Spying On Your Kids

by rocketman 34 Replies latest watchtower bible

• 

  Maverick

  Each situation is different. I cannot speak for any other parent. But for my daughter trust IS an issue. I do not go in her room or read her E-mail or open her personal mail or any personal letters she has. I travel a lot, ( I am 1200 miles away right now). She runs the house and has for the last 3 years when I am gone. She has stepped up to this challenge. I have let her go to Europe and travel from Australia by herself. At 18 I think she is way ahead or most kids her age.

  In summery, I believe our children get a lot of their identity from what we as parents project to them. Trust them and they will live up to it. They will slip or make stupid choices, but so do we. Maverick
• 

  Yerusalyim

  Mulan,

  I agree, you don't hammer every issue that comes up with the kids.

  Maverick,

  , yes, kids are suppossed to make mistakes. I learned little from getting something right the first time, I've learned lots from screwing up.

  I'm more concerned about the things that are dangerous for the kids. The older they get, the less often I find myself looking through their stuff. The looking does, however show love and concern, as much as anything else. My kids still feel free to be themselves. My daugher is talking about becoming Jewish, and I'm letting her explore that. She says she isn't going to confirmation classes next year, I've let her make her choice.

  My son loves skateboarding and the whole culture associated with that, and I let him have it. I haven't read diaries at all. Kids should have some private thoughts. HOWEVER if I had a specific concern that I thought would be answered in the diary, then heck yes, I'd look.

  Sometimes the not looking and the not checking up tells kids that mom or dad don't care.
• 

  logansrun

  Yerusalyim,

  I'm sorry for the misunderstanding. My comments were refferring to the 20/20 program, not yourself. Specifically, I feel that the cameras in the room were rather ludicrous. I should have made that clearer in my post.

  Bradley
• 

  Yerusalyim

  Logans,

  Hey, I've been known to fly off the handle at nothing at all. Yes, I agree, unless there are specific reasons for needing such, Cameras are WAY overboard.
• 

  Tyler

  I wouldn't like to think My mum had put a hidden camera in my bedroom when I was a teenager!! Still, as regards kids plotting to murder their cousins, well, they need psychiatric help big time. But then, for no falt of the pairents, some kids really do need monitoring.

  I guess this is a case where the need for security has to be ballenced, and can so easily be abused. Imagine if some JW pairents decided to do survailence on their kids! Could they mess them up more than they already do?

  It all boils down to the ethics of the pairent using this new found power. If the pairents are controll freaks, they could screw up their kids big time. If the pairents are genuinely being concirned (and not misguided concirn as with JW's and other fanatics) well, the poor kids have no hope.
• 

  Xena

  Actully I like the idea of the GPS on the car just for safety reasons.....the video cameras do seem a bit over the top though. I would like to think I can and will always be able to trust my daughter, while being fully aware the she will on occasion lie to me (didn't we ALL at one time or another to our parents???) just hopefully about nothing dangerous to herself or others.....

  I am not sure what I would do if I suspected her of doing something illegal or dangerous...I guess I will just have to cross the bridge if and when I come to it...
• 

  ashitaka

  Horrible. Big Brother in the hands of over protective parents could make JW parents even worse devils than they are now.

  ash
• 

  Tyler

  Just one thing though. I'm sure most posters here are thinking it but dare not say ought for fear of starting an argument, but Yerusalyim, you sound overly intimerdating. I fear for your children. You have the paranoia of a JW. I'm sorry if this anoys you, but it's what I think.
• 

  asleif_dufansdottir

  First of all, I have to say Thank God I don't have kids! I would be totally overwhelmed. I'd probably do things like check their on-line activities and keep track of where my car was going.

  I do have to point something out, though. My parents didn't have to resort to this kind of thing, but that was because I grew up in a town of less than a thousand people, where everybody knew everything everyone else did. We didn't need technology, we had grandma seeing your car where it wasn't supposed to be!

  Once when I was on my way out to visit my boyfriend (now husband), I got a speeding ticket. Before I even got home somebody with a scanner had run into my dad and told him about it (it was his car).

  There's so much less accountability now, kids can be so much more anonymous than we were...no wonder they get in so much trouble
• 

  Yizuman

  What does it say of your parenting and guidence if you have to stoop to these levels? I think it's totally ridiculous.

  Spying is wrong. If someone or something were to continuously monitor YOU, would you think that's alright? Let God do his job.

  A response like that only LIBERALS would say that. Sorry for the label, but this is the way I feel about it. Kids in this day and age needs to be kept an eye on in any way possible. When they reach the "rebel" age of a teenager, they will test the authority of the parents as well as society as a whole to see how much they can get away with. Kids at the teenage level will want to exert their "independence" and feel "adult" to make decisions for themselves, but often times, kids can tend to carry on too far. At times kids will get sick of the authority of the parents and rebel against them, even if possible, to the extreme. Parents are responsible for their kids until they reach the age of 18 here in the US while other countries have different ages at whichever the law considers them to be an adult. Until then, kids needs to be monitored and the parents have the right to do so. The liberals on the other hand do not like the authority of the parents and will stick up for the kids so they can do whatever they want w/o consequences. Liberals are trying to have bills passed to take away the authority of the parents and extert more rights to the kids. There are some states in this country that can get parents into HUGE trouble if a parent in any way said "NO" to a child and possibily face jail time. Yizuman