Another case I recently commented on has been decided. The Arkansas Mom who made comments on her son’s Facebook page as though he had made them and then changed his password so he could no longer access his account was convicted of misdemeanor harassment on May 27, 2010. The Judge ordered the Mom to pay a $435 fine and attend anger-management and parenting classes. The comments on my previous post seemed to indicate that most felt it was not ok for parents to add or delete content from their children’s facebook account. Given that this mother in particular did not have custody of her son, used profanity with him and on his page, and changed his password; I stick with my first impression that this mother has problems with communication. I have a daughter with a Facebook account. When I see something on there that I think may present an issue, I call her attention to it and explain how others may view it. I leave it up to her whether or not to remove or change it, but the important part is I talk to her about it. Children sometime make decisions or post things impulsively and then forget about them. Most children will understand if you explain to them why their posting may not be appropriate. If this mother had truly wanted to “exercise supervision over her son’s Internet activities” as she claimed, there are a lot better ways to do it. I am happy this Judge explained to this woman why her actions were so inappropriate – he parented her well.
Arkansas Mom a/k/a Facebook Hacker – Guilty!
May 28, 2010 by kimberlyhouser
In the eyes of the law 
Sounds like a case of a crazy mom to me! There should be someway the son could contact Facebook to get his old account deleted before the problem gets too deep. What are you supposed to do in a Facebook hijacking situation? I know my friends have logged on as me and posted things i didnt want to be posted but i caught on quick, deleted it, and changed my password…i dont now what i would do if someone changed my password though! If they dont already, Facebook should hava way to adress this issue and prevent this type of case from re-occurring.
I would be pretty upset if my mother would have ever done such thing to me. Mothers need to have communication with their children instead of having to find out through social network sites. There has to be such communication to avoid problems like these. Just as how parents want respect from their children, they should respect them too. In order to avoid these situations, people should think of passwords that no one can have a clue, add numbers, or some random caps.
Some people will always be too immature to be parents. This woman cant even sit down and talk to her son directly, probably just a preview of household issues in that family. This sounds to me like something a 13 year old would do to someone they disagreed with. Though facebook has presented quite a few challenges for todays parents. They never had anything similar for their parents to monitor, so todays parents are having to figure out how to monitor and discipline their children when it comes to an online presence. Last year I made a post on my friends wall that contained an explicit phrase that was meant to be funny. When my mother read it, she yelled at me, made me delete it, and then grounded me….and I was in college staying at home for the summer. I was livid. Although I understand why she did that. She thought that everyone she was friends with would be able to see my post like she could, but that was not the case and she didnt know exactly how facebook privacy works. I am now friends with some of my family members and family friends now, so i no longer use any expletives, even if they are in jest. So I understand the unique challenge faced by parents who do not understand the electronic world as well as the children they are trying to discipline. It will be interesting (or probably more terrifying) to see what new challenges technology will bring when I am raising children. (Not for another 10 years hopefully)
A good parent doesn’t impersonate their child then change their password. In fact, that sounds like something a child would do. In this day of age though I think it’s important for parents to stress to their children about what kind of information they’re putting on the internet especially facebook. I know some colleges in particular will look at an athletes facebook page before deciding to offer them an athletic scholarship or not.
I agree that it would be best for an explanation of why it is not ok to put certain things on facebook. You just never know who is looking at what you post, but also the fact that this kids mom did this all without him knowing is a little bit disturbing. To me that is a huge invasion of privacy no matter if you are a child or an adult. Facebook has really good privacy options now as well, so you can basically make your page as blank as you want it to be or as open as you want it to be which is nice.
Parents should not be meddling that much in their child’s lives. Never should an adult pose as a younger child and verbally beat down other kids. If the mother wanted to do something about her son’s media site then she should have him delete it, but never pose as him. The trust factor between parent and child has been crushed and will be very difficult to get back
This case is so funny. I find myself reading about crazy parent cases more and more. The fact that this women didn’t even have custody over that boy is pretty significant. I think the judge ruled well giving her a fine and sending her to anger management and parenting classes. Her parenting obviously isn’t up to par and for an adult to unleash their anger at a child via social networking definitely says something about the way they manage their anger.
My question is where did her fine go to? Because if she did her son wrong, did he get the money? A couple more questions; How old is the son? How was this case brought to court? And how true are the “facts”? Because God knows, if you help an old lady accross the street and get your hand caught on her bag, it then turns into you trying to “steal it”. You never know these days.