subject: Is Monitoring Your Children Online an Invasion of Privacy? [print this page] Is Monitoring Your Children Online an Invasion of Privacy?
Many parents feel that they should allow their children complete privacy in their online activities. They may liken it to sneaking a peak at a personal diary or listening in to a phone call. But the Internet presents a very different paradigm and should not be treated with the same laissez fair approach as you may take with a journal or private conversations.
1.A diary or journalkept by your child is a personal affair between the child and himself. For whatever purpose the child or teen keeps a diary, it is not available to the public. If you are worried about your child or just curious, peaking at a diary without his permission would be an invasion of privacy - taking advantage of the fact that she chooses to write her thoughts down rather than keep them inside her head, where you obviously would not have access. A concerned parent should try to speak with their child and express their concerns before breaking this basic trust. Remember, in keeping a personal diary, a child is not exposing himself to danger.
2.Telephoneconversations should also be regarded as personal. Just like your child can speak with friends face to face without your presence or knowledge, they probably assume that when they talk to friends on the phone, they are talking privately one-on-one. Today, given that most children use their cellphone to converse with friends, the option to listen in does not even exist.
3.Chat. Younger children tend to use chat to communicate with others within their circle of friends. Setting clear rules and explaining the reasons for those rules regarding chat is a must. There are many ways that kids are chatting today - from messenger programs like MSN Messenger and AOL to voice over IP applications like Skype and Oovoo that have a chat component to Facebook's chat application that allow you to communicate with any of your friends who are currently logged in to their Facebook accounts.
As kids get older, there is a greater likelihood that they will use chat to meet new people online and they may create additional profiles to either hide their identity or at least not reveal their real names. This is when things can start to get messy. Your teen may not always be aware of who they are talking to. They may feel less inhibited knowing that others do not know who they are. And then there is always the risk of cyberbullying.
Getting a sense of how your child is using chat is important. We don't suggest simply reading their conversations but using good judgement to determine if they are using chat responsibly and to determine if they are the victim of any type of abuse. Again, open and honest communication is the best way to keep it safe.
4.Video chat.Many children have cameras on their phones and computers. Similar to chat, as kids get older they are more likely to start communicating with people they don't know. The use of video can be completely innocent and fun. But when talking to strangers becomes a regular activity, it can become dangerous. You have a right to know how your Internet connection is used and a right to have a say in what is permissible. Again, talking with your child is important. Find out why they use video chat and determine whether it is being used safely. We suggest that video only be permitted among friends.
5.Browsing the web.Obviously, most kids are surfing to all kinds of websites - for school and for fun. The way we look at it is that parents should approach what kids do and see online as no different than their real lives. No matter how old your child is, you would not convey to them that they can do anything they want and go anywhere they want. In most families, younger children are closely monitored by their parents and certainly not free to wonder the streets alone. You know your child's schedule - where they are and who they are with. For older children, while they may have some more freedom, the same is true more or less. If they went to strip clubs instead of school, eventually you would find out and it would not be acceptable, right?
So why not take the same approach online? Anything that you would not condone or allow in the real world, should be forbidden online - underage gambling, viewing porn, etc.Given that setting rules may not be enough, we strongly suggest that every family should have a web filter in place. Asking children and teens to exercise self discipline can often be too much to expect. online, they can be exposed to content by accident, by friends and just out of plain, normal curiosity -- because it is there and nothing is stopping them. just like you would not order a hardcore pornography channel for the TV in your 12 year old's room, why provide them with a computer that has access to such content (and worse)? Installing aweb filter is plain common sense today and not about privacy.
The bottom line is that the Internet is a public platform. Our children are growing up online with a very different sense of what is public and what is private than we did.They are driven to reveal themselves online in ways that are potentially dangerous and parents need to be there to place limits and ensure safety.
