Parents Getting Burned by What Their Kids Spill Online

In a little noticed but equally unsettling trend, mom and dad are discovering that their children are spilling some embarrassing — if not damaging — information on blogs and social networking sites that could hurt the parents. Disclosures run the gamut from unflattering portraits and pointed criticisms to intimate secrets, confidential business information and allegations of misdeeds. And while kids often think of their online revelations as akin to a private diary stashed under the bed, they offer everyone from your boss to the local police an unauthorized window into your life. "The result can be devastating," says lawyer Parry Aftab, executive director of WiredSafety.org, a privacy and security group.

Disturbing examples have been cropping up all over the country. According to the police in Myrtle Creek, Ore., Kelly Jo Page was arrested in March for buying a keg of beer for her son's 17th birthday party, after the boy posted photos of the festivities on his MySpace page. Then there was the man who lost his job in 2005 because his daughter confided in her online journal that Dad was drinking a lot because of his boss, whom he considered a "jerk." And in Maryland, state police say they arrested a Galena, Md., couple in January after a woman found her 12-year-old daughter's MySpace page stating that her father and stepmother had given her pot and cocaine. Diana May Bland, 24, and Richard L. Bland III, 30, face trial after pleading not guilty to child abuse, reckless endangerment and various drug charges.

No one knows just how many parents have been burned online, but according to Nielsen/Net Ratings, nearly 13 million kids ages 12 to 17 were using social networks in April 2007, up 17% from a year earlier. A recent study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project noted that 31% of teen social networkers admit they have online "friends" they've never met. What kids probably don't know is that those friends may include professionals ranging from cops and private investigators to headhunters and political opposition consultants, all of whom increasingly admit to searching children's names and posts for information on their parents.

Most parents are only vaguely familiar with the budding world of social networks and what their children reveal there. Indeed, when a SmartMoney reporter asked Tulsa, Okla., father Mike Ferguson if he read his college son's blog, he responded, "What's a blog?" Guess he missed the entry in Michael Jr.'s online diary that recounted, in gory detail, why Dad quit his job.