Google +

[Camy]

If you haven't already heard of Google+ you soon will as it's Google answer to the increasingly ubiquitous Facebook. At the moment Google+ is in pre-launch beta and you'll need an invitation to play (pm me), but soon it will be released and, if you're into social networking, it seems a very good option.

I joined Facebook a year and a bit ago, but I still find it difficult and the user interface seems to have been designed by ... well, someone who doesn't think the way I do. Frankly I find Facebook is bloody awkward and a pain. Google+ isn't. It does much the same as Facebook - and yet is relatively easy to understand.

If you use any of the various Google products, be they mail or search, maps or images, you'll have recently seen a thin black bar appear at the top of your browser window. This is, once you've signed up, your 'in' to Google+.

Like Facebook and Twitter Google+ has a stream of posts from your friends, or the people you follow. it also has photo's that can be integrated with picasa, but the neatest part of Google+ are 'circles'. Circles are the means you can catagorize your contacts in different ways - eg: family, friends, aquaintances, diving buddys, world of warcraft mates, etc. One contact could appear in several different circles. And we could even have an Awesome Dude circle!

Give it a try. You can always opt out if you don't like it, and in my opinion it's more user friendly than Zuckerberg's baby.

http://plus.google.com

[Trab]

Sounds as if it has been arranged in what we used to call, in maths classes "sets", which could overlap, or be completely separate from the others. It sounds much more natural than Facebook; I have my personal people, sports people, LGBTQ people, radio people, aspergers people and volunteering people all in different personal sets, and with no ability to really segregate them on Facebook, I've limited my use of it tremendously. Sounds like Google+ might be just the thing...do you know if you can actually delete oneself from it? I know you cannot with Facebook, the best you can do that is deactivate your account till they trick you into accidentally activating it again with some underhanded email.

[Chris James]

It seems as if there are those who would see Google+ as a problem:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43881513/ns/te...ks/from/toolbar

But then we all know that kids are far ahead of their parents when it comes to anything new. Can you imagine any child actually revealing their inner circle to the parents? Google+ just seems to have one-upped Facebook in making it easier. But then if you can't trust your kids then you are probably a failure as a parent.

[Cole Parker]

But then if you can't trust your kids then you are probably a failure as a parent.

That's an interesting concept. From everything I've read and heard, kids lie to their parents. Even the really good ones. I love the idea of being able to trust what your kids tell you, but you'e responsible for them, and they'll pull the wool over your eyes to get what they want if they know they can get away with it. Or so I've been told.

I didn't agree with Ronald Reagan on many things, but he did have a good idea about how to treat foreign powers that sounds good for me as a parental tool.

Trust, but verify.

C

[Trab]

I think that kids respect respect, and if the parent has failed to totally meet the kids' expectations the kid will look elsewhere. In other words, if you don't trust your child with your own feelings, even if they are sadness at some debt, or other frustration, they aren't going to learn to trust their feelings to you.

The kids who don't do much wrong, or lie, are the ones who have been treated as a 100% member of the family group, and not someone apart from the family in some way. Spoiling a child is just as harmful, long term, as abusing a child; having no rules is just as bad as having too many rules, and those rules should be the same for everyone. If you, as a parent, don't tell your kids when and where you are going, you really can't expect them to have that courtesy.

Of course all this is from someone without kids, only great parents.

[colinian]

From everything I've read and heard, kids lie to their parents. Even the really good ones. I love the idea of being able to trust what your kids tell you, but you'e responsible for them, and they'll pull the wool over your eyes to get what they want if they know they can get away with it. Or so I've been told.

Cole, I've never lied to my parents or my friends.

Colin

[Chris James]

I didn't agree with Ronald Reagan on many things, but he did have a good idea about how to treat foreign powers that sounds good for me as a parental tool.

Trust, but verify.

I cannot disagree with Cole on this one, but I think parents are overwhelmed by the technology involved. A clever child can hide almost anything, and when have you ever met anything but clever children? Perhaps there is a difference between lying and intentionally not telling the truth, but that conversation belongs in a different forum.

I will say that my son went to an advanced computer school and learned more in five minutes then I will ever know in my lifetime. Past a certain age we are all users in the electronics world, but then the future belongs to them so perhaps I should be glad of my ignorance.

[Bruin Fisher]

I've never lied to my parents or my friends.

Colin

I hope your parents are appropriately proud of you, Colin - you're one of the best!

[Cole Parker]

Cole, I've never lied to my parents or my friends. lipssealedd:

Colin

And I believe it. But, you've heard of the exception that proves the rule.

Most kids lie. It comes naturally, starting when they're five or six, and the ability grows with them. They do what they do, and sometimes it's against the rules they've been given, and when caught, they do what they can to avoid punishment, which often includes lying.

It comes with the territory.

And if one is a responsible parent and cares about his kids, he'll check their stories, and let them know he's doing it.

It isn't mistrust. It's caring about the kids' wellbeing, and acting in a way to assure it.

C

[Cole Parker]

I cannot disagree with Cole on this one, but I think parents are overwhelmed by the technology involved. A clever child can hide almost anything, and when have you ever met anything but clever children? Perhaps there is a difference between lying and intentionally not telling the truth, but that conversation belongs in a different forum.

I will say that my son went to an advanced computer school and learned more in five minutes then I will ever know in my lifetime. Past a certain age we are all users in the electronics world, but then the future belongs to them so perhaps I should be glad of my ignorance.

Man, can I ever relate to that. Computer technology make me feel so 1950-ish. Not only is the technology beyond my ken, but as if that wasn't enough, it keeps changing, much faster that I can keep up, assuming I was every 'caught up' in the first place, which in fact I wasn't.

Luckily, I don't have a child whose computer use I need to monitor. I agree with Chris: no way, no how would I ever be competent to do that.

C

[Camy]

I've never lied to my parents or my friends.

And I believe it.

Cole, did you not notice the emoticon? It's the closest we have to fingers crossed behind your back.

[Cole Parker]

Cole, did you not notice the emoticon? It's the closest we have to fingers crossed behind your back.

No, I admit I missed that. But I know Colin just a little, and if anyone could make that claim without causing me to doubt him, it would be Colin.

But it is good, time to time, to see he's human.

C

[Richard Norway]

Most kids lie. It comes naturally, starting when they're five or six, and the ability grows with them. They do what they do, and sometimes it's against the rules they've been given, and when caught, they do what they can to avoid punishment, which often includes lying.

It comes with the territory.

And if one is a responsible parent and cares about his kids, he'll check their stories, and let them know he's doing it.

It isn't mistrust. It's caring about the kids' well being, and acting in a way to assure it.

C

I'm a foster parent and most of the kids that I've been involved with have been abused and neglected. Of course they lie, but they lie to 1) get attention that they have lacked, 2) make their lives more normal so they believe that they live in the world of their peers and 3) protect themselves from the abuse of their past. But, the kids that I'm referring to are not the kids of Colin's world. I can't say enough about what great parents he has from looking at the way he has learned and developed.

And I don't believe that Colin has never lied to his parents. That's just not normal. My parents will never know of some of the stuff that I pulled as a growing teen, not because I can't tell them now, but because I'm too ashamed to admit that I was a stupid kid once.

Kids, even though we call them kids, are thinking human beings who have their own life and they interpret what is being told and shown to them. They will disagree with their parents on a lot of things, but they may not show it.

Kids need to know that you trust them, but more importantly, they need to feel safe and loved by you, and that feeling of safety will allow them to open up with honesty

Richard

[Trab]

Kids need to know that you trust them, but more importantly, they need to feel safe and loved by you, and that feeling of safety will allow them to open up with honesty

Pretty much my point, but said so much better.

[Chris James]

I'm a foster parent and most of the kids that I've been involved with have been abused and neglected. Of course they lie, but they lie to 1) get attention that they have lacked, 2) make their lives more normal so they believe that they live in the world of their peers and 3) protect themselves from the abuse of their past.....

Richard

How well we understand this as we now sit on the throne of age and look back. From all I have read and seen, those with a difficult past will seek to order the present in any way they can to make it seem as if they are in control, lying becomes a part of that. Even in a normal adolescent (is there such a thing?) what we refer to as "stretching the truth" becomes a part of the development.

My heart goes out to anyone who takes on the role of a foster parent since the landscape of a child's mind in that situation is almost impossible to predict, there is no road map for the emotionally distressed. Kudos to you, Richard.

[colinian]

Cole, I've never lied to my parents or my friends.

And I believe it.

Cole, did you not notice the emoticon? It's the closest we have to fingers crossed behind your back.

Congratulations, Camy! Of course I lied to my parents and my friends at various times, probably from the time I could talk until I left to move into the dorm at UC Berkeley. (I probably haven't lied to any of them since then.) Kids lie to their parents. Kids lie to their friends, even more often than they lie to their parents. Kids lie to their teachers. Kid's lie a lot. I guess it comes with the territory, or it's in the genes, or something else.

The clue that Camy caught isn't the clue I thought most people would catch: "I've never lied..." If you see "never" then what you're reading is either a lie or religion or science fiction.

Colin

[Lugnutz]

Do know what Pinocchio's date said to him one night?

"Lie to me, lie to me."

[JamesSavik]

Kid's lie a lot. I guess it comes with the territory, or it's in the genes...

My experience is that they lie the most when they are trying to get into someone elses jeans.