Kids today keep track of their homework assignments, their schedules, and their lives in general on social networks. Just one more reason for parents to keep an eye on their teen's Facebook and MySpace pages.

When kids want to plan a party or organize a group study session, the event is often planned via social networking sites. The message can be sent to multiple friends at a time and the response is much quicker than they could expect with texts or phone calls. Social networking is one of the most convenient ways for kids to plan out their day.

This past April was National Child Abuse Prevention Month. The month was dedicated to raising awareness about child abuse and, more importantly, to preventing it. The Internet adds a new dimension to child abuse, as children of all ages can become victims of online pedophiles and child pornography.

Protect your child by addressing the issue of child pornography early. No one – including smart kids, good kids, or happy kids – is exempt from the possibility of being victimized. Being informed is the only protection your kids have. Teach your child to avoid becoming a victim of a child predator or exploiter by:

EduHookups.com is currently only available to college students, but watch out parents. That's how Facebook started.

The site's “about” page says that eduHookups is for “students that believe working hard and having fun are not mutually exclusive” and encourages visitors to “register and put themselves out there.” Indeed. In a nutshell, eduHookups is basically a site for arranging casual, no-strings-attached sex with strangers for students at a select number of colleges and universities across the U.S. (right now, 25 and counting.) The site assures that it's “safer than using Craigslist” because it requires a .edu email address to register and hang out in the site's chatroom or respond privately to the public “listings” of students.

Older studies reported that the age of the average online gamer was somewhere in the 40s. But now, the age of the average gamer is 32. What does this mean? It means that tweens are entering the mix – and they’re most likely yours.

The overwhelming majority of tweens are online, navigating their ways through virtual worlds. 91% of boys and 93% of girls ages 8 to 11 report playing online games, up dramatically from just five years ago.

If you think that only kids that are the victim of cyberbullying, think again. Teachers can also become the targets of cyberbullying by their own students. In particular, Facebook hate groups aimed at a particular teacher are increasingly common.

In 2007, a Florida high schooler was suspended for creating a Facebook group called "Ms. Sarah Phelps is the worst teacher I’ve ever met!” She sued the school, claiming that creating the group was within her legal free speech rights. She won.

It may be legal, but it’s not nice – and it’s not smart, either.

You don’t need an expert to tell you that you lived a different childhood than your kids do. You remember when you had to get up and turn the dial on the TV to change channels; your teen can’t understand how a world without Facebook or MySpace would even function.

You perceive everything differently than your child, and that includes the very nature of social networking.

As adults and non-Facebook natives, we naturally approach social networking with more caution and more discretion. We are well aware that it is a public activity. We parents are more likely to view Facebook as more of a billboard-type communication than a conversation with a friend. But do our kids?

YouTube provides a completely free platform for uploading, sharing, and viewing video content on any subject. You can laugh over a parody of Twilight, see your nephew take his first steps, learn how to seal the grout on your tile floor, or prove to your kids that an octopus can, in fact, fit through an opening the size of a quarter. Here’s what you need to know about using this powerful tool called YouTube.

Watching Videos on YouTube

Anyone can watch videos without registering with YouTube. You can search by content to find pretty much anything you want, and YouTube will suggest related content.

Alexis Pilkington. Robyn Nixon. Phoebe Prince. These teenagers left their marks on the world by taking their own lives in the wake of relentless cyberbullying.

The response to cyberbullying has been slow and gradual, but many big entities are finally beginning to realize that cyberbullying is a serious problem that is not going to go away on its own.

As the word "sexting" began to gradually make its way into every parent’s vocabulary, we worried that racy images of our kids could get passed on to other kids and embarrass our child. But now a new buzzword – sextortion – is proving how dangerous the practice of sexting really can be.

Sextortion is shorthand for online sexual extortion. When someone posts or sends suggestive photos or video of themselves through an online medium, it can be accessed by Internet-savvy strangers.

Sexting is quickly becoming a rampant problem in high schools and junior highs. One in five teens have sent a nude or semi-nude picture of themselves to someone else’s cell phone, and one in four have seen a nude or semi-nude picture intended for someone else.

In this climate where racy self-portraits of our kids are being circulated around the school or Internet, many parents are up in arms but don’t know what to do. It’s certainly alarming, but is it illegal? Should it be?

Would your teen start to get the shakes after 15 minutes if you took away the computer and all their Bluetooth-enabled devices? If so, it may be time to worry about their online usage’s impact on their mental health.

A study published on Monday by the Archives of Pediatric & Adolescent Medicine suggests that teenagers who are pathologic Internet users are twice as likely to develop clinical depression.

I’m pleased to announce that MySpace has now been added to our service via the FamilyConnect platform.  This new feature enables you to better educate, engage with and protect your child when they use the popular website.  Unlike parental control software that is installed on a specific computer, our service runs across the Internet itself.  This approach addresses the reality that our children are increasingly social and mobile.

• Who is “friending” your child on MySpace ?

• Who is talking to your child the most on MySpace?

Whether we’re talking about text lingo, friending people online or the pictures our kids post online, the best tool to minimize risky behavior online is our active involvement.  Most children, teens included, say that their parents are the strongest influence over the decisions they make.

But even kids that have active parents make mistakes and sometimes we have to protect our kids from other people.  Therefore it is important that you are at least familiar with some of the text lingo terms that would indicate your child could be headed for trouble.  Here is a small sample:

So you’ve had the Internet safety conversation with your child: no giving out personal information online, no talking to strangers in chat rooms, and no sending elicit photos or texts. What next?

As a parent, you need to monitor your child’s online activity to make sure that your teen or tween is actually following the rules you’ve already discussed. That’s not spying – it’s parenting.

Photo sharing websites like Flickr, PhotoBucket, and Shutterfly are becoming extremely popular. Signing up for a free account only takes a few minutes, and then you can upload all your family pictures, add captions, and share them with friends and relatives. Photo sharing sites are a great way to stay in touch with out-of-state relatives or catch up with friends you don’t see very often. And let’s face it – pictures of your own kid are too cute not to showcase. But many parents are using photo sharing sites much too freely, and it may be compromising the safety of their kids.

Last month Apple finally made the move to ban sexy applications from the company's popular App Store. Female customers and parents can claim a big victory here because it was their loud and justifiable chorus of complaints that led to the change.

Apple made parental controls available last summer after parents complained of their absence on early versions of the iTouch and iPhone. But many felt that the large quantities of sexually suggestive apps for sale in the App Store was a problem as well. The recently banned applications included women in suggestive adult poses and/or barely dressed women. An estimated 5% of the 140,000 applications in the App Store were affected by the new decency standards. Noteworthy exemptions from the new policy are Playboy and Sports Illustrated's Swim Suit application.