Invasion of privacy or good parenting?
1. Would you monitor your teen/pre-teen’s myspace/email WITHOUT their knowledge if you knew or could figure out their password?
2. Do you consider this an invasion of their privacy or good Parenting?
I monitor what I can without his knowledge. But I never confront him about it. I find some other way to bring up an issue and I don’t sweat the small stuff like swearing or inappropriate subject matter. I’m looking for indications of drug use, depression or serious problems.
So far I’ve been a little shocked, but nothing serious and a couple of times I’ve been pleased at his chat because he sounds so responsible and mature.
A good parent puts their child’s safety and well-being before their privacy. How you handle what you find is the issue and you need to be very careful there.
Good parenting definitely.
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1. In a heartbeat
2. Absolutely good parenting
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I this day and age id call it good parenting. I do the same with my daughter although i have told her i do it and the reasons why. Shes been fine about it!
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1. Yes I have
2. Good parenting. But if I found nothing suspicious, I would not check regularly. They do need their privacy, but we do need to know what is going on
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I would monitor it WITH their knowledge, otherwise it is an invasion of their privacy, unless they gave me good reason to get nosy.
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I don’t think that I could do it without their knowledge. But then again it depends on the kid. If their my space account is a little too sexy or old for their age then I might.
I also think that it is responsibility to monitor your kids and for that reason, our computer is in a very public area of our house and our kids will not have their own computers in their rooms. That way I can monitor their actions.
Good luck to you.
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being a teen, i would consider that invasion of of privacy. if my parents did that i wouldnt trust them as much as i do if they didnt. checking up on your kids is always good but going to far can really affect the quality of your relationship with them. going into their email or checking their myspace is saying flat out i dont trust you and what you do online and that can be a very negative idea you are sending to your child. instead give them advice such as saying watch out for people online or just mention stories you heard in the news. dont accuss of them of something they potentially didnt do. monitor but dont invade.
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Invading email, basically hacking your way into their account or stealing their password, is a clear invasion of privacy.
Checking up on a public myspace page is not a breach of trust as it is online for the world to see. While I would recommend letting them have their own space, a private life with their friends, and avoid reading their blog daily, it might be a good idea to BRIEFLY check it once every other month or so to make sure they aren’t doing anything dangerous online.
In short, treat your child with respect, openess, and honesty. If it sounds like it belongs in a spy novel you’re probably going about it wrong.
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Without their knowledge? I’d say invasion of privacy, it’s also saying that you don’t trust your own child (unless she/he gives you a reason not to). It’s okay to check their page once in a while but to actually read and snoop thru their emails is a whole other story.
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Good parenting. Definately NOT an invasion of privacy. I wish my parents did that with my sis… She is suicidal [it says on her myspace page] and don’t know nor will they look…
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Good parenting but remember if they find out they might not trust you as my parents done that with me & 5 years on i still don’t trust my parents & all i had in my emails was from friends from school.
be careful!!
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I’m pretty sure it’s illegal. And that’s not good parenting, good God. I mean, if you have to ask… If you have to do such a thing means your kid isn’t such a good kid and well… who’s fault is that? Snooping around and such is good parenting, but you took it too far.
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As fast as a Democrat can spend your money!
Children (and many adults) must be taught how to keep data secure and be taught to TRUST NO-ONE. Privacy is key –
For some good ciber parenting skills — see
As to MySpace, may I suggest you look at the two cites below.
Kim, also spoke about an example of a MySpace page that contains many privacy violations
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http://www.komando.com/kids/commandments.aspx
http://www.komando.com/tips/index.aspx?id=3919
I monitor what I can without his knowledge. But I never confront him about it. I find some other way to bring up an issue and I don’t sweat the small stuff like swearing or inappropriate subject matter. I’m looking for indications of drug use, depression or serious problems.
So far I’ve been a little shocked, but nothing serious and a couple of times I’ve been pleased at his chat because he sounds so responsible and mature.
A good parent puts their child’s safety and well-being before their privacy. How you handle what you find is the issue and you need to be very careful there.
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depends. If you have reason to believe they are doing something and our indangering themselves then it’s good parenting. If your just being nosey and have no reason other then to snoop around in your child’s business then it’s invasion. I don’t think i would ever try to hack into my child’s my space account unless there was a good reason!
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yes, good parenting! if he/she knows they will just get a secret account or something. it seems like an invasion of privacy, but it is necessary!!
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Children that age don’t have privacy, as far as I’m concerned. I would absolutely monitor their computer activity. You could even make it a condition of being able to use the computer at all-that you get to have full access to their stuff too. There is too much out there that can get a child into trouble or even harm them, even while they are sitting at home on the computer. And honestly, they’re not smart enough to realize the danger.
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1. I would expect to have access to my (pre)teen’s myspace and email and to have their password. If I suspected they’d set up accounts without my knowledge, yeah, I’d monitor them.
2. Good parenting. In this day and age, it’s too dangerous to not be aware of what’s going on. A 13yo girl in my city ended up sending naked pictures to someone she thought was her age–turned out to be an adult pervert. If her parents had been monitoring, it would have been less likely to happen. There’s so much other stuff that goes on.
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1. Don’t think it’s necessary and wouldn’t monitor without their knowledge BECAUSE we already restrict, both with supervision (although they do have privacy sometimes) and through computer security already, which sites they are allowed to visit. Myspace isn’t one of them, and email hasn’t come up yet except in the case of email to their biological mother, which of course they are allowed complete privacy with.
2. Since I would have considered it a violation of my own privacy, as a pre-teen, teen, and adult; and have talked with my kids about it; I consider it an invasion of their privacy if it is WITHOUT their knowledge. WITH their knowledge I consider it to be good parenting.
You didn’t ask, but although I feel very strongly about this in our family, I leave this question open to other parents as to what best suits their family and situation.
Edit: I am curious – to all those parents out there who do NOT consider it an invasion of privacy and do this under the guise of "child safety" when there are other methods available to do so – what will you do when your children no longer trust you and hide this information from you? Will your children be safe then?
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see "about me" in my profile
with the way things are today with sexual predators, I think it is not invading privacy it is keeping them safe.
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I have a 16 year old son and I do monitor his myspace page without his knowledge. I do not consider it an invasion of his privacy because I’m monitoring it for his safety. Unfortunately, there are far too many weirdos in the world today that prey on children, so I believe it is my parental right and duty to try anything possible to assure his safety.
If you know the email address and password that your child is using for their email, it’s quite easy to access their password for myspace. First, go to the myspace page and type in their email address and then just request the password as if you’d lost it. Myspace will email the password to the email account; once you have you child’s myspace password, don’t forget to delete the email that you got it from.
Hope this helps.
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I think that checking email is an invasion of privacy and would not do it. Myspace is a different story since it is public – I can view it as much as anyone else.
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