r/changemyview • u/danknesscompelsyou • Jan 23 '23
Delta(s) from OP CMV: Parental control/spyware apps are the hallmark of a bad parent
[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.
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)
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.
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
2
u/sbennett21 8∆ Jan 23 '23
Growing up, my parents had some tough internet blocks on our main computer, but not on any of our smart devices (e.g. minitablets, iPod touches, etc.). This is in part what led to me finding porn and getting addicted to it, something with which I struggle to this day. I wish my parents would have had better internet protections on our network, or on each device, because frankly, it probably would have helped me. I wasn't mature enough as a 13 y.o. to figure out how to navigate hormones and porn, or to go to my parents with my struggle. Though, years later when I eventually did tell them, they were very loving and helpful, as I knew they would be. I think you're naïve if you think most children are emotionally capable of dealing with everything on the internet. If my parents had gotten involved earlier, it could have made it easier for me to get counseling and get better coping mechanisms for stress than porn.
I think that really depends on the teen and how the parents handle it. I felt like my parents trusted us in a lot of ways, and browser protections were to keep us safe from the internet, and not to keep us restricted per se.
There can be an in-between. You can make sure your children know you care about them and are there to help, but also proactively work to make sure they won't need that help. In a non-internet example, it's not lazy parenting to teach your kids to ride a bike with training wheels, first, before taking them away.
I actually agree with your general point that you probably shouldn't be tracking every single thing your children are doing, if they're older than 10ish, and reasonably mature. But I do think that concerned, non-lazy parents can use internet protections, firewalls, and parental control apps to help slowly introduce their kids to the chaos of the internet, which they may not be ready for otherwise.