Privacy and the Internet: Is It Okay to Snoop?
In the cyber world, your daughter can feel like she's out there enjoying life and contact without her parents hovering over her. But the truth is, you can see firsthand what is going on online, and you should. Checking out her cyber world is key to keeping her safe.
You bought your daughter a cell phone for your own reasons: you'd be able to get in touch with her at any time and she could call you at any moment if she needed you. But somehow, it welded itself to her hand. Take a cell phone away from a girl and she might feel more upset than if you were to force her to march naked down Main Street. Somehow, we've evolved into a society that's always in touch, and your teen is into that even more than you are. There are things you need to watch out for with cell phones. First, most schools do not allow to be turned on during the school day. Make sure she obeys that rule.
Essential
Teach your daughter cell phone etiquette. Don't answer your phone in the middle of dinner to while taking to others. Do turn it to vibrate when with a group. Don't stare at it endlessly while hoping for a text. Remind her that it's just a phone, and it should come second to other things.
You will need to look carefully at her phone plan and make sure it's set up in the most affordable way for you and your daughter. Some plans charge for texting. You see 10 cents a text and think it's no big deal, but that's for texts going out and coming in. A child can quickly rack up a giant bill. Look for a plan that gives you more for less, and do get unlimited texting. The same goes for minutes. Girls can run up those as well, so an inclusive plan works best. And what about the family landline phone? When she is home, there is no reason she cannot use that. If you find things get out of hand, and that she's texting and talking endlessly, ignoring all else, you may want to give her a time out from her phone. She needs to see she can he happy without being connected at all times.
Your daughter will argue that her Facebook and MySpace pages are private, like a diary, and that she has the right to a private place. Well, she is correct about the diary, but online social sites are as far from a diary as you can get. Point out to her that when she posted her sites on the World Wide Web, she put them not in a secret corner in her room, but out there for the whole world to see. And that makes it fair game for you to “snoop” at any time. In fact, experts in online socializing and teens tell parents that “snooping” is a must. Plan on checking her sites once a week. You'll need her password (and if she will not share it, you should ban her from online socializing at all). When you log on each week, check first to make sure she did not use her entire name (a screen name is preferred), and that her address, town or phone number is not posted anywhere. You may want to check also and make sure she does not have her school name there either.
As you look at the people who have posted on her site or visited it, ask her to explain how she knows each of them. Anyone who is not explained simply (for example, “that's Susan's brother”) should be removed and blocked immediately. You may learn things via the site that you didn't know. More than a few parents have found out their daughter's relationship with a boy has ended by seeing her “relationship status” changed on Facebook or MySpace. There are photos too. With most kids owning a digital camera, just about every event is captured in photos and then immediately posted on these sites (and never going to be developed on paper for you to see). So what do you do if you see something she was hiding from you (like drinking alcohol or attending a house party you forbade her to attend)? It's fine for you to confront her. After all she posted those photos for the world to see, and you are part of her world. And anyway, what happens on Facebook does not stay on Facebook.
Fact
As the TV show
Technology has given parents a way to know more and more about what their child is doing. By checking out Web pages and reading IM away messages, parents can keep tabs closer than they ever could before. But is this a good thing? To a certain point, yes. Imagine that you read a posting from a friend on your daughter's page that says “see you at the party in the woods Friday night!” Your daughter has told you she's going to a movie. You now can ask her: where is she really going? While she'll call it invasive, you've just kept her from what could be a bad decision. It can go too far though. This “know everything in an instant” world leads parents to think the only way to raise a child is by hovering. Remember, even just a few years ago, we didn't know everything all the time. So if you find yourself obsessing, it might be time to take a breath and let your daughter make some choices on her own, without you hovering over her.
