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?
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Comments
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!
Brenda Hawkins | 1 year, 3 months ago
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Their safety is our responsibility
The internet has a wealth of information that children should have access to, and it also has dangerous elements. I feel that installing a filter on the computer, and keeping the computer in a central location where secret activities are not encouraged, is better than spying and lying. At the risk of sounding narrow-minded, I will say that if I had a daughter, I would track her chat activities, but she would be aware of it. There are way too many predators looking for young girls, as evidenced in the plethora of shows where young girls go to a much older man’s home. As far as my sons went, I did not want unlimited access to pornographic sites direct from their bedrooms, since statistics show that pornography addiction begins in adolescence. I’d rather be a parent than a friend to my children (who are grown, and who did not have a computer in their rooms).
Aileen Gunter | 1 year, 2 months ago
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Parental Spyware
Parental spyware also infringes on the privacy of whoever the child is IMing doesn’t it? Not to mention it’s easy to find through task manager(windows); activity monitor (mac). Parents may install it but with today’s kids often being the tech wizards of the house, programs may end up mysteriously disappearing. It only hurts the relationship.
Anonymous | 1 year, 1 month ago
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maybe you chould actually parent and not spy
if you seriously have to monitor everything, then you’re obviously not doing your job as a parent. Aren’t you supposed to teach them to keep themselves safe? Do you read their diaries too? Give them some privacy and trust for gods sake. Or they will probably never trust you either.
Anonymous | 1 year, 1 month ago
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what up kids
I have to wonder if I hadn’t been one of those nosy invasive parents
I would have had kids. Who knew they could out smart me . Drop them off at school and out the back door they go.
Call your school and they will tell you “we have 500 kids we cant keep up with there every move.”
well get this if your kids aren’t at school, you the parent, get to spend
your nights at truancy school. Or you trusted your teen, let them out with a curfew and the cops bring you in to retrieve your kid because they found you to be a believer in what they tell you.
Teen pregnancy/drugs /boys girls.
Parents, think before you make your mind up , If a parent who asks questions, drops by the school house
sits in on a class with your kid, these parents are doing their Jon job and doing it well.
the parent who is there will have a better understanding of the way their teen thinks. stand up and stay involved and you will see your results in the end
kudos to you,
Anonymous | 1 year, 1 month ago
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Im watched
I was watched and was scared by my parents. It’s not what I instant messaged or sent, it’s also what my friends write and send. I learned not to trust my parents this way and they took my diary many times. I was scared. Think before you spy..Do you want your children scared and not trusting you!?
Alexis Christy | 11 months ago
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On censorship and monitoring
Monitoring an IM, email, or text message conversation with a real-life friend is no less invasive than bugging an in-person conversation (whether by secretly planting a tape recorder, or never allowing your child to speak unless you’re present). Helicopter parents speak of predators, but when you’ve met the person on the other end of the line; you have absolutely no right to read the conversation.
There is a mountain of worthwhile information that is not taught in school but not sexual in nature. Heavily restricting the Internet (with stringent time restrictions, white list filters, or monitoring software, which makes kids embarrassed to use the Internet at all) ensures your children won’t be able to find a passion and take advantage of the vast wealth of information and community surrounding it, unless it happens to be mainstream enough that people who share that interest live nearby. Blocking pornography removes temptation. Reviewing every website teaches your children that they cannot be trusted to learn or communicate independently.
There’s a core ideal at stake here – one that our country was founded on democracy, debate, and dissent. People of different beliefs, coexisting and accepting each other. Like it or not, your child is a human being, and has a fundamental right to his or her own opinions and values. They have every right to believe in a different religion or no religion at all, and that a book or website might lead them to develop their own opinions instead of blindly following yours is not a valid reason to ban it. (I admit I’ve digressed towards censorship rather than wiretapping here, but the two goes hand in hand. Knowing you’re being spied on makes you afraid to say or read anything that might contradict your parent’s beliefs.)
Where the line is drawn is also difficult. There’s a difference between a TV show that glorifies violence, and one whose central theme is tracking down and prosecuting people who commit violent crime (both of which would be banned as “violent”). There’s a difference between KKK propaganda and a demonstration of racism as a problem.
Jacob | 11 months ago
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Network problems?
More like parenting problems. If you spy on your kids IM conversations that just wrong, and then to LIE about it! I’m sorry but that is just wrong. I’m still in high school and I know more about computers than my parents. So if they tried to pull that mess I would either be able to fix it or know that they did something. Oh and parents I won’t say how but there are ways for your kids to hide stuff even if you think you know how to find it, that’s the great thing about computers: there is ALWAYS a way around it. So why don’t you just talk with your kids instead of spying on them?
-A son
A Son | 10 months, 3 weeks ago
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I think they should
The people on the net, who want to manipulate children are extremely good at it. Even to the extent they may be able to manipulate adults, like the police. It’s not at all difficult to get a 13 year old girl to be convinced that a guy likes her, and to get her to crush on him. The best advice I have is to make sure your child only visits safe community sites like the ones run by Disney, such as Club Penguin & Pixie Hollow. They have an excellent system regarding protecting children. Club Penguin even offers it’s players to be like assistant moderators, with their Secret Agent program, which I think is good because kids may be able to pick up on certain slang terms that adults would miss.
Jackie | 10 months, 3 weeks ago
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Jose
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.
Jackie | 10 months, 3 weeks ago
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