anyone to judge a parent when no one really knows what went on.

No one that I see is judging one parent, a simple statement that a responsible parent should not allow a child to spend hours on the internet at night, is not pointing fingers at anyone. Of course it is possible that the child was sneaking on which has happened in the past. Most times, when a warning and informative email is sent to the underage member, the parent intercepts it and gets really angry at the child and asks for the membership to be completely removed.

I'm 13 and just joined this forum, but before that, I told my parents about it, and my parents sometimes go on here to check out the threads. This is really the only website I go on because I don't have enough time with the kitten and my friends and schoolwork and having fun, like doing sports. For example I love horses and go to the stable every monday, wednesday, and friday and spend at least 3 hours in fresh air with friends, riding. I like this website because it's helping me with my new cat and I want to take the best care of her. Before I turned 13, I only went on the net with a parent, and that wasn't often because I would only like to look at websites on cats and horses.

So let me ask, and I mean no disrespect, but why do you come here? What is the attraction that takes you away from your real life friends, and family that you come here and hang with a bunch of adults who love cats? I am just curious, I know that when I was 13 years old, being on the internet, if it had been an option back then, would have been one my parents would not have allowed. I remember when we got our first television set, we were only allowed to watch one program a night.

If we had had the Internet, when my kids were growing up, I'd have probably treated it the same way, that I treated TV: limited time and I checked out what the boys were watching.

TV was a privilege, that could be revoked at any time. I purposely kept the old TV, that required a cable box. That way, I could disconnect it and lock up the box. I would have had to come up with something more innovative, if we'd had the Internet.

Russian Blue- I never knew you were 13, I am 13 as well!

Hissy- I think Russian Blue kinda answered that question in her last reply, she said I came here to get information about my pet..(etc)...

I think it's cool that i'm accepted here and why shouldn't i be?

My little sister, who is 7...only goes to Barbie.com and plays with software programs that are educational for kids her age...she KNOWS she isn't allowed on any other site, and if she stays on it for a couple of hours, it doesn't bother me at all because I am right next to her monitoring her doing this. My family is very computer literate and very aware of all the things involved. Our lives are a lot about the internet. My husband works for an internet software company and we do 90% of our shopping and communicating with far-away family and friends this way. IMO, the internet isn't always a BAD place...we tell Ally this and hopes that if she ever has a person talk to her she doesn't know....she can come to us and tell us. Which she has before! Children should be taught early about this because the computer age is well into swing, obviously. The law does have this right...which is GREAT! But, I think children should also be allowed to explore educational things on the net that are provided for them.

I wouldn't think that anyone here would mind that I'm 13. I mean if it wasn't for all the people here I probably wouldn't have a kitten, since the people here helped me get my dad to get a fixed kitten. I was just really happy about that, and thought that everyone here could help me if I had other problems with my kitty. But if you guys don't want me here, I won't come on anymore. My parents like this website because it has helpful information and don't mind me going on.

Oh, no! Please don't get us wrong RBK! We certainly aren't saying that we don't want you to come on here. We're only happy to help, and I'm really glad that the people here were able to help you to get a fixed kitten. And we will also be happy to help if you need it again.

Mary Anne (hissy) was just asking for some perspective, since we aren't 13 years old and the world that we lived in at 13 was a lot different than it is today. As you can see from Sam's post count (Wellington Cats), we have had a chance to get to know her. Since you are newer here, we haven't had a chance to get to know you. Obviously every person is different, so we wanted your opinion since we know Sam can't speak for every 13 year old here.

I also want to commend you and your parents. It sounds like they are really in touch with you, and you with them, and that you have a very healthy relationship with them. I'm glad that they are so involved in your life.

I wish my family had had internet when I was 13, but that is a different issue. The only reason I say that is because I had few friends. And, like Caprice, said, the net is not always a bad place. I think a lot of people probably think that because of all the child predators, etc. There is a lot of informative information out there to for kids to learn about. I think it also should be up to the parent to decide if they are willing to take the risk that the kid might run into things that are not appropriate.

Thanks Heidi and I understand where you're coming from.

Russian Blue - Don't leave , please stay so we can become friends, i look forward to getting to know you and your new kitty better!

Just as a :Note.. Mum also knows i'm a member here, heck she's even a member herself

RBK I didn't mean anything derogatory, as Heidi said I was just curious what the attraction was? And although this is a great community of adults there are still predators out on the Internet that can and will hurt children. In our state, they are still looking for a 12 year old girl who was abducted several months ago from a man she met online. So I really do not go along with the Internet being entirely harmless, after all the number one industry on the internet is pornography-

Ok, I was just reading through the messages on this thread and thought you wouldn't want me here. I don't want to offend anyone or anything, it just sounded that way to me. I don't like to be on the computer a lot, it's just not healthy, but sometimes it's helpful to research information.

Sam - I'd like to get to know you better too. It kinda sounded like everyone here only accepted you and no one else our age.