Protect kids from themselves?!

Here’s a parent who gets it: the Houston Chronicle’s Loren Steffy. He worries about sexual solicitations of kids online, but “I also believe that it's easier to teach children to protect themselves from others than it is to protect them from themselves. Here's what worries me about Myspace more than cyber predators: Written words are permanent. Writers learn early on, sometimes the hard way, that words are permanent and they are judged by them. To kids posting on Myspace, such concerns seem laughable. Yet we may well see Myspace sites posted on courtrooms of the future, routinely reviewed as part of the corporate hiring process or even cited in political campaigns: 'My opponent once wrote that...'." We are already seeing blog and social-networking posts used as evidence in courts. Steffy continues: "I keep coming back to this point, and the New York Times ran a front-page story about it, so let’s talk about it now at the BlogSafety.com forum – it’s time to hear from fellow parents about it! Any wisdom you can share about “teaching kids to protect themselves from themselves”?