OK, this is a bit of a departure from the affordable luxuries theme of this blog but I wanted to share this online service I recently learned about. It’s called YourDilligence.com and it helps parents monitor their kids’ activities on social networking sites like MySpace or Facebook. From their website, here’s how it works:

"During the set-up process, you can select the categories of words you want to search for on your child’s site(s), or you can create your own list. YouDiligence continually searches your child’s Facebook and/or MySpace pages for any use of the words you select. When one of those words appears on your child’s page, you will immediately receive an email identifying the word, the context in which it is used, and a link to the page where it is used."

My daughter is four and a half but already I am dreading her getting online and becoming part of these online worlds where our supervision is limited. I have many friends with older kids for whom this is a constant cause of stress. So I’m adding this service to my list of things to check out once we get there. Ugh, do we have to get there?

There is a free trial and it’s fairly affordable afterwards.