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Can Of Worms: Is it ok to spy on your kids online?
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Post by
Magician22773
I would be interested in what percentage of the no's are under 18, just as a point of reference.
This ^^ and, also how many "no's" actually have kids?
I am a "somewhat" young parent. My oldest is about to turn 16, and I am 36. I also would consider myself as a "young at heart" adult. I go to concerts with my boys....and I am talking about shows like CrueFest, Mayhem Festival, Rocklahoma, ect. We play paintball and airsoft together. I even got bored watching him at the skatepark and bought myself a board so we could skate together. And..we play WoW together as well.
I still remember what it was like when I was his age, and I try to take that into consideration when things come up. Sure, I have busted him looking at porn sites. To me, its no different than the fact I stashed my dads Hustlers under my matteress. As I said earlier, I am on the lookout for things that could have lifelong (or life ending) consequences. No matter how well you think you have raised your kids, and how well you think you have prepared them...any child can and likely will make some bad decisions. It is just the nature of how their thought process works. So if by "spying" on them I am able to stop some of those decisions before they are made, then it is worth it.
Post by
Atik
Yes. I treat daughters differently from sons. And I won't be changing it ANYTIME soon.
So it's okay for your underage son to perhaps get in a position where he flashes his #$%^ on the internet, but not for your daughter to get in such a position?
Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.
That's a extreme example. I won't let either do that. No webcams. I treat sons differently from daughters. If I treated both son and daughter the same way, I wouldn't be a good father anymore. You gotta protect your daughter and away from pedos. You gotta protect your son from stealing and getting into fights. 2 different things, same goal.
If it's to protect my kids from real killers online, I would do anything to stop it before it becomes something bigger.
The majority of pedophiles don't care about gender; their pure goal is the kids.
And only your son will steal and get in fights? Girls fight a LOT more than guys when they disagree...
Post by
Interest
I would be interested in what percentage of the no's are under 18, just as a point of reference.
Well I'm over 18.
Post by
gnomerdon
Yes. I treat daughters differently from sons. And I won't be changing it ANYTIME soon.
So it's okay for your underage son to perhaps get in a position where he flashes his #$%^ on the internet, but not for your daughter to get in such a position?
Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.
That's a extreme example. I won't let either do that. No webcams. I treat sons differently from daughters. If I treated both son and daughter the same way, I wouldn't be a good father anymore. You gotta protect your daughter and away from pedos. You gotta protect your son from stealing and getting into fights. 2 different things, same goal.
If it's to protect my kids from real killers online, I would do anything to stop it before it becomes something bigger.
The majority of pedophiles don't care about gender; their pure goal is the kids.
And only your son will steal and get in fights? Girls fight a LOT more than guys when they disagree...
Not in my sample pool.
Post by
Tartonga
I would be interested in what percentage of the no's are under 18, just as a point of reference.
This ^^ and, also how many "no's" actually have kids?
I am a "somewhat" young parent. My oldest is about to turn 16, and I am 36. I also would consider myself as a "young at heart" adult. I go to concerts with my boys....and I am talking about shows like CrueFest, Mayhem Festival, Rocklahoma, ect. We play paintball and airsoft together. I even got bored watching him at the skatepark and bought myself a board so we could skate together. And..we play WoW together as well.
I still remember what it was like when I was his age, and I try to take that into consideration when things come up. Sure, I have busted him looking at porn sites. To me, its no different than the fact I stashed my dads Hustlers under my matteress. As I said earlier, I am on the lookout for things that could have lifelong (or life ending) consequences. No matter how well you think you have raised your kids, and how well you think you have prepared them...any child can and likely will make some bad decisions. It is just the nature of how their thought process works. So if by "spying" on them I am able to stop some of those decisions before they are made, then it is worth it.
I agree with some of your points and I think you are a cool dad, but I gotta ask:
Did your parents spy on you?
EDIT: Same question for ElhonnaDS.
EDIT2: Wait, now that I think of it, you may be too old to compare both now and then situations.
Post by
91604
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
ElhonnaDS
@Tartonga
The internet was not such a huge thing when I was younger. But as a point of comparison, my parents DID have me call to check in with them when I was out. They did check with my friends parents when I went to their houses, so they knew I was being supervised. They did make me leave the door to my bedroom open when I had boyfiends over. They did regulate what movies I was allowed to see until I was a teenager. If they went out of town, they would ask the neighbors to keep an eye out for any parties or anything at our house. When they found pot in my sister's room and cigarettes in her coat pocket, she got grounded. etc. etc. It's called parenting.
I'm not saying your child should have NO privacy- but the internet is a public place, not a private one. It's not a diary where you write things and keep them to yourself. It's not a hope chest. It's a direct line of communication from your child to the rest of the world.
If a strange adult approached your child on a playground or at a bus stop and tried to strike up a conversation about video games and sports, get their e-mail, wanted to be friends, etc., you would (or at least you should) freak out. However, in a public place, there are witnesses. If the child is younger, they won't generally be in public without an adult. If ther're older, they have usually had enough "stranger danger" education to realize that it's a weird situation. And, in a public place, there's no way to hide your age, gender or general level of creepiness the way you can on a chat forum.
On the internet, that same person can approach you child without you ever knowing, unless you monitor it. When it's online, many kids don't associate it with being a danger. "It's just the internet, they can't find me." You know people think that way when they open their mouth in trade and guild chat, trade REALID's with people they barely know, etc.
While I condeed that some privacy is necessary for children, they should always be supervised when dealing with strangers and the outside world. Their parent should be responsible for keeping movies and images that are not age appropriate out of their hands. 25 years ago, a parent could accomplish this by just not buying movies they didn't approve of, not subscribing to pornographic cable channels and being with their child, or arranging for someone else to be with them, when they left the house. Now, you child can interact with all the people and material you'd want to keep them away from without leaving their room.
Post by
Azazel
There was no internet in my house until I was almost 11.
Post by
Patty
There was no internet in my house until I was almost 11.
This. ^ Well, 13 for me, but still. I think that it matters more
when
they're introduced to the internet (being fully educated and able to understand what can happen online) and how much exposure there is, rather than spying on them. If you're doing everything for them, they're never going to make their own conscious decisions about things.
Post by
ElhonnaDS
Out of curiosity, what would you consider "spying" on your children, vs. supervising, in a non-internet setting? Would it be spying to:
1) Watch your young child at a bus stop until the bus comes?
2) Call your child's friend's parents, to make sure they're where they said they'd be?
3) Not let your child wander around a mall by themselves at age 9-12?
4) Put parental controls on the TV so that your child can't order PPV porn?
5) Check your child's homework to make sure they did it?
6) Call the school and check if you child is skipping class?
7) Search the child's room for drugs if you notices changes in behavior that make you suspect they could be using?
8) Ask someone to check on your teenager when you're out of town, and make sure there are no parties going on and no girlfriend/boyfriend sleeping over?
Post by
Magician22773
I would be interested in what percentage of the no's are under 18, just as a point of reference.
This ^^ and, also how many "no's" actually have kids?
I am a "somewhat" young parent. My oldest is about to turn 16, and I am 36. I also would consider myself as a "young at heart" adult. I go to concerts with my boys....and I am talking about shows like CrueFest, Mayhem Festival, Rocklahoma, ect. We play paintball and airsoft together. I even got bored watching him at the skatepark and bought myself a board so we could skate together. And..we play WoW together as well.
I still remember what it was like when I was his age, and I try to take that into consideration when things come up. Sure, I have busted him looking at porn sites. To me, its no different than the fact I stashed my dads Hustlers under my matteress. As I said earlier, I am on the lookout for things that could have lifelong (or life ending) consequences. No matter how well you think you have raised your kids, and how well you think you have prepared them...any child can and likely will make some bad decisions. It is just the nature of how their thought process works. So if by "spying" on them I am able to stop some of those decisions before they are made, then it is worth it.
I agree with some of your points and I think you are a cool dad, but I gotta ask:
Did your parents spy on you?
EDIT: Same question for ElhonnaDS.
EDIT2: Wait, now that I think of it, you may be too old to compare both now and then situations.
ElhonnaDS pretty much summed it up for me as well.
When I was younger, the technology wasn't around for them to keep as close an eye on me. I know it may be "rose colored glasses" syndrome, but I also don't recall having so many horrible things around when I was younger either. The worst I can remember was the "stoners" smoking pot in the parking lot before school. Now, my son says it is not even a surprise to see kids doing lines of Cocaine in the bathroom, and OxyContin and Vicodin are passed around like breath mints. We also had a much smaller circle of friends without social networking. I probably had a dozen or so people that I would have called friends, and my parents knew their parents, ect. Now, my kids have hundreds of "friends" though facebook, and I dont know more than a handful of them.
Post by
OverZealous
Keeping an eye on: Yes
"Spying": @#$% no.
That begs the question though. What is deemed keeping an eye on them and what is deemed spying. This can change depending on the person.
Sorry for my late reply; but I just got home.
Using Facebook as an example, I would deem checking your kid's Wall once in a while and perhaps checking what kind of pages they "like" (I'm not actually sure if there are sexually or drug-related pages on Facebook, but for the sake of argument I'm assuming there are) acceptable. Checking everything your kid writes to people and every picture they upload and demanding they remove anything you consider inappropriate is not.
I also consider it unacceptable to read your kid's e-mails without first being given permission. Same goes for checking MSN conversations and the like. Private conversations are private for a reason, and (in my opinion, of course) you do not automatically have the right to intrude on your children's privacy, That might break your relationship more than anything.
Of course, if you know your son/daughter is or has been involved in illegal or dangerous situations
, what you may and may not do will change. As a parent, your role is to protect your kids. That they may not like exactly how you do that, however.
In any case, you're walking a fine line while the Internet is involved.
Out of curiosity, what would you consider "spying" on your children, vs. supervising, in a non-internet setting? Would it be spying to:
1) Watch your young child at a bus stop until the bus comes?
2) Call your child's friend's parents, to make sure they're where they said they'd be?
3) Not let your child wander around a mall by themselves at age 9-12?
4) Put parental controls on the TV so that your child can't order PPV porn?
5) Check your child's homework to make sure they did it?
6) Call the school and check if you child is skipping class?
7) Search the child's room for drugs if you notices changes in behavior that make you suspect they could be using?
8) Ask someone to check on your teenager when you're out of town, and make sure there are no parties going on and no girlfriend/boyfriend sleeping over?
1) Depending on how trustworthy they are (do they often go somewhere else than where they said they would), I would say yes.
2) Depends on how old they are, of course, but I'd say yes. If they go somewhere entirely different from where they said they would, I would expect the other parent to notify you.
3) No.
4) No. Up to a certain age, anyway.
5) If you know your kid often skips classes and misses homework, then no.
6) Do they often skip classes? If so, then no.
7) Yes. Many teenagers go through changes in behaviour - it is very common.
8) Yes. Depending on how old they are (assume 15-16+) they are old enough to take care of themselves. If they say they won't have a party, trust them. If you find out they did anyway, don't trust them next time. Personally, I think it's always better to trust someone and then stop than the other way around.
Post by
Sweetscot
I really don't think I can give a cut and dry for this one other than for me, spying means that it's being done without their knowledge so to me spying=bad. However, as pp said the internet is PUBLIC so I have no problem with supervising internet time and such with m childs knowledge. There's also the issue of the child's age...for example I would expect an under 13ish child to have FAR more supervision than a 16+ one.
When I was a teen I knew WAY more about the internet than my family, and did several things I probably shouldn't have done...and yes I knew they wouldn't like it and didn't tell them...thankfully I was also aware enough of possible consequences to not do anything actually physically harmful to myself or others but I definitely chatted with peeps I shouldn't have and shared pics I shouldn't have. I had a rather odd home life and in retrospect I think leaving a teen alone in a room with a computer for hours probably wasn't the wisest thing my family ever did.
All that said I think spyware so that a parent can go back and look at everything you've done is way out of line past the age of 14/15, imo the emotional damage of feeling extremely betrayed would outweigh the extra intervention time if they ARE doing something they shouldn't, and bear in mind that a parent still has the ability to watch and somewhat control WHERE the child is if there is something going on.
I do think parents should be on their childrens friendslists and occaisionally have your child show you that they haven't put you on a limited privacy list. You should check in on your child while they're on a computer..you don't have to stand over their shoulder, if you're going to put spyware on the computer you should at least tell them. I know as a kid I always wondered if they had a microphone hid in the vehicle lol kids are paranoid enough without there actually being cameras everywhere.
Post by
Lombax
I would never add my parents on Facebook because I'm quiet random there, thankfully my dad won't get it because of different reasons and I don't know why my mom hasn't got one. And I ^&*!ing hate when people look over my shoulder when I play games / watch videos...
Post by
Sweetscot
Which would be incentive to get out and get your own place, no? I really think that "knowing they'll find out" is more powerful than "omg they found out about this thing I didn't think they'd find out about!" it's like the difference between preventative medicine and heart surgery.
Post by
91604
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Monday
And I ^&*!ing hate when people look over my shoulder when I play games / watch videos...
This. Really, this.
Post by
Azazel
And I ^&*!ing hate when people look over my shoulder when I play games / watch videos...
This. Really, this.
Or when reading books, homework etc.
Post by
MyTie
As a parent, it is
my responsibility
to know if my kids are engaged in dangerous, illegal, or irresponsible behavior. If something goes wrong with my kids, it will be MY fault, not theirs. If they download something illegally, I will pay the price. If they break something in the store, I have to pay for it. There is no perfect way to raise children, but there are generally right ways and generally wrong ways. Breathing down your kid's necks and scrutinizing their every move isn't appropriate. However, letting them grow up 'on their own in private' is equally dumb.
As to the poll question asked: Espionage or spying involves an individual obtaining information that is considered secret or confidential without the permission of the holder of the information.If I know enough about my kids and what they are doing to know they are fine, then I have no need to seek information. If I DON'T know what my kids are doing, and they will not give me permission to find out, I will take measures to find out. After that I would remove the ability for them to do the stuff they weren't giving me permission to know about, regardless of whether they did anything wrong or not. I do not need their permission to know what they are doing. I am first and foremost a parent to my children, not their friend. If they wish to build trust, they can earn a degree of privacy and liberty. However, there is nothing wrong with a parent removing the privacy and liberty if need be.
Responsible parents don't spy on their children for entertainment, they do it because they are responsible.
Post by
Monday
And I ^&*!ing hate when people look over my shoulder when I play games / watch videos...
This. Really, this.
Or when reading books, homework etc.
Agreed. Pretty much anything of the sort.
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