Abstract: Described herein are methods and systems for regulating the communication between a group of heterogeneous nodes. In one embodiment, the heterogeneous nodes include parents and their children. According to techniques of one embodiment of the present invention, children are permitted to communicate with one another via a social network if their respective parent(s) are acquaintances (e.g., dad of first child is a friend of dad of second child). Conversely, children are not permitted to communicate with one another via a social network if their respective parent(s) are not acquaintances. In one embodiment, one parent is an “acquaintance” of another parent, if the parents are connected via a social network.