Serenitree, I agree with your thoughts and feelings, and can understand those of the others who have posted, I personally reach out to teenagers and try to help them, some of them are so desperate and in bad homes, I have in the last six months befriend a young girl in a horrible situation at home,,and with the help of the Child Protective Agency, in the state where she lived and the police in the state where I live, we were able to get her out of the home and into a great foster home and family. She has a long road to recovery, but is doing well, her parents, who adopted her when she was four, are both going to prison for what they did to her, that tells you how bad it was, if we can save one child, having them on the site is really important! I hate to think how her life would have been if one person had not listened to her!
Darlingrose

Then we should encourage them to think before talking. A lot of these kids can't or won't talk to their parents about the things they discuss here. I think that gives us a great opportunity to be the voice that the parents should be. Or would be if the kids would go to them. My kids came to me with just about everything. If there were things they didn't discuss with me, I obviously didn't know about them, and I talked to my parents about everything too. But a lot of my friends and my kids friends weren't comfortable talking to their parents for whatever reasons and they were glad to have my parents to ask about the difficult topics and my kids friends were glad that they could come to me.

It is an opportunity to be a good influence. If we can reach one kid who needs a decent understanding adult to talk to, then I am happy to be able to try.

Daydreambeliever and Serenitree I have truly learned something from both of you. Instead of having the attitude that they shouldn't be here and question where their parents are, I need to consider that maybe they are in need of someone to listen and they don't feel like their parents would be the ones, at least not yet. I am fortunate to have an open communication relationship with both my daughters but so many kids don't have that. In fact, my 30 year old son most likely reached out to others when he was young. It's good to know people genuinely wanting to help are out here.

You are all most welcome - this is what i loved about EP and hopefully will love about SW that conversations wander where they will.
I am an optimist too :) LOl and I will always jump in to help teens, and indeed anyone else who seems to need it. I still say tho that when you do, when you try to reach out to them, most of the time they throw it back in your face and say mean things.. i recall the time when a clearly anorexic young lady was ranting about her mom wanting her to eat a sandwich. I tried to explain her mom loves her and cares. The young lady told me i was treating her like a kid and gave me a mouthful of abuse. That happens more often than not..
Funny enough too the person who told me to p*** off on here was a young man who clearly has issues.
It won't stop me trying but.....

Strangely, I rarely had to reach out far. One short comment or question, and the kid would send me a private message asking to talk.
Occasionally I received private message from a kid who had read one of my comments on someone else's story or question and decided that I might be the one to turn to.
No idea why! But if they seemed sincere, I did what I could. There were quite a few who simply didnt believe i am an old woman so would write to ask how old i really am. And ask for a photo. I invariably sent them a picture of a fat orangutan. LOL. I can usually discourage anyone asking for pictures.

I agree. EP had no live overseers. I hope that SW will have living overseers to try to control the worst of it.

My point is simply that, they are here. For good or bad, we have them here. We can try to reach them or we can alienate them further by wishing them gone. The administration in its wisdom has chosen to allow the teens to become members. I have decided to embrace it and hope that I can make a difference to someone.

That's my story, and I ain't changin' it fer no one.

LOL. Serenitree.

@ darling rose, thank you for that story. Thank you for caring enough to put yourself out there to help a child.

@daydreambeliever, you better believe it. And I like it this way.

Robert A Heinlein said this about pessimists and optimists.

Don't ever become a pessimist.........a pessimist is correct oftener than an optimist, but an optimist has more fun, and neither can stop the March of events.

I remain optimistic. It is how I stay serene.

It's the same dynamic, and there is no way to control who gets on, so of course it will be very much like EP.

Dear Serernitree, if we would all just listen to some of these kids,and try to advise them ,the ones who are truly needing and wanting help,we as a group could do so much, just with words of advice and encouragement, and just listening. They are on here because they are confused and scared and unhappy, and just having someone to talk with can make a big difference in their lives.
Darlingrose

@Serenitree...It's not that I dislike teenagers at all. In fact I have two great teenagers of my own, 18 and 19. There are a lot of great teenagers out there. I know there are some awesome 13-15 year olds out there as well. It's what I see some 13-15 year olds talking about on theses sites that cause me to object.

DarlingRose, that has been my attitude since I first got an account at EP in 2010. I think I helped a few kids sort through some things, nothing as dramatically helpful as getting them out of a bad home, but just some muddled thinking getting cleared up.

Yup. Caution, even for us, is essential. So easy to be taken in by a sad story. But in the end, I prefer to try to set a good example. If not us, then who? The people on Kik? I think not.

Excellent points, Serenitree. More than anything I want these younger teens (and the rest of us) to be cautious about who they are talking with.

Wellll i wasnt really objecting to the 13-15 year olds... i dont mind them.. i have one myself.. but bless you @serenitree most of them sure dont want to be advised by the voice of reason aka a parent like person.. believe me i have tried.. i get told to eff off, (less politely than that) - it doesnt stop me but yes there is a lot of very disturbing things they are saying and commenting on..
It wasnt those i was mentioning tho.. and thing is, EP was the worse for that. most other sites tolerate the trolling and perving and nastiness a lot less than EP did

You guys are all awesome and have given me a new outlook.

Daydreambeliever, thanks for lending us this space to babble on.

Thanks Theresa. That is nice of you.

Yes, thank you, Daydreambeliever.

It really doesn't matter where you go, there will be trolls and pervs. Find me one social networking site where there aren't any trolls or pervs, that will be a site with two people on it and neither of them will be sure about the other.

@Theresa, why? Whatvis wrong with teenagers? I happen to like them. My grandchildren and great grandchildren are either just at the end of their teens or just ready to enter the teen years. I don't understasnd why people object.

@serenitree.. you optimist you :P