Facebook...

[SMT224]

Well, my 15 yr old daughter finally got me signed up on Facebook, and immediately added one of her friends, who is also the SPL in our Troop. An influential Troop Committee member, who also happens to be my wife, said that it was inappropriate for me to have any Scouts as a "friend". She believes this is contrary to Youth Protection rules, and I should immediately remove him.

 

Any thoughts on this? Do others have Scouts as "friends"?

 

Thanks.

[ccjj]

I am on Facebook and Myspace and have several Scouts and Scouters as friends. I initially created a Facebook account to see some summer camp pictures that a DE friend had on her site.

 

I personally see nothing wrong with it. Others may.

 

ccjj

[asm 411]

All Scouts in our troop I consider friends. I say hi or wave to them when I see them outside of Scouting. I talk with them about things I do outside of Scouting and in general enjoy being around them.

 

Then again perhaps I am over-trained. I treat all youth I come in contact with the same way I treat Scouts while doing Scouting. YP is not just a good idea that applies to Scouting. I would say that in today's environment it is best to not be alone with youth, to copy parents if emailing them, only call youth on the phone when there are others are present at least on your end and call their home number before calling the cell.

 

I don't do texting with anyone yet so I am not quite sure how others handle that.

 

So yes it is okay to have Scouts as friends in my opinion.

[OldGreyEagle]

Facebook, MySpace, other communication programs are, well, the communication programs of the 21rst Century. Their use is as good or bad as the people using the system, gee, that could extend over to a lot of tings, couldnt it?

[EagleBeaver]

When scouts request to be my Facebook friend, I accept. I've not asked any of them to be friends.

I see it as another way to stay in touch with the world of the youth and be able to understand what they're talking about on troop outings. If they are discussing JibJab, MySpace, BlackBuried, sexting, IM, ... and I can say "Oh yeah, I heard about that" then it's a lot better than, "Huh?".

 

 

 

[evmori]

No YPT violation! Facebook & the other social networking sites are excellent communication tools.

[Eagledad]

Its not a YP problem, but my son is a school teacher and they are instructed to not be a friend or have a friend with any students. I'm not sure why. I do know that Facebook has legal rights (or something like that) to everything put on Facebook pages.

 

Barry

[Gunny2862]

If your page is open, and either anyone can look at it , OR, if there are other Interested Adults from the Troop who can access your page at any time, then I don't see a problem.

 

Very few people are going to have inappropriate communications in a forum where others can readily monitor or check up on them.

 

We actually have an OA chapter, Troop, and Local BSA Camp Facebook group pages, we utilize to announce upcoming events and keep up with each other. It CAN be a great thing.

[ScoutNut]

BSA National has both a Facebook, and Twitter page.

 

 

[John-in-KC]

That FB national page is a great place to tweak the National IT weenies about things that aren't working right on the National website...

[Eagledad]

OK, I'm not savy on this subject, what is twitter?

 

Barry

[Beavah]

Yah, I don't see anything wrong with it, SMT224. In some ways, I think it would be discourteous to decline a Facebook "friend" request from a scout.

 

By and large, da way folks use "friend" in Facebook is what we older folk would call a "contact". Lots of teens and young adults have hundreds of FB "friends". So despite the word, it really doesn't refer to "friend" as in "intimate buddies". More like a rolodex of contacts.

 

That bein' said, there are some potential faux pas. Be careful what you post to your adult "friends" that the kids can see, eh? And be careful about what might be on your adult friends' pages that the scouts can link through to. In other words, be a good role model, and if they're lookin' at your "friends", let 'em find good role models. Interestin', fun, zany, offbeat, is OK. Wild and player probably aren't.

 

One of the benefits as some others have described is that you get to see what the kids are talkin' about with each other. That gives you a chance sometimes to catch some behaviors or problems before they get big and mention it offhandedly to get 'em thinkin'. It would be a faux pas, though, for you to take the trust they've shown you and turn everything into an opportunity for a parent-lecture. Let 'em have space to blow of steam or be silly with each other, too.

 

Beavah

 

 

 

[The Beav SR831 & 948]

Eagledad:

 

here is the answer that you seek;

 

just copy and paste the link into your browser.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter

[SR540Beaver]

I have 59 Scout friends on facebook. 27 of those are kids. A handful of those 27 have aged out. The youngest of these are a couple of 13 year olds. I did get a friend request from one of our new scouts who is 10. I did not accept his request because I personally feel he is too young for facebook and I (again, personally) won't interact with him there. Facebook is a great communication tool and amounts to little more than running into each other at a troop meeting and speaking to one another. Other than the ability to do private messages, everything you do or say on facebook can be viewed by anyone you are friends with. This did give me a teaching opportunity that I related in an earlier thread about one of our older boys who was angry at his parents and dropped an F bomb on facebook. He promptly removed it and we had a good discussion about leading by example.

[SR540Beaver]

Oh, by the way.....I'm friends with a few folks here as well as Scouter-Terry on facebook as a result of the previously mentioned thread. If you are interested in being friends, PM me and I'll tell you how to find me on facebook.