Other People's Kids

"Walks"

Walks. "Josie" likes to go on them. A lot. The usual thing is smoking, and I can dig that. I smoked for 16 years before giving it up, and I know how it is. I started at 16 and also know how it is to try clumsily to hide it. Fair enough.

But then there's "walks" where she goes with a friend who is staying over, and they go to meet a boy, as happened last night. I'm pretty sure it was fairly innocent and the friend was the one interested in him, though I don't know that.

But the info came to us through a keylogging program I installed shortly after she got here. As I type this, my keystrokes are being recorded in our log. It's a nifty tool, and I recommend it to any parents generally and foster parents specifically for keeping tabs on what your kids are doing online. And if you use it, do everything in your power to keep them guessing as to where you got your info. You have to be careful or they'll figure out where you're getting it and dry up your stream of juicy info.

She has 3 or 4 email addresses, all of which passwords I now possess. I haven't snooped too much in them yet, and she seems to keep the accounts empty most of the time anyway, so it hasn't yielded too much in the way of intelligence, but she chats a lot online, and that will be her downfall.

One other thing...I know for a fact I was not as crude in my mannerisms and thinking as she and every single one of her friends seem to be. Her sleazy come-ons to boys she knows and unknown people she doesn't seem to know, and the nasty way she and her female friends catscratch each other is really, truly off-putting. If I was a boy looking for a date, I'd steer WAY clear of this crowd.

If this girl was my daughter and was acting like this, she'd be grounded until she was 40 by now. But of course, as I've outlined, we're pretty much neutered as far as any parental authority in this case, so I guess we'll just keep on keeping on.

Sigh.

posted by Dan @ 6:10 PM