The Responsibility Project^®. Exploring what it means to do the right thing

Is It Careful Parenting or Spying?

98 Comments

June 27, 2008 by Kathy McManus

If you electronically monitor every website your kids view, secretly read all their instant messages, filter their TV viewing, restrict their incoming and outgoing calls, and track their movements by GPS devices lurking in their backpacks and cell phones, are you parenting, or spying?

Spying, and proud of it, say parental proponents of stealth, who insist that protecting their children has no limits. "If I’m responsible for their actions, then I should be able to snoop," says a mother in Tennessee. A Texas mom is point-blank: "I have made it perfectly clear there is no privacy in my house."

And no difficulty violating it. Just a single piece of spy ware makes subterfuge simple, allowing parents to view everything their kid does online, including both sides of IM conversations. Parents who don’t like what they see can secretly shut down the kid’s computer by remote, then blame it on a mysterious network problem.

"I can see why some people worry that parents will become too controlling," says a Texas father of five, "but I’ve found that technology actually lets you give kids more freedom." By controlling what his kids do and see, he says, he hopes to "eliminate" the possibility that they’ll make bad decisions that could bring lasting harm.

Care or control? Insight or intrusion? The debate continues, especially in the increasingly popular grade-tracking programs that allow parents almost hourly access to their child’s progress in school, with the cooperation of teachers. Depending on the software, parents can check test and homework grades, disciplinary notices, attendance, missed assignments, and their child’s daily class ranking, on command.

A Georgia mother who used to incessantly check her child’s school progress by logging on each day at 6AM, has re-thought her dependence on electronically tracking every aspect of her daughter’s daily life. “It speaks to all your neuroses as a parent, all this need to control, that pressure to make sure everything is perfect,” she said. “How are these kids going to learn to be responsible adults?”

Tell us what you think: Should parents use technology to monitor their kids? Is it parenting, spying, responsible, or something else?

98 Comments

What do you think? Leave a comment

• June 27, 2008 by The Moral Guy

  Whether or not children have a right to privacy from their family, the idea that parents can shut down their children's internet access and lie about the cause is deeply disturbing: perhaps there are occasions where it's OK for a parent to lie to his or her child, but doing so to keep your snooping a secret certainly isn't one of them. Besides which, shutting down a computer doesn't address whatever concern the parent has with the child's behavior. So come on, Mom and Dad, sit your kids down and have an honest discussion. --The Moral Guy http://themoralguy.blogspot.com

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  • June 27, 2008 by Vivian

    I agree with The Moral Guy. Parents should be honest with their kids instead of covering up their snooping. Furthermore, what if the parents let their kids know that they were being monitored? Wouldn't that give the kids more reason to behave responsibly? There are also ways parents can monitor their kids, like while they drive. Using bumper stickers or cameras provided by companies, the parents are notified by the company. What about in the office? Some bosses utilize similar programs to monitor their employees. Is there much of a difference in the employer/employee and parent/child snooping?

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    • May 22, 2010 by nick

      all you people are crazy.kids will be kids and its the parents responsibility to make sure those kids reach adult hood. sit them down and talk to them.lmao,that only works for pre-teens.after they reach that 13 year old stage,here comes the lies and half truths so go ahead and trust,but only to a certain degrr because when your child is on crack or pregnate at age 15 then you have no one to blame but you.do everything in your power to protect your kid in a supervisory position.because as my daughter has said that one mistake could be the one that alters your childs life forever.my 3 kids are honor students,atheletes and voulenteers in the community.my daughter is 22 and said that it was plenty of times that she wanted to lie to me about where she was gonna be ,but she knew that i would check up.which is follow up and follow through.she thanks me because now shesgetting ready to start law school.

• June 27, 2008 by TerryB0521

  I raised daughters during the time when the motto was 'give them space' and agreed that children need space and a place to call their own. I also taught them that they are trusted until such time as they show me that they cannot be trusted. In this day of 'helicopter moms' and tracking devices we need to be very careful not to raise children in a way that they are unable to make a decision or to understand what responsibility is. It's sad that we give our children the gifts of newest technology and cannot raise them to be and feel trusted.

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• June 28, 2008 by amber

  I think tracking down all of your kids moves are totally ridiculous. To some extent, parents should know what their child is doing and spying through them 24/7 is NOT the way to do it. Your child will fall further and further behind you while not trusting you. Have a talk with your kids; don't just sit there and spy on them.

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  • June 30, 2008 by leila hedili

    If you want to know what your kids are doing just asking them. Don't spy on them because that would just teach your kids not trust you and it would mess up the parent child relationship. If you’re comfortable enough with your child then she/he will tell you the truth.

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  • June 30, 2008 by jocelyn

    I agree with Amber. I think that keeping track of what we would is totally stupid. How do parents want us to trust them when they don’t trust us? I think that parents should really just take time to talk with their kids and have things right - that they have mutual trust. If I found out that my parents were spying on me, I would be so angry at them. Parents should take this in consideration. We need are space and privacy too.

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  • June 30, 2008 by Mr. IDK

    This guy or female is correct about the way parents should watch their kids. So you should sit your kids down and talk to them instead of spying on them. If the kids find out that could make your relationship worse.

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  • June 30, 2008 by Patrick

    I agree with everything everyone said. How are your kids going to trust you if you can`t even trust them? If you just be straight forward with them and talk I think they`ll trust you and talk to you about things going on in their life.

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  • April 28, 2009 by Michael

    For some cases, if you are blind that "your" child will not do anything that might endanger them, or that could have lasting consequences, you go right ahead and be the freedom fighter I am reading here. The other side of the story is quite plain. It is not a matter of "if" a child will make a really bad decision, but when. This technology lets you consistently determine if your child is wandering into something they should not. In plain sight of my teenagers, I will read their incoming and outgoing texts. They know that crossing the line is not permitted, but it is constantly discussed. The end result is that I have one 25 year old who is happily making a life for himself and family, a 16 year old who tells me when his friends are doing questionable things and "wants" my advice on how to protect himself from the backlash, and a 15 year old daughter who has told her friends to change clothes and would not go out with them if they looked like hookers or sluts. You think you are safe, but not with 21 million people signed up on MySpace. It isn't possible. I need this software for my nephew, who came to live with us at 16 (same age as my son), who admitted to wanting to "start over" with us because of former drug use, and who is building his trust little by little. You decide, but don't judge me when I am protecting myself and my children from the predators out there.

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• June 30, 2008 by Ann

  Just because George Bush and company have taken away our civil rights doesn't mean it is right. The people of this country are sheep. They give up their rights, think it's okay and then burden their children with the same nonsense. Spying on your kids will send the behavior you don't like underground. Expect a backlash. This country has more pathology than I thought. This is sick stuff.

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• June 30, 2008 by HaHa

  I don’t think it is right because all kids should just have a good life not having their parents spying on them. Kids should just have their freedom and not have to worry about being watched 24/7. Their parents need to grow up.

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• June 30, 2008 by jose

  What is the point of watching your kids? You’re supposed to let kids make mistakes and let them learn from it. Would you want someone to spy on you ever day of your life?

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  • April 23, 2009 by Jackie

    Try telling a parent who's child died of drugs, or were lured by an internet predator to their death or abused by them, they were supposed to let their kids make mistakes and learn from them. A dead child can't learn anything. We're talking about people, who are unable to have the foresight to understand the possible consequences of their actions. I myself have had experiences where I may have been manipulated by internet predators. I'm fortunate to have parents who stood up, and told me no way no how. It could have saved my life.

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• June 30, 2008 by Andrea

  I’m 15 years old and this is WRONG! A child and their parents should have a trusting relationship. If there is not trust in a parent’s relationship with their child, then I’m pretty much sure that your child won’t trust you just as much as you don’t trust them. Talk to your child before you do anything like tracking them down and looking at their instant messages.

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• June 30, 2008 by Amaryllis

  I'm 15 years old and I believe that this is WRONG! Parents shouldn't spy on their kids. That invades their personal privacy. I wouldn't want my parents to spy on me and if they did I would want them to talk to me instead of doing things behind my back. If parents really want to know what’s going on in their child's life, they should at least try and talk to their kids. If parents don't have any TRUST, then what’s the point of buying kids technology if all they're going to do is spy? That just messes their relationship up and I believe that's wrong.

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• June 30, 2008 by joe

  Schools are responsible for fostering parent backseat driving when they offer such detailed daily tracking. How can kids feel like choices are their own when their parents look over their shoulders?

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• June 30, 2008 by dayanita21

  I find spying disturbing and the fact that they try to cover up the spying is even more disturbing. Buying your kid something they want so they can have their own type of freedom and then using against them I find real ironic. For this reason, I think is really wrong and they should stop doing this. We were all young - would you have like if your parents did this to you?

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• June 30, 2008 by leila hedili

  I'm a teen and i don't mind my parents checking what i do online or anywhere else for that matter but when they take it that far they're going to lose my trust sooner or later. Just think, how would you feel if someone was spying on you?

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• July 2, 2008 by Mary

  I think that if you are going to read your children's private stuff, you should at least give them the heads up. For example, let's say you have a program installed on your computer that saves everything that has been typed, or the websites your children are visiting. I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing to have those things, but let your children know you have them, and you may just check up on what they have been doing. It will at least cause them to think about what they are saying and where they are going. I was 12 in1994 and I was one of the first kids I knew that was online. If my parents knew some of the things I was doing, they would have been very unhappy and worried. I think this kind of approach is more balanced and may even help keep children safe.

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