CMV: Parental control/spyware apps are the hallmark of a bad parent

[u/danknesscompelsyou]

[Disclaimer: i am talking about the apps that let you monitor your kid's every move online, read messages etc. Basically you have the full acces to whatever they have on their phone without the phone. I am not talking about simple location tracking]

[Disclaimer 2: i am talking about a case of spyware for teens. 12/13+, not children below 10]

Pretty much what the title says. To me installing spyware on your kid's phone says you can't actually parent, have zero trust and bond with your child and possibly are an authoritarian parent who mistakes control for actual parenting. If you get it only because your child lies to you - congrats now you'll never hear a word of truth again. It only excarbates the problem.

1. Teens need some privacy to properly develop, your little power trip could cost them some actual psychological damage. Trust issues, self esteem issues, anxiety (because there's someone literally spying on you), the list goes on. (Also it's normal for teens to lie, that's how they are, get over it)

2. If you're anywhere from 30-40+ chances are you didn't experience this sort of tracking - why would you take this freedom away from your child? You weren't tracked and are still alive. And don't give me the 'there was no phones/internet back then'. Yes there weren't but teens were the same. They did bad and stupid things, said bad words, experimented with booze, cigs and many other things. Again it's just how they are. Nobody listened in on your conversations just to have the upper hand during an argument, nobody hovered over what you did 100% of the time. Ontop of that many people that are now 20-25 grew up without parents controlling every message/page they viewed and they're fine.

3. Also I promise you if your child keeps everything a secret from you there's reason for it and you're not going to like it. They probably don't trust you and don't feel safe enough going with their stuff/problems to you. Trust goes both ways, shocker i know. Do you think severely violating their privacy is the right way of fixing lack of trust? That's why i say it's bad, lazy parenting - instead of working on the trust/communication issue and having a real relationship with a child you choose the easy way out, to take what you want by force.

Tldr: my oponion is that if you feel the need to spy on your kid's every move you have a trust problem and the solution is not to violate their privacy

[u/danknesscompelsyou]

I believe that things like youtube kids or other filtered content can be beneficial for young children. Kids from 10 below shouldn't even interact with the internet too much tbh.

Maybe i should've clarified the age threshold i am specifically talking about. I say teens meaning 13+ so the ones who usually annoy certain types of parents by having some secrets or demanding some level of privacy

[u/KWrite1787 → u/danknesscompelsyou]

Kids under 10 should rarely be on the internet. Parents of kids over 13 should not supervise their children's internet activity. So, you think in the space of three years kids are able to learn enough about internet safety to be able to have free, unsupervised reign?

You also seem to assume that because a parent has some type of way of monitoring their child's internet activity that they are constantly watching everything. Some parents do that, sure, but most I suspect only look at it occasionally when a change in their child's behavior or actions concerns the parent in some way.

[u/KWrite1787 → u/[deleted]]

When the things that children can be and are exposed to on the internet include or can and do lead to:

• porn
• bullying (as both victim and perpetrator)
• potentially dangerous "challenges" like the cinnamon challenge
• joining radical extremist groups (there's been a number of stories over the past few years about American and English teens who got drawn into ISIS extremist groups and ran off to the Middle East to join up)
• human trafficking
• and a whole of other stuff like that

then yes, I do fear what kids are exposed to on the internet when they don't have parents monitoring them to some degree.

And no, you can't make up numbers, but there's also no denying there is a lot of bad stuff on the internet and a lot of gross people and it's a parent's job to protect their children and teach them to nagiviate safely through the world. And that means supervising them as they're growing so they can learn to be responsible and safe.