Although Facebook and MySpace might be the sites that first come to mind when I say “social network,” it's really more than just that. Lots of big, popular places that your tween or teens visits frequently are actually social networks, and the same kids safety rules and precautions need to apply.

Social networking is any web-based platform that allows users to connect or interact with each other in some way. Understanding that, look beyond just Facebook and think about what other sites fall under that definition.

If you think it fits a lot of sites, you're right. Most users like to have the ability to interact with each other when they're online – hence the option to leave a comment below online news stories, for example – and many sites now offer social networking in one form or another, even if that's not their primary service.

So what does that mean? Social networks can be anything, from YouTube to Xbox live to Club Penguin. If you want to search across the most popular social networks to see if your child may have a profile there, check out uKnowSearch here and sign up for uknowkids today to find out where your child has a social network.

What? My child? A cyberbully? Never...

It's easier to believe that your tween or teen could be a victim of cyberbullying than to believe that they could actually be engaging in cyberbullying behavior.

But statistics show that cyberbullied children are also likely to be cyberbullies themselves, at least some of the time. It may be in order to get revenge or completely unintentional. Kids may not even realize that some of the 10 behaviors below are actually forms of cyberbullying:

• Forwarding personal texts or photos. Sending on a sext or a private IM conversation is mean, and it could get a child in deep trouble or even suspended from school.

• Impersonating someone else online. Cyberbullies might post as if they were another person, creating a screen name similar to theirs or actually hacking into their account and pretending to be them.

As a high school teacher, I often run across the road blocks my school district has set up to inhibit students from using social networking sites during class time. Much like parental controls this is tactical maneuver from schools intended to protect the students. Unfortunately it’s not unlike sticking a finger in the proverbial damn. The plethora of social media sites that high school students have access to is astounding. And which ones are popular or trendy changes on a weekly basis.

Your kids probably know, understand, and have an opinion about Twitter. Do you? Its another alternative to Facebook for kids...

Twitter is a social networking site based on the premise that you can get all the information you need to know in short bursts of 140 characters (or less) called tweets.

Earlier this week I wrote about the many constructive ways our kids can use social networking and facebook for kids. A recent survey conducted in the U.K. reveals that many adults don't feel quite as positive about social networking. Anyone who knows a teen with a MySpace status-checking addiction knows that social networking can be a perfect way to waste time. According to one survey in the United Kingdom, Facebook and Twitter ranked among the “worst innovations of the decade”, most likely for that very reason.

The first-ever Innovation Survey conducted by The Foundation asked 2,243 adult consumers to rank the top 3 and worst 3 innovations, according to their own personal opinions. Facebook was the #2 worst innovation of the decade (second only to reality TV,) while Twitter closely followed at #4.