For student Royston Chan, friends are friends and parents are parents, and never the twain shall meet. The 16-year-old has been ignoring his parents' requests to be his friends on Facebook since December.

'My father works at a coffee shop and my mother is a housewife. They are so different from the friends I have on Facebook, so I find it weird and very hard to say yes,' says Royston, who is taking his N-level examinations this year.

Like many of his friends, he thinks 'it is uncool' to have his parents, both 44, among his list of friends on the popular social networking site. He is their only child.

Besides the embarrassment he might feel from having his parents rub virtual shoulders with his friends, he says: 'I upload photos of my friends and me on Facebook. In some of them, we are drinking and some of my friends are smoking. If my parents see these photos, I will get into trouble.'

Whenever his parents remind him that their requests to be his friends are pending, something they have done 'three or four times', he either 'acts blur' or tells them he has been too busy with schoolwork to log onto Facebook.

Full-time national serviceman Daryl Ng, 19, also dreads the nagging he might get from his parents when they see photos of the 'crazy things' he does with his friends. Still, he accepted his parents' requests to be added as his friends on Facebook last year.

'They have seen photos of me having drinks and told me to know my limits. But there has been no major scolding,' he says.

His parents, Mr Ng Yat Kiong, 51, and Madam Lim Geok Kuan, 48, run their own tuition centre in Jurong. They signed up for Facebook accounts last year after 'hearing people talk about it and knowing that we can keep in contact with the people around us through it', says Mr Ng.

His and his wife's Facebook friends include their two other children, Dionne, 24, a production assistant, and Tiffany, 22, a marketing coordinator.

'I added my children on my Facebook account to find out more about their social lives and who their friends are,' he says.

How would he and his wife have reacted if their children had turned down their requests to be friends?

'I would think they are hiding things from me,' says Mr Ng, who admits he browses his children's Facebook pages 'to keep an eye on them'.

Using Facebook as a 'surveillance' tool might not be a good idea, experts say.

Dr Carol Balhetchet, director of youth services at the Singapore Children's Society, says: 'Parents need to separate their children's social arena from their family arena. Parents who use Facebook to supervise their children don't trust them.'

Instead of watching over them on the Internet, she advises, parents should 'educate their children on the dangers of the Internet but accept that children need to be allowed to connect with their friends on their own'.

Mr Ian Stewart is the former head of operations in Asia for Friendster, another social networking site. He agrees with Dr Balhetchet that children need their privacy.

He says: 'Children are on Facebook mainly to play games and teenagers use it to show aspects of their lives to friends around the same age, so it is awkward for parents and kids to be in the same social network.'

That may be truer of younger children than those who are grown up.

Ms Dionne Ng says Facebooking with her parents has helped 'improve our relationship'. She explains: 'As a typical Chinese Singaporean family, we don't ask one another how our day was and what we did, so when my parents see my interactions with my friends through photos or wall postings, they have an idea of what we do when we are not at home.'

Her sister, Tiffany, adds: 'Friends say my mum is cool for having a Facebook account.'

The sisters' positive account of Facebooking with their parents vindicates the view of Mr David Kan, executive director and senior counsellor at voluntary welfare organisation Family Life Centre.

He says: 'By being their children's friends on Facebook, parents show they are keeping abreast of the trend. It also gives them an opportunity to know what their children are thinking and to express their views if they feel that something is wrong.'

While part-time mass communications student Josephine Liu, 28, says she has not become closer to her father as a result of Facebooking with him, she admits 'we have more common topics to talk about because we have mutual friends on the Facebook such as my cousins and the people from church'.

Her 62-year-old father, guest services agent Lau Thiam Chua, says: 'I hardly go to her Facebook page or albums unless she tells me she has something interesting that she wants to share with me. I trust that she is mature enough to exercise discretion in both her actions and words.'

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