OP-ED @ ISSUE: Should you snoop on your kids' text messages?
Parents have struggled to determine the proper amount of oversight for their kids ever since there have been parents and children. In the digital age, however, there's a new twist with which they must grapple: Should they be reading their kids' text messages?
Many parents worry that snooping will breed a lack of trust, like leafing through the pages of a child's personal journal. Others, however, insist that reading texts is no less important a parental responsibility than monitoring what children watch on television or read on the Internet.
Today we present three essays offering different perspectives on the pros and cons of parents keeping a close eye on the texting conversations of their children.
Snoop: Even good kids make some bad choices
By Dari Dyrness-Olsen
Parents ask me all of the time in counseling if they should or should not read their child's text messages. Kids are growing up way too fast today. As a result, they are dealing with adult issues as children. It is heartbreaking what I see and hear every single day as a counselor. Many parents are so naïve about what their precious children are really doing.
As parents, you have a window of opportunity while your child is living in your house to make sure that they are turning out with good values and morals. I can tell you for sure that even the good kids are making bad choices. The culture in which they are growing up is very toxic.
By the time your child leaves for college, your opportunity to really help them is lost. They are on their own and you don't have the ability to physically oversee what they are doing. The only thing left to do is pray, cross your fingers and hope for the best.
Many parents say that they don't want to invade their child's privacy. Smart parents will check up to see what their kids are really doing, and if there is nothing to find, then great. If there is, then you can use it as a teachable moment and address the situation immediately.
If you really want to know who your kid is and what they are doing, then read their text messages. You are the ones who are paying for the cellphone, so technically it is your phone. Passwords should not be allowed on their phones or other electronic devices. You should have full access 24/7. If they have nothing to hide, then they should not care.
Your job as their parent is to set and enforce rules, not to be their best friend. Parenting is not a popularity contest and it is the most important job there is. You have one chance to do it right. Don't be afraid to make your child mad. It is much more important to make sure that they are on the right road. They might temporarily hate you, but they will always love you.
Kids should not have and do not need a cellphone before middle school. Once they have a cellphone, parents lose their sense of control. You never truly know who your child is talking to, what they are saying and when they are using their phone once they delete their messages. Kids are very sneaky and more technologically savvy than we are.
I recommend to parents that they take away their child's cellphone during homework and before bed every single night. The most popular time kids are on technology is when their parents are sleeping. Kids need to learn how to separate themselves from their phones. This will prepare them to be able to drive without texting and prevent cellphone addiction. If you can't separate your child from their cellphone, then you have a very big problem.
Dari Dyrness-Olsen is a national speaker, author and owner of Express Yourself Today Counseling Center in Chester. She is a native of Roxbury.
Don't snoop: It's not right to invade their privacy
By Lauren Grodstein
Recently, while I was helping my son tie his shoes, he inquired as to when he might expect his first phone.
"Your first what now?"
"My first phone." He gave me his most thoughtful look. "Like maybe when I turn 8?"
My son is 6. Not only does he need help tying his shoes, he refuses apples unless they're cut into cubes and falls asleep during any car ride longer than 20 minutes. My child, in other words, is still small, yet he can operate my iPhone about as well as I can, and knows that kids just slightly older than him have phones of their very own.
"When you get married," I said, and sent him out toward the bus that would take him to first grade.
The truth is that we'll probably compromise, and he'll get a phone sometime between the ages of 8 and 28. I'll know it's time to buy him one when he's mature enough to use it appropriately, and takes regular responsibility not only for his possessions but for his actions.
He'll certainly beg — he's already started — and it will be tough for him to wait for a device that signifies so much about independence.
But the thing about a phone is that if a kid's not ready for one — not because he's a bad kid, but because he's still not mature enough — it's an invitation for him to behave stupidly, and for me to do things I really don't want to do. If he starts sending or receiving nasty texts, I will probably start reading his text messages. If he uses text messaging to hurt people or if he is being hurt by texting, I will almost certainly get involved in his business.
But I do not want to invade my son's privacy; I very much want him to have a life of his own. A few years ago, the teenage child of a friend of mine passed me her phone to show me some photos she'd taken. As I was scrolling through, a sexually suggestive text — cheerful but X-rated — popped up on her screen. Mortified, I waited for the text to disappear, then handed her back her phone. I had inadvertently invaded her privacy: the text was from her boyfriend and meant for her eyes only.
At 17, she had every right to that intimacy. I felt embarrassed and guilty for stumbling into the secret parts of her world; how much worse, and how much more conflicted, I would have felt had the texts belonged to my own child.
In a world where kids are constantly monitored — my son couldn't hide his report card from me if he tried — I want him to have a stake in himself. I firmly believe that parents who read their kids' texts tell their kids: "I don't trust you and you shouldn't trust me." And that's not the relationship I want with my son.
That is why he won't have a phone until he's older, at a time when I know that he will behave with the maturity his world — and his mother — expect of him. And once he has that phone, I will do my best never to undermine him by reading what's his to know and not mine to find out.
Lauren Grodstein directs the M.F.A. program in creative writing at Rutgers University-Camden. She is the author of three novels, most recently "The Explanation for Everything," a Washington Post Book of the Year selection.
New technology can help parents meet their responsibilities
By Rawdon Messenger
Being a parent in today's world is arguably more challenging than it has ever been. Our kids now have more access to digital content and communications tools than any previous generation, and that access can cause problems. While we used to just worry about our kid's physical safety, we now have to worry about their digital safety which is a lot more difficult to manage.
That is where the concept for TeenSafe was born. The original founders of TeenSafe, Sukant and Ameeta Jain, Allan and Lindsay Legator, and Scott and Terri Walker were all parents of teens and they realized all parents could benefit from a reliable, easy-to-use monitoring solution that showed them what their kids are doing with their smartphones. After an extensive period of research and development, they launched TeenSafe.
TeenSafe is a comprehensive online media monitoring solution that gives parents secure access to their child's sent, received and deleted text messages/iMessages, real-time location, browsing history, contacts and their activity on Facebook, Instagram, Kik and Whatsapp chat sessions. Parents access this information through TeenSafe's online portal and there is nothing on the device that shows it's being monitored.
Many people have asked if it's all right to monitor your child's smartphone. It is not only completely legal, but we feel it is actually a parent's responsibility to do so. Every day, kids across the country are engaging in cyberbullying, sexting, inappropriate relationships, drugs and alcohol, truancy and other behavior. Smartphones are at the center of these issues. Wouldn't any parent want to know if their child is being cyberbullied or looking at explicit content on the Internet? Without a comprehensive monitoring solution, parents are left out and TeenSafe sheds light on these situations before they can have serious, life-altering consequences.
Periodically, we get feedback from some of the 700,000 parents who have signed up for TeenSafe and we've found an overwhelming number of families love TeenSafe because of how it's made them more informed parents. By reviewing text messages, one family discovered that the source of their daughter's recent depression was because she was being cyberbullied. According to BullyingStatistics.org, over half of adolescents and teens have been cyberbullied and over half of those do not tell a parent or teacher. Parents have also learned their kids were drinking, doing drugs or worse, all by reading their text messages.
On the other hand, some parents we've spoken to have used TeenSafe to reaffirm that their kids are doing the right thing and making good decisions. TeenSafe has helped strengthen the bond between parents and their kids while providing peace of mind at the same time. The key to using our service, like all facets of parenting, is thoughtful responsibility.
Letting your kids know that you are monitoring their online actions will help ensure you don't miss those moments where you can teach your kids about making the right decision, even when it's not the most popular. It can also help children feel more secure by knowing that their parents are watching out for them. We only get a certain amount of time to raise our children, so we need to take advantage of these types of opportunities.
Rawdon Messenger is chief executive officer of TeenSafe.
Text slang parentsneed to know about
1. IWSN - I want sex now
2. GNOC - Get naked on camera
3. NIFOC - Naked in front of computer
4. PIR - Parent in room
5 CU46 - See you for sex
6. 53X - Sex
7. 9 - Parent watching
8. 99 - Parent gone
9. 1174' - Party meeting place
10. THOT - That hoe over there
11. CID - Acid (the drug)
12. Broken - Hungover from alcohol
13. 420 - Marijuana
14. POS - Parent over shoulder
15. SUGARPIC - Suggestive or erotic photo
16. KOTL - Kiss on the lips
17. (L)MIRL - Let's meet in real life
18. PRON - Porn
19. TDTM - Talk dirty to me
20. 8 - Oral sex
21. CD9 - Parents around/Code 9
22. IPN - I'm posting naked
23. LH6 - Let's have sex
24. WTTP - Want to trade pictures?
25. DOC - Drug of choice
26. TWD - Texting while driving
27. GYPO - Get your pants off
28. KPC- Keeping parents clueless
Source: azcentral.com