Mom's A Spy
As children get older they naturally begin to set boundaries around their space. It is not uncommon for teens, and even pre-teens, to spend more time alone and less time talking to parents. This move towards privacy worries some parents and leads others to spy.
Georgia Conner does not apologize for going into her children’s rooms to look around. “I just felt like I had the right to see you know… if they were involved in any dangerous or unsafe activities,” she says. Her seventeen year old daughter Julie, on the other hand, sees it as a lack of respect.
But what teens see as a lack of respect, some parents may regard as a necessity. When kids start doing things away from parents, many feel the need to find out what they are up to.
But some experts warn that unless there’s clear evidence your child is in danger, invading their privacy could do irreparable damage to the parent-child relationship. Open up- front communication should be used to get to know a child rather than behind the back searches. “I don’t think that is a message that you want to send a child about trust, about dignity, about integrity, says Dr. Judy Simmerman, psychologist.
What Parents Should Know
With so many stories in the news about kids building bombs and planning massacres, it is no wonder that some parents will go to any means to find out what their kids are up to. When a child stays secluded from his or her family it causes suspicion but they may be doing nothing more than writing in a journal, reading a book room The average child is not hiding a gun, or drug.
But for parents who feel there are serious signs of dangerous behavior and all attempts at communication fail, it may be acceptable to search the child’s belongings, or even spy on the child when they go out. If parents do discover something serious at that point, psychologist say parents need to expect a lot of anger when they confront their child. Psychologist Judy Simmerman says parents should respect that when they talk with their child by saying “I did something I shouldn’t have done, I snooped, and I found something, now we have to deal with this. You may be angry, but the more important issue is, you’re in trouble.”
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“I just felt like I had the right to know...if they were involved in any dangerous or unsafe activities.” --Georgia Conner, Mother |
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Learn By Living Some
experts worry that parents become so concerned and protective that
they effectively block their children from ever making mistakes.
“They should be allowed to make mistakes” says 17 year old Julie…and
Simmerman agrees: “It helps them to hook up the behavior with the
consequences.” If many parents look back, they’ll realize the best
lessons were learned not by lecture, but by living, and making mistakes.
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Bored
Is Not Some parents go as far as to go to outside sources to assist them in spying on their child. A firm in Chicago called Spy Shop, Inc. estimates that 20 percent of their sales of video monitoring equipment is for families. Some of it is used by parents to monitor their babysittet, but many parents also use the gear to keep tabs on their own kids as well. Private investigators also report getting calls from concerned parents. Sometimes to check for teen parties when parents are gone, or even to monitor a child when they say they’re going one place, but a parent is convinced their going somewhere else. |
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Resources
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