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?
Add Comment Share This
Comments
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.
Patrick | 1 year, 4 months ago
Add Comment | Post Reply
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.
Andrea | 1 year, 4 months ago
Add Comment | Post Reply
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.
Amaryllis | 1 year, 4 months ago
Add Comment | Post Reply
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?
joe | 1 year, 4 months ago
Add Comment | Post Reply
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?
dayanita21 | 1 year, 4 months ago
Add Comment | Post Reply
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?
leila hedili | 1 year, 4 months ago
Add Comment | Post Reply
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.
Mary | 1 year, 4 months ago
Add Comment | Post Reply
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!
Lyllibeth Muller | 1 year, 4 months ago
Add Comment | Post Reply
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.
Abe-dog | 1 year, 4 months ago
Add Comment | Post Reply
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?
mothernature | 1 year, 4 months ago
Add Comment | Post Reply
< 1 2 3 4 > Last » (8 pages)