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> Checking in constantly. Wondering and/or quizzing their child This behavior is rampant in my peer group. Most of my friends/neighbors are constantly monitor

> Checking in constantly. Wondering and/or quizzing their child This behavior is rampant in my peer group. Most of my friends/neighbors are constantly monitoring their teen age children's location, reading their recent calls, texts, and emails, looking at internet usage logs, etc. One of my neighbors even calls her daughter every time she sees she's driving over the speed limit and yells at her. It all seems so creepy to me, and I give my kid way more privacy than that, but it looks like I'm in the minority of parents.

toxik 5y ago
How do they see their texts calls emails etc? Surely that’s illegal.
- gnicholas 5y ago
  Parents can monitor their children's email. Phone call records are in your monthly billing statement. As long as you're up front with your child about the level of monitoring, I don't think this is unethical, let alone illegal.
  - technothrasher 5y ago
    Yeah, none of the surveillance I'm talking about with the other parents I know is secretive. The kids seem to have been groomed to accept it from very young ages, so they all know it is happening.
- astura 5y ago
  Children do not have any legal right to privacy. Especially not when the parents are paying for the cell phone and service.
  - alasdair_ 5y ago
    > Children do not have any legal right to privacy. Sadly, neither do most people.
  - juki 5y ago
    Legal matters always depend on the jurisdiction. Here in Finland, for example, everyone has the right to privacy and "secrecy of confidential message". The law has a couple exceptions, but things like age or who pays for devices are not among them. A parent may only read a specific message addressed to their child if there is justifiable reason to believe that reading that specific message is necessary for the child's safety. Of course it's pretty rare for children to actually press charges against their parent for that, but it has happened. Using computer software "designed or modified to" violate the law is also specifically mentioned to make it an aggravated offense, with maximum penalty of 3 years in prison.
cmckn 5y ago
I definitely did things as a teenager that were dangerous, unnecessary, detrimental to my physical or mental health, etc. etc. I don't have kids, but I would probably make some effort to dissuade my kids from doing the same things I did. How do you approach that, without heavy surveillance? Did you just get lucky with good kids? Is having conversations about it enough?
- ethbr0 5y ago
  I look at it the other way around: I did things as a kid and teenager that were dangerous, unnecessary, detrimental to my physical or mental health... and those things made me... me. So why should I, or do I have a right to, keep my kids from doing the same? We aren't only the product of our positive lessons. A lot of life is learned through burning yourself on the hot stove. And by and large, it usually doesn't kill you. IMHO, no humans are self-actualized enough to possess omniscience and act ethically. We have too many neuroses. And, at the more obvious end of the spectrum, all of the suburban crowd complaining about how their children fail to launch, lack initiative in life, and aren't independent. After their entire childhood was spent being monitored and constantly corrected by the parent. The mind boggles.
  - majormajor 5y ago
    I have a lot of coworkers who are bigger self-starters than I am despite growing up with far more type-A parents than I did. Even to the point of there being stereotypes about the people who can't relax cause their parents drove them so hard for some Asian immigrant groups. So I think a claim that "controlling parents" -> "adrift young adults" would be hard to support. Kids need to learn from mistakes, but if not monitored, you can hit the opposite end where the lesson isn't learned because there are no real consequences. For instance, goofing off in high school won't give you consequences until you graduate high school at the earliest, and possibly not until you graduate collect (still goofing off) and suddenly hit a wall in terms of what you can get employment-wise.
    - ethbr0 5y ago
      I'm not advocating for no consequences. I'm advocating for no pre-consequences. And yes, sometimes kids get away with things if they aren't monitored 24/7. They're supposed to. Figuring out the boundaries of attempting that, and dealing with the consequences when you fail, is a very important lesson for children.
seanmcdirmid 5y ago
I want to let me kid (now 5) be more independent. These days, at least in the USA, kids aren't allowed out until they are 10 or even older, and even then they often don't get to take the bus alone (I started doing that when I was in 2nd grade, in the 80s when crime was much worse than it is today, I was biking on my own outside when I was in Kindergarten). But I thought...something like an air tag, cellphone, and maybe a bodycam, might be a great way to balance a need to let the kid explore some things independently and keep safe at the same time. I don't know, I'm still in the planning stage on this.
- oauea 5y ago
  > a bodycam I'm sorry, are you serious or is this a joke?
  - ambrose2 5y ago
    They sounded serious; reminds me of the Black Mirror episode “Arkangel”.
    - franga2000 5y ago
      OP, as a general rule, when something you're doing reminds someone of a Black Mirror episode, please re-evaluate your choices.
  - seanmcdirmid 5y ago
    Well, if I want to let him explore on his own somewhere outside, it might be an option. It isn’t something that we would sneak on him, he is already into gopro. It might work for some early trial runs? Like, walk around the block by yourself with this on (for a five year old, definitely not for a 10 year old).
  - ziml77 5y ago
    It certainly doesn't read like a joke. I think GP is trying to find ways to feel like they're giving their child freedom without actually giving them any at all. But it's hard to think of anything worse for freedom than attaching a camera to to someone. Yes, technically they wouldn't be directly prohibiting the child from anything, but the presence of a camera means the child is forced to assume that everything they do will be judged by the parent even when the parent has no present physical control over the child.
908B64B197 5y ago
> Most of my friends/neighbors are constantly monitoring their teen age children's location, reading their recent calls, texts, and emails, looking at internet usage logs, etc. I'll be very blunt: Do they really want to read text messages from their teenage daughter/son? They might regret that decision really fast. > One of my neighbors even calls her daughter every time she sees she's driving over the speed limit and yells at her If he doesn’t trust her why is she driving his car?
- aaaaaaaaata 5y ago
  You're missing the chilling effect. People monitor their kids so their kids do and are exactly what they've been told to be, and nothing else.
Gigachad 5y ago
My bf and I share location, I think its pretty useful. Just shortcuts the "how far away are you" conversation every time we need to meet up.
- Sunspark 5y ago
  You're still in the honeymoon phase. Wait till later when you're at the shopping mall and receive a text to come home now because they know where you are and it's been deemed a non-essential activity.
- nicbou 5y ago
  I just send it when asked through WhatsApp or Telegram. It's time-delimited, not a blanket permission.
rootusrootus 5y ago
Neurotic people are neurotic, they just use whatever tools are available to them. I can locate my daughter, my son, my wife, and even my own mother if I want to. I don't stalk them, ask questions about where they are going or where they have been, etc. But if I need a little peace of mind, I know where my loved ones are. We use the location & communication tools with respect, just like anything else.
franga2000 5y ago
Holy shit what happened to "have fun, just be back by dinner time"? I'm not that far from my teenage years so the fact that this is already happening to today's teens is a bit terrifying to me. We had cellphones back then and I had an early smartphone (Nokia N95 - anyone remember those?) when at least half my school didn't even have a brickphone, so the capability was there. Bot neither my parents nor the parents of any of my peers ever used it, even later when all of us had proper smartphones with parental control options only a few clicks away. So what happened? Crime rates are down, kinds these days do drugs and drink at lower rates than back then, I can't remember the last time I heard of a kid go missing... We now have many privacy-preserving options for emergency tracking so there's less of a reason for total control than ever. Even monitoring Internet usage - there are fewer "predators" out there and kids are better at recognising and avoiding them than ever. I don't get it.
cafard 5y ago
When my son was in his teens, the phone company still sent with the bill a log of every call, maybe even every SMS. I marveled at the thickness of the list, but never inspected it.

toxik 5y ago

How do they see their texts calls emails etc? Surely that’s illegal.

gnicholas 5y ago
Parents can monitor their children's email. Phone call records are in your monthly billing statement. As long as you're up front with your child about the level of monitoring, I don't think this is unethical, let alone illegal.
- technothrasher 5y ago
  Yeah, none of the surveillance I'm talking about with the other parents I know is secretive. The kids seem to have been groomed to accept it from very young ages, so they all know it is happening.
astura 5y ago
Children do not have any legal right to privacy. Especially not when the parents are paying for the cell phone and service.
- alasdair_ 5y ago
  > Children do not have any legal right to privacy. Sadly, neither do most people.
- juki 5y ago
  Legal matters always depend on the jurisdiction. Here in Finland, for example, everyone has the right to privacy and "secrecy of confidential message". The law has a couple exceptions, but things like age or who pays for devices are not among them. A parent may only read a specific message addressed to their child if there is justifiable reason to believe that reading that specific message is necessary for the child's safety. Of course it's pretty rare for children to actually press charges against their parent for that, but it has happened. Using computer software "designed or modified to" violate the law is also specifically mentioned to make it an aggravated offense, with maximum penalty of 3 years in prison.

cmckn 5y ago

I definitely did things as a teenager that were dangerous, unnecessary, detrimental to my physical or mental health, etc. etc. I don't have kids, but I would probably make some effort to dissuade my kids from doing the same things I did. How do you approach that, without heavy surveillance? Did you just get lucky with good kids? Is having conversations about it enough?

ethbr0 5y ago
I look at it the other way around: I did things as a kid and teenager that were dangerous, unnecessary, detrimental to my physical or mental health... and those things made me... me. So why should I, or do I have a right to, keep my kids from doing the same? We aren't only the product of our positive lessons. A lot of life is learned through burning yourself on the hot stove. And by and large, it usually doesn't kill you. IMHO, no humans are self-actualized enough to possess omniscience and act ethically. We have too many neuroses. And, at the more obvious end of the spectrum, all of the suburban crowd complaining about how their children fail to launch, lack initiative in life, and aren't independent. After their entire childhood was spent being monitored and constantly corrected by the parent. The mind boggles.
- majormajor 5y ago
  I have a lot of coworkers who are bigger self-starters than I am despite growing up with far more type-A parents than I did. Even to the point of there being stereotypes about the people who can't relax cause their parents drove them so hard for some Asian immigrant groups. So I think a claim that "controlling parents" -> "adrift young adults" would be hard to support. Kids need to learn from mistakes, but if not monitored, you can hit the opposite end where the lesson isn't learned because there are no real consequences. For instance, goofing off in high school won't give you consequences until you graduate high school at the earliest, and possibly not until you graduate collect (still goofing off) and suddenly hit a wall in terms of what you can get employment-wise.
  - ethbr0 5y ago
    I'm not advocating for no consequences. I'm advocating for no pre-consequences. And yes, sometimes kids get away with things if they aren't monitored 24/7. They're supposed to. Figuring out the boundaries of attempting that, and dealing with the consequences when you fail, is a very important lesson for children.

seanmcdirmid 5y ago

I want to let me kid (now 5) be more independent. These days, at least in the USA, kids aren't allowed out until they are 10 or even older, and even then they often don't get to take the bus alone (I started doing that when I was in 2nd grade, in the 80s when crime was much worse than it is today, I was biking on my own outside when I was in Kindergarten). But I thought...something like an air tag, cellphone, and maybe a bodycam, might be a great way to balance a need to let the kid explore some things independently and keep safe at the same time. I don't know, I'm still in the planning stage on this.

oauea 5y ago
> a bodycam I'm sorry, are you serious or is this a joke?
- ambrose2 5y ago
  They sounded serious; reminds me of the Black Mirror episode “Arkangel”.
  - franga2000 5y ago
    OP, as a general rule, when something you're doing reminds someone of a Black Mirror episode, please re-evaluate your choices.
- seanmcdirmid 5y ago
  Well, if I want to let him explore on his own somewhere outside, it might be an option. It isn’t something that we would sneak on him, he is already into gopro. It might work for some early trial runs? Like, walk around the block by yourself with this on (for a five year old, definitely not for a 10 year old).
- ziml77 5y ago
  It certainly doesn't read like a joke. I think GP is trying to find ways to feel like they're giving their child freedom without actually giving them any at all. But it's hard to think of anything worse for freedom than attaching a camera to to someone. Yes, technically they wouldn't be directly prohibiting the child from anything, but the presence of a camera means the child is forced to assume that everything they do will be judged by the parent even when the parent has no present physical control over the child.

908B64B197 5y ago

> Most of my friends/neighbors are constantly monitoring their teen age children's location, reading their recent calls, texts, and emails, looking at internet usage logs, etc. I'll be very blunt: Do they really want to read text messages from their teenage daughter/son? They might regret that decision really fast. > One of my neighbors even calls her daughter every time she sees she's driving over the speed limit and yells at her If he doesn’t trust her why is she driving his car?

aaaaaaaaata 5y ago
You're missing the chilling effect. People monitor their kids so their kids do and are exactly what they've been told to be, and nothing else.

Gigachad 5y ago

My bf and I share location, I think its pretty useful. Just shortcuts the "how far away are you" conversation every time we need to meet up.

Sunspark 5y ago
You're still in the honeymoon phase. Wait till later when you're at the shopping mall and receive a text to come home now because they know where you are and it's been deemed a non-essential activity.
nicbou 5y ago
I just send it when asked through WhatsApp or Telegram. It's time-delimited, not a blanket permission.

rootusrootus 5y ago

Neurotic people are neurotic, they just use whatever tools are available to them. I can locate my daughter, my son, my wife, and even my own mother if I want to. I don't stalk them, ask questions about where they are going or where they have been, etc. But if I need a little peace of mind, I know where my loved ones are. We use the location & communication tools with respect, just like anything else.

franga2000 5y ago

Holy shit what happened to "have fun, just be back by dinner time"? I'm not that far from my teenage years so the fact that this is already happening to today's teens is a bit terrifying to me. We had cellphones back then and I had an early smartphone (Nokia N95 - anyone remember those?) when at least half my school didn't even have a brickphone, so the capability was there. Bot neither my parents nor the parents of any of my peers ever used it, even later when all of us had proper smartphones with parental control options only a few clicks away. So what happened? Crime rates are down, kinds these days do drugs and drink at lower rates than back then, I can't remember the last time I heard of a kid go missing... We now have many privacy-preserving options for emergency tracking so there's less of a reason for total control than ever. Even monitoring Internet usage - there are fewer "predators" out there and kids are better at recognising and avoiding them than ever. I don't get it.

cafard 5y ago

When my son was in his teens, the phone company still sent with the bill a log of every call, maybe even every SMS. I marveled at the thickness of the list, but never inspected it.