Parents must be encouraged, not discouraged from teen Grid

Discouraging parents from getting involved in the online activities of their children is a sad and dangerous philosophy for SL to advocate (note: not necessarily saying they are)

SL is a complicated world full of lots of great opportunities for parents to teach their children to make appropiate decisions without making them look 'uncool'.

That being said, SL should encourage and expect anything a parent does which is TOS friendly and PG in the main grid to help their child do in the teen grid.

What I am saying - if something looks too sophisticated for a teen it probably is and should not in anyway be a problem, but rather be enthusiastically welcomed in all circumstances!

SL should not advocate an us versus them mindset.

To further this statement: If Avatar Arwin Zeus helped his son Joe Teen set up thirdserver.net in the teen grid for selling to other teens from a website catalog, it would be really sad if SL put any roadblocks in the way of something like this.

Further implication: SL has opened this pandora box, now they must deal with it. While I in no way advocate adults without children going into the teen grid, it will happen and there is nothing SL can really do about it except to go around accusing people randomly as liars - which is not acceptable social behavior and they either know it or they're going to find out.

I am all for a teen grid, personally, however I am getting the feeling SL is under the naive impression that it's 'just this seperate, teen friendly grid .. no big deal'. It's not. It's a *lot* of monitoring because adults must be in the Grid. We can only hope they actually have children.

To avoid all the obvious personal attacks: no this is not an excuse for anyone to pretend to have children and wreak economic or social havoc in the teen grid. And please, if you are going to reply, leave *me* out of the conversation.

Mmmm, maybe real question is not about what might happen, but what Linden Lab might get sued for.



Would this be fair? Now what if Bepotheus Goldgirl wants to sell from her website catalog by setting up TeenXChange.com? But Bepotheus has no teen aged son? Now Arwin get all the teen market. How big would be pressure on Bepotheus to somehow get into teen grid maybe using cheat? What if Arwin had no son but just cheat and Bepotheus remain honest? Then cheater would get all market?

Mmmm, wasn't there one time in USA when alcohol was forbidden? And some smuggler/mafia got very rich?

I think that having some adult supervision in the teen grid would help to keep the pedophiles away. After all, younger people are generally unaware that a smooth talker may not necessarily be as nice as he seems to be.
LL could very well let a few selected mentors/instructors in to help out the kids and keep an eye out for anything suspicious.

When it comes to internet use, a parent should be always be involved and for SL to come between a parent and his children is a really really sad thing. I can only think that there is a big misunderstanding and that they are not going to do this.

So, I believe adults on the teen grid are a foregone conclusion.

Unfortunately, other adults will feel that they have the same rights as non-parents. Which I can understand and appreciate, though for obvious reasons this is not a great thing.

So what does SL do?

They should suck it up, stop saying adults aren't allowed on the teen grid (well, only if they are surpervised by a teen, I guess!? Ahh, upside down world) and accept that they have opened a pandora's box here and monitor / structure the teen grid appropiately.

Another possible thing they should do is remove the economy. Adults are (again for obvious reasons) going to use what they have learned from the main grid to help their children win big on the teen grid.

if there was some scriptor or builder mentor needed for the teen griod i would apply for it happily, i am sure the teens are better at learning than adults.

but this deathwall between teens and adults is just a lil too exagerated i think, after all, teen's liaison will be adults too!

I wish half the parents in this world would think of accompanying their kids in their activities, instead of just plopping them in front of the TV/comp or whatever else; then we'd probably have less brats around, and less concerns of "OMG what if they create a giant penis??".

The idea of scripters/mentors allowed on a case-by-case basis is a good thing though, I think, especially if the whole SL world can "know" about them, their names, what they do, etc. (As per opposition to the fear of some pedophile in disguise sneaking in the teen grid.) Besides, perhaps the idea that there's an adult frame can also have a "preventive effect" of some sorts?

There also may be more underlying reasons behind the decision as well concerning discrimination based on age. I am not a Lawyer, however; it is something to inquire about.
Is Linden Lab by Law liable for not letting certain age groups have a part in this? There could be more to this than meets the eye. I know there are discrimination laws concerning employment. I do not know about freedom of access to Virtual Reality nor the laws concerning it if any.

a couple of seriously intelligent things they can leave out of the teen grid are money and ratings. those systems are completely unecessary in a teen playground and will cause far more problems than ll will be able to deal with.

assimilation is no problem on this end. eighteen-year-olds routinely stumble into our grid and acumulate three-thousand positive ratings and $300 in gom accounts during their first month.

let the children build and texture and socialize and be happy. they'll have plenty of time to enjoy the perpetual hell of dealing with money and ratings after they die and come here.

for pedophiles, ll need a few professional profilers wanderig around. they'll probably have to pay them though.

A parent CAN help his son/daughter set up in the teen grid and are absolutely not cut out from what their children do in SL.
I don't remember reading something about a rule that sounds like "when you play SL lock your parents out of your room's door or you will be banned".
A parent that wants to follow his children's activities can still do what many parents should take their time to do already with the internet in general, sit beside them in front of the monitor and give advice, talk with them, be present, *educate* them (and i think doing it in real life works better than on an internet chat with avatars).
A parent does not need to have his own account in the second life teen grid to be with his/her children, am i wrong?

There is absolutely nothing stopping adults from watching what is going on from the child's location. All they have to do is sit at the child's puter for awhile to observe what content the child is receiving.

Good point Anshe. Anyone have a teen I can borrow?

I do Chip, but you will have to split the profits.

Can we start trading teens on SLExchange?

my kids have two rules, when it comes to online stuff... no real names and no real location

they understand why I insist on such, and they gladly make sure the line doesn't get crossed.

- Ace

Good lord thank you Devlin!!! And nothing is stopping mom and dad from knowing the password and logging in every now and then to check the inventory and such. I would feel much better about putting my neices and nephews in the teen grid than I would letting them play EQ or TSO where there is no absolutely no support or guidance. At least if a parent calls LL someone who actually works there will pick up the phone and try to answer their questions.

And what of the paedophile who is the parent of a child who plays SL junior? In fact, any parent can access the junior grid quite easily by logging in to their child's account.

Really the supposition made by LL that no adults will have access to the grid is laughable and there is no way they can stop them.

Latonia

I have a 15yo daughter that I'm looking to unload.

I love the hell out of this girl, but she really needs a good spanking.

- Ace

Opinions are only that. Show me Laws and or cases involving other games. Point is mute.

Exactly!

Mine also Ace.

So, the rule actually is:

"no childless adults on teen grid", then?

or

"no adults, unless accompanied by a teen"

?

I mean, what if Joe Teen says "Yo mom, can you go fix my vehicle? it's not working" and then she logs on and Joe teen goes out to do a quick chore while mom is fixing the vehicle.

Is that allowed?

And while personally, I don't see this as a problem, I wonder if this is totally fair to those without children.