First a little backstory. My wife and I have been married for 5 years and have 2 children ages 3 1/2 and 2. My wife also has a 14 year old son from a previous relationship who has been living with his dad for the past 6 years. Though we live in the same town and she legally has joint custody, we very rarely see him as he prefers to not visit (so her ex says) and my wife has never pressed the matter.
6 weeks ago her son shows up at our doorstep saying his dad kicked him out and wants to know if he can live with us. Of course my wife says yes, he is her son afterall even if they're not exactly close. After getting him settled in we call his dad to find out whats going on and are told that he has become uncontrolable and the dad no longer wants to deal with him and it's my wifes turn to put up with his BS.
So now we have a teenager in the home. It's been quite an upheaval to say the least. I could start several threads about what we've experienced so far
but the matter of chat monitoring software is the pressing issue at the moment. We have discovered that he likes to spend a great deal of time on the computer. If we let him, he would spend the entire day chatting with his freinds online. I have limited his access so that the computer he is allowed to use only has access to the internet at certain times during the day and then for only an hour at a time. He doesn't like that he can't go online when he wants but it was the only way I could keep him from being on all the time.
Up until the other day, this was my only real concern with him using the computer. On Monday however, I happened to be walking by and noticed he was online chatting but had gotten up to use the bathroom. I glanced at the screen and just out of curiousity started to read the chat window that was opened. What I read was rather disturbing to me as a parent. I understand that teenagers are not perfect angles (hell I was one myself once
) but some of the things being discussed were definately not age appropriate for a 14 year old.
My initial reaction was to cut him off the computer completely. My wife talked me out of it though saying that we should at least talk to him about first and explain that what I saw was not appropriate and he either needed to voluntarily stop visiting these rooms and clean up his language and subject matter that he posts or he would lose his computer priviledges. He promised to be more careful saying he rarely visits these rooms and on the day in question he just accidentally stumbled across the one I saw (yeah right).
For my wife, that's all that needs to be said on the matter. She truely believes he will keep his word and not visit or post inappropriate content. For myself, I guess I'm not as trusting. I would like to install some chat monitoring software to keep an eye on what he's doing but my wife considers that an invasion of privacy and is strictly against it. I tried to explain to her that it wasn't just about the language and possible sexual/violent postings but I also have a real concern for the saftey of my children. I don't care if it's her son or not, I do not know this kid very well and I don't want him giving out personal information to other people I don't know that could endanger the family if the wrong perons sees it.
Am I being to parinoid? Should I just go ahead and install it against my wifes wishes?