Guest Post: Teens and Tracking Their Online Activity
March 23rd, 2009 Posted in Cyber Culture, Parental Supervision, Teen Issues
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March 23rd, 2009 at 7:11 am
I’m not sure if I agree with you entirely but I guess that this does look like spying. I think that the alternative would be to place an internet filter tool so that they wouldn’t actually end up on anything dangerous, sort of like wearing a seat belt…
March 23rd, 2009 at 7:51 am
You make excellent points about communicating vs. spying.
Perhaps it’s because my daughter is barely a teen, but I believe that it’s my responsibility to parent online as well as offline. However, I don’t need to spy on her to accomplish that goal. Instead, we surf the web together, at least some of the time.
Yes, I’m one of her Facebook friends so that I can see what she’s doing, but I try to tread lightly, talking to her offline about what she is doing online, keeping the conversation alive rather than pushing her into hiding. I believe that she benefits from my counsel, but I try to pick my battles.
For now, anyway, my daughter doesn’t mind that I occasionally look over her shoulder or that I check her Facebook activity.
March 23rd, 2009 at 8:11 am
I couldn’t agree more. Great job.
March 23rd, 2009 at 9:38 am
Hi Ash
Yes I think Internet filters are preventive which is a good things. It is more pro-active as we would call it in the police and is in my mind the way to go.
I always think about how I would explain it to my children if they found out or how I would feel if it was done to me.
Internet filters are like a seat belt rather than never taking them in the car because we fear what will happen.
Thanks for your comment I appreciate it
Sarah
Your Gen Y Guide
http://www.theteencoacgblog.com
March 25th, 2009 at 4:12 am
I agree that spying is not a nice thing and i guess an alternative is to use a parental control software. In this way you don’t spy what your child is doing online but in the same time you know he is safe because you have restricted access to specific websites that you consider being improper.
March 25th, 2009 at 6:41 pm
Hi,
I’m afraid you really have missed the point and the spirit of Norton Online Family. It’s the first product to ask that parents agree with their kids on house rules, to only exist in an “open” mode (there is no “stealth” mode or way to monitor in a hidden or spying fashion) and our goal is to build communication within the family about appropriate online activity. For this reason, we list having a regular “Talk” about online safety as a prerequisite to using the service.
We don’t track comments on social networks or what’s put into emails. The service (on PC and Mac and accessible on any webbrowser) reports sites visited, search terms used on a variety of sites, and blocks sites that parents and kids have agreed are not suitable.
The product is flexible, with high control for little kids and very little hard control for older kids. And parents and kids have easy ways to communicate with each others if the out of the box settings don’t work for them.
I think people who try this kind of family safety service will never want to use traditional parental control software again. This is much more open, positive and supportive of both the parent and the child. We encourage the parents to understand the child’s intentions, rather than overreact to evidence of mistakes.
We feel as passionately as you do that spying on our children is not the answer. We would much prefer to have parents educate their kids about how to use the internet safely so they can become happy, healthy and mature web users.
March 25th, 2009 at 7:09 pm
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March 31st, 2009 at 1:29 am
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April 28th, 2009 at 6:06 pm
i agree with you completely!!!!!
im not a parent.
im a child and i hate it when my parents cant trust me with anything. they are always spying on me and i feel like that they think that i am going to make bad decisions.i just want them to understand that they do not need to be checking up on me every second because im not stupid and i will make good decisions and that they need to give me some space and stay out of my business and personal life
May 6th, 2009 at 1:06 pm
I really believe that when there is an environment of accountability in the home, it can change the way we all surf the Internet: http://www.covenanteyes.com/blog/2008/06/12/is-filtering-all-there-is-introducing-accountability-software/
June 11th, 2009 at 12:20 pm
Look I’m not being funny but any self respecting teen thats even the slightest bit computer savvy knows how to clear their history as well as disable most parental keyloggers.
My mum tried it on me once when I was 13 and I knew straight away what had been done. I located it disabled it and hit the roof. I never trusted her again and set myself as admin and used the parental controls on her account so that she couldn’t install anything without me approving it.
All it does is lose you your childs trust and they will go to even greater lengths to hide what they are doing.
August 12th, 2009 at 10:03 pm
I just found out that my parents had installed this on MY laptop. I’m seventeen years old, I don’t think I should still be getting spied on.