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Originally Posted by The Magic
Know where your kid has gone, what they were up to, who they were with, but monitoring their chat is a whole different type of "genuine concern". Just because someone is a child's parent does not grant them the right to act as the Gestapo and determine what their child may or may not talk about and in what manner. Of course if they're directly talking to you they need to watch what they say, just as ANY person would, but when they're with their friends it's their own game.
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If the kid gives me reason to suspect he might be talking about things he should not be talking about, you're bloody right I'll monitor any conversation I can. I won't bug his backpack because I don't have a bug, but I'll certainly monitor what he does on the internet.
This "invasion of privacy" crap is just an excuse for lazy parenting. I'd much rather "invade" his non-existant right to privacy than feel responsible when I discover the kid's doing drugs or getting into some other major trouble. Kids are called kids and not adults for a reason. They're not always real good at making decisions that will benefit them later in life. Hell I used to make explosives when I was a kid just for fun - it's a miracle I'm still here with all my limbs intact. Had my parents done a better job of policing my idiotic behavior they might have found the bomb-making supplies in my closet. Sure it worked out for me, but it could easilly have resulted in a serious injury or death of myself or other people.
I'm not unrealistic enough to think I'll catch everything the kid does wrong - no parent can unless the kid is locked in a cage 24/7, and even then it's iffy. But that's damn sure not gonna stop me from trying.
Don't get me wrong. If my kid earns my trust then I'll trust him - but if he does crap that shows me he's going down the wrong path, I'm gonna be on him constantly because that's my job, and I'm not gonna use some BS excuse to get out of having to do it.