Rules for Instant Messaging

To do instant messaging, you must agree to the House Rules for instant messaging for our house. If you do not follow the rules, you will loose your IM privilleges. Below are the rules written from a kids perspective. These are also considered the "rules" in addition to the basic rules.

Instant Messaging
Many teens want to im but most parents don't when or how long to let them so here is my perspective, a kids perspective on what a good reasonable time frame for teens to chat online.


 * The appropriate amount of time instant messaging is 2 hours of 30-45 min increments with 30-60 min breaks in between increments.
 * 2 hours at one time is ridiculous.
 * 1 hour at a time is odd but can be used 3 times a year.(friend crisis)
 * Chat time window during school year week days is 7:00 P.M to bed time.
 * On weekends 12:00 P.M. to 5:00 P.M.
 * During the summer it’s the same time as listed above.
 * A good idea is to have longer time increments with scheduled time for each kid. (good for large families)
 * Homework comes first, so if someone is chating online and someone NEEDS to get on to do homework they get dibs on it but the time that they take from the first someone is made up in the other persons time.
 * Another thing parents are worried about their teens talking to strangers here are afew good things that you can do if a stranger starts to talk to your teen.
 * If a stranger starts to talk your teen tell them to just exit the conversation but if the stranger trys to keep talking that they need to tell their friends bye and get off the chat site and do something else and get back on later.
 * Another thing parents worry about is their kids fighting over the computer. This is a good idea.
 * If the kids start to fight over the computer give them a warning and if they contninue to fight over it take the computer away all together. The only people who can get on is people who have homework.