Posted on June 26, 2008 by Kathy McManus in All, Children, Education, Ethics, Parenting Comments (41)
Parenting or Spying: Who’s Watching The Kids?
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?
Comments (41)
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Having "Network Troubles"?
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
RE: Having "Network Troubles"?
I agree
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?
Teach Responsibility
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.
Totally ridiculous
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.
RE: Totally ridiculous
Yea I agree
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.
RE: Totally ridiculous
I agree
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.
RE: Totally ridiculous
Correct
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.
RE: Totally ridiculous
This is wrong
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.
Brain Dead Citizens, Lunatic Parents
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.
Its Not Right
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.
It's just wrong
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?
From A Teenagers Point of View.
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.
A Teen's Point of View ..
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.
Schools are responsible ...
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?
It's wrong
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?
its wrong{_ leila hedili_} ucap
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?
Spying? Maybe.
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.
NOT SPYING OR SNOOPING...JUST BEING A RESPONSIBLE
Parents should and must monitor their kids internet access as well as movies, TV shows, etc. Times are changing and thanks to the out of control kids (due to poor parenting control and discipline) are getting away by using violence as a venue to solve problems. Just as the example of the Georgia third grade student who carried a steak knife, duct tape, etc. to the school. Just because the student had a disagreement with the teacher and thought that, through the threat of violence, was going to settle the disagreement with the teacher. This example among others where K-12 students and beyond carry guns, knives, bats and choose hazing, etc. to settle anything or just for the fun of being bullies and feel important as the so-called “respected among their peers”.
I will continue monitoring my child (regardless of age) as an appropriate and effective way to prevent disastrous outcomes. Violence has never been and should not be the option to solve problems. Thus, since we are living in a highly advanced technological society, where, if we allow kids access to all this inappropriate behavior (through games, etc, ) most definitely we are helping in bringing down the ethics and moral traits that we all must possess and follow in order to raise our kids to become productive citizens in a multi-ethnic and cultural society. Parents need to educate themselves in order to learn how to block access to and use the sites not allowed or trusted in the internet options and/or any of those
hideous violent games, TV shows, etc. Otherwise, kids will still be as sneaky as they know how to be and do whatever they can get away with. Thank you!
That's not right
It true is you want trust from your kids you have to earn it. You have to show them that you trust them first. You need to sit down and talk to your children what they doing right and what they doing wrong. If you do that your children will really give their trust to you.
Spying!!!
Controlling everything your child does is only going to make them mad. Chances are they will not know what to do once that control is released or else go crazy doing all the things they weren’t ‘allowed’ to before. If you influence every decision they make, how will they learn to make decisions by themselves?
Wow......
Some talk about kids like they’re all criminals! You made it seem like the default was violence unless a parent interfered. Kids have their own personalities regardless of what you do (to an extent) and being monitored 24/7 would only make them more sneaky and rebellious (as it should)!
Not to call anyone stupid but...
Saying that parents have to earn their child’s trust is kind of dumb. I think that parents earned the right to respect and trust from their kids when they spent all those many years feeding them, changing their diapers, kissing their scraped knees, keeping them out of the knife drawer and away from electrical cords, etc.
That is not to say that I think parents should be covertly spying on their kids, but a parent’s job is to keep their child safe. I think part of that is checking up on your children and keeping them honest. However, I don’t think being sneaky is they way to go about it. I think parents should be transparent in the way they deal with their children.
Trust
It is a matter of trust. As a father of three, I have found myself, again and again, in a position where I had to rely on my children’s best judgment. I cannot be everywhere at every moment, so I had to let them be who, and what, they were, are and will be. If the child did something to alert me that my trust had been misplaced, then yes, I did closely monitor what they were doing. I told them, up front, what I was going to be doing, and why. The WHY was always the most important part. They (thankfully) chose to stop the behavior that was causing me to be over their shoulder, and the behavior would stop. To simply make it a habit is questionable at best.
Spying or not on your kids
Call it whatever it can be called, I’ll try my best to find out what my kids are up to. Regardless of whether it is private or not, I have the right to know. They come before anything else, especially their safety and piece of mind!
teaching comes first
In a world as fast-paced and connected as ours,some things are out of our hands.
Primarily parents should teach children about the internet,without using scare tactics, to allow them to form their own ideas, and then discuss what is safe to do, and who can see what they are doing.
As soon as a child is of an age where they make their own decisions, they deserve private space; even if it’s only the space between their ears.
To spy on a child’s online activity—-their every move—- is to peek at them through keyholes, tap their phone conversations, and read their diary. It is one and the same, since most children have replaced those modes of expression and communications with internet stand-ins…
Privacy is so, so important. It allows a child to be acknowledged as an individual. It shows a respect for them, that they in turn can learn to have for others. Learn to trust your child, and teach them to be trustworthy.
Some spying, some not....
OK, the fact that parents can monitor absolutely everything that the child does, now that’s spying. I personally IM people across the country every day. It would be like talking to your friends while your mom stands there, doing the whole ‘hi, I’m his mom’ thing. It’s bloody horrible. Now, monitoring your child’s grades is not spying. That is something that needs to be monitored almost constantly, because trying to pull a child’s failing grade up is bloody difficult. Basically saying; when at home, give your kids freedom, but let them know their boundaries. School, however, is something that will set you up for life, so it should be monitored very, very closely.
We all live with informational overload
I’m a parent and, in addition, I was born in 1941. I remember the world before the first TV ever came into our house and when it finally did it had a 9 inch screen. No computers. No calculators. No TV. Imagine that!!
The amount of new information I encountered each day then was a drop in the bucket compared to what we are bombarded with today. As a former teacher, believe me when I say that I experienced a generation that have a very short attention span, all due to the waves of change I experienced over the course of my life the results of which are now standard operating procedure.
Rather than trying to prevent young people from watching the wrong programs or surfing the bad web pages, it may well be better to speak directly to what they are experiencing and will experience continually no matter what we do as parents of teachers. We may have to talk to them directly about what the world is now feeding them every day. We may have to set aside some time and periodically ask questions of them find out what they think about what they are seeing and hearing from their friends, actually deal with the craziness they experience every day.
The problem is that someday, maybe sooner than we want to even think about, they are going to have to face the world entirely on their own and take full responsibility for what they do. The waves of information are only going to get bigger. We’d best teach them how to ride the waves without drowning in the crosscurrents.
Foundation before technology
I think the use of technology can definitely provide a more thorough insight into your child’s life. But, as your child becomes a teenager, they will need their privacy and I think the best policy is to make sure the foundation you have set during the early years is a strong one. Then you can rest assured that even though your child/teenager will be exploring their natural curiosities (no matter how much technology you have) about life with sensibility. I think that monitoring what they are exposed to is good to a certain extent, but the most important thing is making sure you are available for them to talk to about the issues they face.
I have to say that checking children’s school progress online daily is not a positive contribution to their experience in school. They will stress about school enough when/if they go to college, let them enjoy primary and secondary school a little more and let them be a kid without having to compete in the classroom for approval.
Taking it a little too far
Yeah, it’s a parent’s responsibility to be aware of where their kids are and what they are doing, but what ever happened to good, old fashioned trust? If you have a kid you can’t trust, sure maybe spy on them for their betterment, but I would think there are bigger problems than what they are doing, like WHY are they doing it? A responsible parent shouldn’t have to spy on their kids. A responsible parent should know in their heart that they have equipped thier kids to be responsible, and then give them the freedom to do so, even if it includes letting them make some mistakes, and then, of course helping them work through the consequences of said mistakes, through which, the child would learn more responsibility.
Earning trust
My mom trusted me and I was a good kid – most of the time. But, I lied to go places that my parents wouldn’t approve of and went to parties they didn’t know about. Kids are too immature to pass up a good time it they can get away with it.
I will grill my kids on where they are going and then do spot checks. I may not call or drive by a when they are at friends house every time, but enough to keep them wondering. I may be in the back of a movie theatre. Then I’ll know how they act when they think no parents are around. That’s how I’ll know they’ve earned the trust.
I know what it's like
My dad was one of the lunatic controllers. Former 20 year Marine, it was his belief that he deserved to know everything about his kids at all hours of the day. He installed spyware on my school laptop, put a GPS black box in my car, and checked that online grading system everyday. I was a good student, never skipped, rarely tardy. But teachers make mistakes too. I remember one time I came home from school to my father livid about me skipping a class which I knew i hadn’t. I had that day’s homework in my bag. Nonetheless he believed the technology over me (even though I was awarded perfect attendance the semester before) and grounded me on a false claim. I missed my senior homecoming and it wasn’t until the next Monday that I talked to my teacher and the attendance office, that he was contacted to assure him I was in class. Apparently I had come late with a pass from my previous teacher, but attendance had already been sent for the day, so i was listed as truant. I’ll be graduating from college soon and I relish the freedom of living on my own and monitoring my own schooling. To this day I rarely talk to my father about things in my life. In my opinion, he abused his privilege when I was young, and now he has to live with the consequence of knowing I don’t trust HIM.
This is wrong
I totally think this is spying – not parenting. This goes back to trusting your kids. If they find out you are spying they might not trust you. It’s not that hard to figure out if you are checking in on. It might be okay to a certain degree or certain age. The older the kid, the more trust you need to have. I personally hate it when my parents treat me like my younger brother. There’s an eight year age difference. You have to let us grow up.
Parents have a right
I am a Texas mother of 4 children, and there is no way someone will tell me I have no right to “snoop” on what my kid’s are doing, seeing, or who they are associating with. For one thing, it is for their safety and for another they need the guidance of their parents. They are after all “children” and in today’s world there are all kinds of terrible things around the corner waiting for some innocent child to approach. I will do everything in my power to make sure m kids don’t become victims of that. If I have to “snoop” to do it then you can bet I will do it.
Parent's Job
I think it is a parent’s job to check up on their kids. My kids know that I will be checking up on their phones, computer time and anything else. We have talked a lot of the things that they should/should not be doing when no one is around to monitor their behavior.
Spying ... final comment
I compared the way I was supervised as I grew up with what has been suggested here. I came from a very large expanded family (several families living in the same house in the Bronx) in a neighborhood where everybody knew everybody else (even if they didn’t particularly like each other). They knew what I was doing even before I did it and I got apprehended and paid the price several times.
The big difference between then and now is the impersonal, unfeeling web. I have no problem with a parent being on top of things and monitoring what their offspring are doing. I did that through teacher conferences and listening to neighbors and, definitely, face to face discussion with my kids. In my opinion, parenting requires proximity, involvement and interaction between parent and youngster right from birth and up through that moment when those youngsters can fly by themselves. That involvement has to be based in trust, love and all the other positive things we want in our lives. What it boils down to is if a child feels betrayed, intruded upon, embarrassed, denigrated or, perhaps, mistrusted, then the battle is over before it starts.
I’m going to stick with person to person contact with my grandkids and leave the high tech surveillance to the CIA.
Be more of a parent than a spy!
What I think is from the perspective of being a kid. My parents are great. They trust me so I’m okay. I think being a friend means more than a spy/parent. If you’re a spy/parent, you obviously don’t trust your kids to they tell you what they’re doing! They probably lied to you or they are just too much of a “bad kid” to be trusted.
Just remember: their judgment relies on you so if you make mistakes then they’re more likely to make the same mistakes.
If you teach your kid what’s right and what’s wrong then you’re on the right track. Don’t let them run wild come home at 5 in the morning unless they’re at a friend’s house and keep checking up on them every 1-2 hours!
Well that what a kid thinks! What do you think?
From a teenager's point of view
I am 14 years old and I believe that spying on your children is wrong. It’s not because I am a teen, it’s because I would feel like I’m not to be trusted. How can children believe they are trustworthy when their own parents don’t trust them?
My mother spies on me very often and it makes me feel like I am an awful person. I feel like I should be ashamed of myself when I have done nothing wrong. I feel like I don’t deserve to be trusted. I have a hard time making my own decisions because I know she’s probably watching. How can I become an independent and confident adult when I am unable to do almost anything without being spied on? I can’t have my mother take care of me forever.
I know this is not how all children feel. I am only one person. And I know parents have to be responsible and watch over their children, but I think spying on them 24/7 is going too far.
This is the kind of approach that causes teens to
If I was a child who was snooped on like this, I would have been so angry at them, I would have probably done everything they were against behind their back.
In the same sense that people don’t want to be slave to another, no one likes to be controlled and most will not let themselves be controlled if and when they don’t agree.
Parents - don't spy
I’m telling you this because it might help you. Your kids might really hate you for installing spyware and reading their messaging. This sort of invasion could destroy your family forever. My parents did this sort of thing to me when I was young and it traumatized me so deeply that I lost my love for them and twenty years later it hasn’t returned. It’s very sad because I lost my family, but I have never been able to shrug that feeling of being violated. Let them live life with dignity and they will develop a strong sense of themselves, which they need for adult life.
Nosey parent
I am one. I have not resorted to spy ware, but I monitor IM’s if I think there is something going on. They have to report in to me or their dad when they are out somewhere. I expect honest answers to questions. I expect respectable behavior when they are in public. I demand that they do their best in school.
When they live on their own and pay their own bills things will change. My husband and I have a hard and fast rule: our house, our rules – for as long as you live here. They have friends who are no longer welcome here and there are places they are not allowed to go to. They don’t like it but I will say they were honest with me when I had to ask some tough questions. (One family allowed underage drinking which my oldest gladly participated in.)
They don’t like all of our decisions, but it works for us. As they get older, they get more freedom until such a time they demonstrate they can’t be trusted. Oh yea, we are also those kind of parents who have told each of our girls that if caught drinking and driving, we will call the cops ourselves.
Spying?
I wouldn’t call it spying. My parents trusted me until I gave them reasons not to, BUT that did not mean that they didn’t show up unexpectedly on occasion to make sure I was where I was supposed to be. I fully believe in telling your children that ALL their activities, conversations, computer use, etc will be monitored. If they don’t like it, then they can get their own house and pay their own bills, but until then, my house, my rules!