Is it OK to snoop on your children?
Moms View Message Board: The Kitchen Table (Debating Board): Is it OK to snoop on your children?
I've been following the posts about MySpace, and realize that different parents have different ideas of how much privacy their children should have, and different ideas of how much and how far a parent should or has the right to snoop into their children's lives.
I posted a link to a column about MySpace and how parents can control their child's MySpace page, and started getting into my opinions about children, their privacy and parental snooping. And decided it might be better to bring it to the debate table.
Here are my thoughts on this topic:
Taking MySpace as a given in the lives of many (if not most) pre-teens and teens today, I think it behooves parents to (a) set up rules; (b) monitor and check - just because your child says s/he doesn't have a MySpace account doesn't mean s/he doesn't; and (c) follow the very good advice given in Mr. Coates' column (see my post in General).
Yes, it may mean that you will be charged by your child with snooping. Big deal! Parents snoop - fact of life. And parents are supposed to snoop, to keep tabs on their kids, to monitor what they are doing. That's a parent's job.
Are you violating your child's privacy? Maybe - that depends on how much privacy you think a child is entitled to. But anything a kid puts on a MySpace page is hardly private - just something s/he may want to keep hidden from a parent, which is not the same thing as privacy. My personal belief was and is that if there is something my kid is willing to share with his friends but doesn't want me to know about, that is something I definitely need to know about.
You can see I am a firm believer in snooping into (I prefer to define it as "keeping track of") your children's lives. A good part of the time, the things kids don't want their parents to know about are the very things their parents don't want them to do because their parents know that those activities can lead to bad life choices, dangerous behaviors, and potential disaster. And it was my job as a parent to work to keep my children from just such activities - which I couldn't do if I didn't find out what they were doing or contemplating doing.
In a word - YES.
Trust has to be earned, so does privacy. Privacy in the bathroom, etc. are givens. Privacy in certain other areas of their lives is NOT a given.
Snooping may prevent suicides, substance abuse, sexual activity, abduction, any number of things.
Parents are not raising kids within the safe confines of *yesteryear* - a time when for most, the worst that could happen was a kid sneaking off and trying a cigarette, which might make him puke, or trying a beer with an older brother or cousin, or skipping school to go fishing.
This is a different world. Video games and online role playing games are very seductive. The internet and sites such as myspace are in every household. Sexual predators are in the news every day. *Designer drugs* are in every town. Sexuality is used in ads from butter to clothing to hair products to medications to sell the products. The media is selling *the perfect body* to kids - mainly impressionable, insecure preteen and teen girls, so body image is a huge concern, therefore eating disorders are widespread, and there are sites online that actually encourage kids to become anorexic or bulemic. Sites are there that encourage cutting. In the last 50 years, the world has changed so drastically, people have changed, PARENTS have changed, KIDS have changed. And they are being pushed and encouraged to *grow up* quickly.
This is not the happily-ever-after age, where in most homes, mom stays home, dad works, the kids all get good grades, have decent friends, do the right thing, never put themselves in danger.
So if snooping protects your child from some of the above, YES, it's OK.
ditto Karen and Ginny.
The things that go on in my house whether by a child or anybody else is my responsibility. I don't snoop on my kids just to be snooping. But I do and did keep tabs. And if anything gave me the inclination that I needed to know more, it was commonly understood that daddy or I would take whatever action necessary to insure the health and safety of all living in this house. If that means 'snooping" then so be it. Snooping implies to me some secret or covert action. The kids always understood that their privacy would be respected unless we felt a reason to investigate. Our older 2 boys were a challenge and were never surprised about our searches. Mad that we found whatever we found, but not as mad as we were that we found it. The younger ds has not lost the privacy privilege that I can remember. He has his challenges, but never something where I thought I needed to go thru his room.
Heck ya, I snoop!
Definitely. I agree with all of the above!
I don't call it snooping. I gave fair warning to my children before they were teens. And the young ones know from watching it play out. If you don't want it found or it is bad, don't bring it in MY house. Once its in my house its my territory PERIOD. I always had their passwords and I looked them up on myspace and other websites before they even knew that I knew about such places. I even found them other places by searching. I had an incident with Kristine where she gave someone our phone number. They called 25 times a day, not joking. It scared the crap out of her and taught her a valuable lesson. I had to threaten the person to leave her alone.
When I first looked up myspace I checked out her friends profiles. The kids I thought were so timid and quiet. What a different story on the internet!
Until they are 18, I think it is a parent's responsibility to track their child.
I agree with all others posting so far. No need for checking on things yet, but that day is literally just around the corner as she because more social with friends I didn't "pick" during playgroups or my friends' kids.
I agree with snooping TOTALLY-I will have to learn what things to let slide and which things to freak out about.I hope my DD uses good judgement and respects herself.Its the friends I worry about.My DD sometimes tends to be a follower which scares me a little bit,yet at times I see her be the leader.I think it all depends who her friends are and how much influence they have over her.I will definatley snoop on her though.Its my job as a parent to take care/protect her
I do not call it snooping either. I call it being involved. We are VERY involved in our children's lives. So far they appreciate it. They have had some friends tell them that they wish their parents cared as much as we do. My children understand that we are watching out for them and trying to teach them right and wrong. Myspace is forbidden and they really do not care. Their social circle is too involved with sports and education to have time to sit in front of a computer.
GREAT point Yvonne! I loved your last line. We don't have a teen yet, but someday we will and our plan is exactly that...to keep her active and busy so that trouble is the last thing on her mind. When kids know that they have so many great things going for them, there's not a need to "fill a void" with the wrong crowd and/or there's too much for them to lose by going the wrong direction.
My parents were the same way (keeping us busy) and I knew they were always looking out for our best interests. When I *was* presented with an opportunity to make a bad choice, I always remember weighing "Is this worth losing my parents trust, my extra-curricular, and the freedoms that I have?" It never was. Sure, I made a few mistakes, but honestly, not too many. I was waaayy too good of a kid/teen! 
Personally, I think the lack of parental involvement is the problem. When you hear about kids doing bad things (Columbine comes to mind), they are not doing these things under parents watchful eyes. It is because they do not have enough supervision, that they are able to find the time to do these things. I am not comparing Columbine to myspace but.....Children posting sexual innuendos are looking for something and that needs to be questioned. As far as kids just posting to "meet" other kids---I do not get it. There are so many other ways to meet people in real life, why have a web page? Maybe it is me, but I do not understand why anyonw would want to put their private info on a computer for all to see.
I actually don't think myspace is that bad used in the right way (although the chances of my dyslexic son having any interest in something so word/literate intensive as myspace or im'ing is slim to none). I think the internet has its place in the world. Anyone read the bestseller The World is Flat?
My son does play runescape online, which is moderated, but I have taught him (by sitting with him for years) not to give out too much information and to be suspicious of other players asking personal questions. A good portion of the people he plays runescape with online are kids from his school.
Personally, I'm not throwing the baby with the bathwater. I happen to have a tech-oriented child and he sees the future as much as I do. It is labor intensive however to sit with your child while they are on the internet to teach them and guide them as they get around on it. It would be so much easier to park them in front of the internet and assume all is well, but we know crazy things can happen on the internet. It would also be easy to not have it at all, but for me that's not the answer either considering my son's strengths and his future capacity to make a living. Rather than forbid it and treat it as something evil, I am educating my son about it, sitting with him, talking about it and showing him the danger spots. And I snoop. I'm not stoopid. ;)
I just recently allowed my daughter to have a myspace account, and she knows full well that every message she recieves goes into my inbox first and I read it. I don't snoop, but I stay informed as to what my child is up too!
Alot of parents aren't involved in their childrens lives and this is where the internet can get dangerous! My daughter has grown up with me on MOmsview so she has always shown an interest in being online! LOL Until recently she really wasn't allowed. I actually see some good sides to Myspace...she is learning to type, my phone isn't ringing off the hook, and it allows her a sense
of freedom but I still know where she is. My daughter is 13 and very responsible. I think it all boils down to parent involvement and communication. There needs to be rules, limits and boundaries.
I snoooped! They are grown now and I have good kids. Yes I had the challenging teens and they lived thru them and I didnt go to prison for killing them. This is only because I snooped and kept them from doing things maybe that wasnt so wise. My kids now understand why I was so strict and have thanked me " for loving them so much". Made me cry. Comminucation is the key issue and building trust. when they break the trust then the line of trust is taken back some and they have to rearn this trust. theres a few phrases that I have taught my kids and the one that applies here is " if u can do it with out worrying what mom would say ... and ud be proud to s how her ... then go for it. but if u think or have doubt about it ... u better think twice why u have doubt and come up with a different thing to do." My daughter especially can quote me on this one... she didnt use to understand it. I got it from the WWJD fad ... and adapted it to our family. we do believe in Jesus and religion is in our family just not as strong as it should be so thats why it was adapted for our family in that way. the kids still will tell ya that momma will ground me ( tho they will laff and say a short prayer ) if they do something they shouldnt be doing. they are 19 and 24 and we have a good relationship.
My children, my responsibility. I snoop but I also stay very actively involved period.. DD (16) has a My Space and it is something fun her and her friends do. Most if not all of them are registered under private accounts and are generally safe from the public. I have access to all of their accounts as do all of their mothers. It is clean and safe. BUT I have read ones that are not.. And most of those kids have uninvolved parents..
DS's girlfriend has a My Space too, she gave me access to it so I could read it.. LOL
Bobbie, I have the same thing, at my house. I have seen her Myspace, and a lot of her friends, which are also people I know. She has a friend in PA, that we met on vacation last year (with all parents in attendance, at the time and I talked to the girl's mom ahead of time, because they shared a little vacation time with us, since they live close to Niagara Falls.)
I snoop here too. My dd has very little internet access. We only have 1 computer with access and it is mine. So they must have permission to log and and tell me where they are going. I go in and read her email from time to time. I did it a lot in the beginning, not so much now. ON occasion when I know something is going on at school I peek in. I figure the best way to teach her is to really know what she is doing. Often she logs into her account while I am sitting here, we talk about things like forwards etc. There is ettiquette to learn about the net. Just like dinner table rules, we don't expect them to just know them, we model them. So we use her account to model that behavior.
My 10 year old wants to play runescape, but I don't let him. Too many crazies in this world. Besides we have real friends, I make him go outside and play
Both my daughters have internet access and my oldest talks to her friends on MSN all the time.. I like it a lot better than her talking on the phone because I can go back and see what they talked about if I feel the need. I have no problem with them emailing and stuff because both know that I have thier passwords and I will look in sometimes. They are a bit young to get into anything too much, yet. But I know how I was as a child and I will snoop even when I don't think they have anything to hide because I did stuff my mom never had a clue about because I was a straight A athelet and "didn't have time" to get in trouble. Yea, right. I got into more stuff than imaginable as a teen.
Snooping is not an option for me, it is a must. I can already see some of the things with my youngest that worry me. I was never a follower, but I was very curious about everything. So I just found the people that did whatever I was curious about and hung out with them to try new things.. This was a big problem and I see my youngest already showing the signs.. she doesn't stick with one group of friends for too long, she is friends with "everyone".
I understand that a lot of things can happen but I also remember the "sheltered" girls at college who had never had any freedom. They all went crazy and did stuff that was really dangerous because they had never experienced anything when they still had someone looking out for them. I don't plan to let my kids run wild, but I also want them to have some freedom and know how to protect themselves. They have to go out on their own sometime and if I don't teach them what is safe and what isn't then they will be like those girls I went to college with that would do stuff even I considered crazy. And they all called me the wild one.
This is just my opinion but if you shelter too much you will end up with a child that doesn't know what is out there and what is bad or what can really get you in trouble or hurt.
My 11 year old plays runescape but i watch her closely. She mainly plays with the boys that live across the street and what they talk about it really goofy. :-)
Yes I'm an active, involved, snooping parent. We have come to find out that my daughter is somewhat naive And therefore need to regualate her life a bit more. She is on a very restricted internet usage program E-Mail, and a few sites, she's 12 and will not have an IM account or myspace acct or a facebook acct etc. She has a phone, a mother who is willing to drive her to friends houses, movies, shopping, and an open door for her pals to hang here. My big issue with the internet is that it removes the veil we all naturally have to filter ourselves. Think about this board, how many people come here to vent, because it's "safer". how many of us have told a little white lie on a message board, in an e-mail, on a chat? It's easier, there seems to be almost NO consequences.
When my dh's niece was with us, we were clueless so to speak, she was IMing people I thought were Her actual friends, she ended up inadvertently saving a file (a stranger had sent her a naked photo of himself, she had to save, it saved the whole conversations) she discussed the fact that she was a virgin but had given MANY bj's to guys, that she was in AZ working on her tan so when she did have sex, she'd look good, it was mind blowing to me, not having older kids at the time, she was 13 BTW just graduated 8th grade. I doubt had she been sitting across from this guy she would have just said all of this, and I doubt he'd have dropped his pants in person for her to "check him out". It just gives a certain liberty to say too much, make yourself something you are not, not even to begin to mention the danger it poses with all the sickos who are being "normalized" by the internet. You can find a group of any sort on the net, from NAMBLA to fetishes and on and on, so these people who have these tendencies are now able to express themselves as normal human beings! It truly sickens me to think about the stuff that happens, and kids are not equipped to handle what is being thrown at them. I am almost to the point of eliminating completely. I would not think of throwing my daughter in a room of older people questioning her, giving them their viewpoints, venting etc, but that is essentially what happens when they get in these groups, and it's overwhelming.
And snooping in other ways, the actual physical life they lead is important too, we just found out that my daughter had been lied to in an extreme way, and she knew it, but after being with the liar again, started believing the lie again! (Hence the niavetee) so I was glad we had snooped, found this out and were able to again go over the situation and give her clarity on it!
Kids are growing up so quickly now, but they dont' have the experiences, the savvy and the know how to handle the situations coming at them. And it seems that more and more adults are just accepting these things as coming with the times, well I'd rather have a child that goes through at leaset the elementary school with some innocence left and mature organically than thrust them into a world that frankly i don't even have the guts to face!
This is a soap box I could stay on all day, but I'll go now.LOL
I am probably one of the parents you would think shelters their kids. While there are things we do not allow them to do (myspace), they are not naive to the fact that it exists. We watched several of the dateline shows that caught pedophiles online. This brought up the conversation about why we do not believe in myspace. My children are completely aware of the world. We discuss openly ALL topics. We are guiding them through the world with our values at the forefront. They have the freedom to play sports, hang out with their friends, and be kids. The fact that we are involved does not mean that they have zero freedom. It does mean that we are a part of their daily lives. Research shows that children that have 2 actively involved parents are less likely to get in trouble.
While I totally agre that we as parents can not afford NOT be to involved, I also would like to add that not only do we have to watch out for our kids giving out too much info and getting picked up by predators, but we also have to watch out for bullying. I have seen this on all the talk shows where kids get bullied at school and then it continues on the internet at home, only on the web the school will not get involved to help stop it. We also have to watch out that our kids are not the bullies.
Wow! Here's a good one!
Michigan teen goes to Amman, Jordan to meet with 25 year old man she met on myspace
Katherine's preparations began a few months ago, said Tuscola Undersheriff Jim Jashinske. She convinced her mom she needed a passport so she could accompany a friend's family on a Canadian vacation when school closed for the summer.
After two days of fruitless calls to locate her -- Katherine had a cell phone but didn't pick up, authorities said -- her parents filed a missing persons report. The girl's stepmother then found her page on MySpace and learned she'd been swapping messages with the man from Jericho.
Authorities suspect the man from Jericho helped pay for the trip.
"Thank God she was returned safely," her father, Terry Lester, told the Associated Press on Friday. "She's a good girl. Never had a problem with her."
This girl was on the honor roll, National Honor Society, track and volleyball. A good girl. No one ever suspected she would do something like this. Just goes to show that you CAN'T TRUST TEENAGERS no matter how mature and smart you think they are.
Interestingly, in this incident of the girl going to Jordan, no crime was committed at all. She is of the age of consent.
While this is true, it is of little consolation to the parents of any such teen, regardless if they are of the age of consent or not. It is the responsibility of the parents to protect their minor child(ren).
16 is the age of consent? WOW that is scary!
Well, I was an honor roll student, ran track, never went to a single party my entire high school career, never snuck out of the house or skipped school, never drank a single beer or wine cooler or any other alcoholic drink, and felt guilty after smoking a cigarette, and I got pregnant at the age of 16.
I would have never thought of doing anything else. I would never go to a party. I would never drink under age. I would never do anything to get in trouble at school. But I loved my boyfriend and no one could convince me that we wouldn't have anything but a fairytale ending, and I felt like I was doing nothing wrong because it was L-O-V-E.
So I know from experience that even if your child is the best behaved and gets the best grades and everything, if she gets lovestruck and heartsick, all common sense can go out the window. So I will keep a close eye on both of my children, and my daughter and I are very honest with each other, and have had many talks, and she can't believe that I had sex at age 16 and had a baby at age 17, and while I let her know she was never a mistake, I let her know that I was one lucky little girl myself because most teen pregnancies don't end up with the happy endings mine did. She also knows that while I did it, I still don't approve of it, and that it wasn't a very smart decision I made, and that I firmly believe she should wait.
But I will definitely be watching both of them, and they know it. It's my job as a parent to keep them both as safe as possible, and that means I have to know as much as I can about what is going on in their lives.
Adena, thank you for sharing that. You have wisdom from personal experience. Your story is proof that good kids can so easily find themselves in situations where they lose control. I admire you for being open with your DD about this too. Many moms wouldn't. Kudos to you.
I know exactly what Adena is talking about. Although I did all the partying that you can imagine while still underage. My parents never had a clue because I was also an honor roll student and an athlete(who would have thought I had enough time to go out and drink every night my senior year).
ALL of my friends tell me that my 2 DDs are in for a wake up call when they try anything (if they ever do) because I know all the tricks in the book. All of them from sneaking out to how to go on weekend trips with your boyfriend and not get caught.
I also go pregnant young (18) and was lucky that everything turned out as well as it did. I try to talk to my DDs about everything (well maybe not EVERYTHING) that I did, but if they ask me I will never lie to them. I also express how many bad decisions I made and how they could have turned out really bad and how some of them did.
I don't think you will find everything you need to know about your kids from just snooping (if you kids are smart) you also have to talk to them and realize when they start acting different or at least when they are starting to get moody. Because those were the only kind of signs that my parents could have ever found.. I never left clues in anything else, or at least that my mom ever remembers.
I'm another "good girl" that should have been too busy to get into trouble. I was a cheerleader, in choir, played soccer, danced, tutored, had a summer camp counselor job, involved in student government and went to church three times a week. But I didn't party, didn't have my first drink until I was 21, didn't try a cigarette until I was 25, and I was pregnant and married at 19. I've had a fairytale ending but it's all too easy for parents to be completely clueless. My mom expected me to be responsible and careful so she didn't monitor my time with my then-boyfriend, now-DH and, even though I was on the Depo-Provera shot, I still ended up pregnant with twins, miscarrying one of them and getting married when I was five months along.
My DH, on the other hand, has tried every trick in the book, is lucky that he never ended up in jail, and thinks our dks will never be able to get away with anything. I don't have that kind of arrogance so I watch everything they do, get to know every one of their friends and their friends' families and make sure that I'm aware of anything going on at school, with friends, or church. I'd rather know too much than not enough and I really don't care if it makes my dks mad as they get older. I'd rather have them angry, safe and healthy, even if they don't understand until they've got kids of their own.
Tink, you said 2 things that sum up *my* mistake, and what I learned:
"My mom expected me to be responsible and careful so she didn't monitor my time"
"I'd rather have them angry, safe and healthy"
A really good book about a "good" girl doing bad things is Smashed, Story of a Drunken Girlhood by Koren Zailckas. I recommend this book to mothers of daughters, especially ones who will be headed to college.
I am one of the lucky ones. I was watched pretty closely, was a busy gal. But came oh so close many times to making very bad decisions. I was a very responsible good head on my shoulders girl. But at 17, I was just a girl and stupid At the time I certainly didn't realize that though. I actually got in a PLANE with two strangers in the middle of the night (and a friend) to fly around a bit. Turns out they were nice guys, but geesh...what was I thinking. At least one of them was drunk, not sure if they really owned the plane..LOL.
I have to say one thing my parents did right, they made me wait until I was a jr in high school to date. At the time I thought this was horrible, because most of my friends were having sex. But I can now look back and see, the longer you date, the more likely it is to be having sex. Just me being off the market kept me out of the circle of people who were making bad choices. I very easily would of fallen for the wrong guy and made choices I would have really regreted.
I also found out about something on the website for another computer guru that writes columns for USA Today and has a weekend talk radio show all about technology, gadgets, the internet, and computers. She has what she calls the Ten Commandments for Kids Online.
http://www.komando.com/kids/commandments.aspx
And she also has many articles on her website about the dangers of myspace and other computer tips for parents.
http://www.komando.com/kids/parent-tips.aspx
UPDATE:
Teen plans to marry man she met on myspace
This made me laugh because one of DH's soldiers met and married a girl (19 y/o) off myspace, she got down here, and the soldier has FOUR mistresses. People can be so ridiculous, what makes someone thing they can choose their mate like that? Needless to say, within a month of being here, and spending ALL of her savings in the process, she's divorcing him. It's tragic, but I have a hard time feeling sorry for her after making such a stupid decision.
She is my daughter's age. Sarah will be 17 in August. She is not in such a hurry to get married, and hasn't been involved with any guys, so far in high school. College is the next thing in her progression to adulthood.
Good grief.
At 16 you think you know so much of the world, when really you haven't even begun to experience life. I hope her parents wake up and put a stop to this (like cancelling the internet), she'll be mad for a while but eventually she'll move on.
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