Opinion: 70% of Teens Hide Online Behavior from Parents, And How I Feel About It

[Guest]

Lol at these hippie parents.

I will watch my kids every move. Kids must be watched on the internet. What I can't understand is how many parents are so lazy.

Story:
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One time I had to catch the bus to work. I was on that bus and it passed by the local middle school. Some school aged girls came on. The immediately started talking about a party they were going to later that week . How there was gonna be coke at the party and a few guys they were gonna hook up with. When the main ring leader girl stop came up I noticed her father waiting for her . She changed attitudes completely - ran up and gave her dad a hug.
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The Internet is not the same place it was a few yrs ago when the worse you could do was look at some porn.Teen pregnancy is on the rise and every time I watch any type of expose on it what do you think is the first thing the parents say - " We had no idea, we trusted him/her'

Hippie parents - okay trust your children . Believe that your a good parent. I'm telling you that no amount of parenting well is gonna stop peer/social media pressure.You can say that you have installed value and morales but when your daughter is being pressured 24/7 to sleep with the hot guy via - facebook/text message/bbm/class/twitter good luck. Just don't expect any sympathy when she gets knocked up.

Will all teenagers turn out to be bad cause of the internet ? No. But it only takes one mistake to end up with a kid/std/or hooked on some drug.

 

[Guest]

Do you see any irony in preceding a sentence about how teens lack knowledge and experience with a sentence trying to induce a moral panic about how (oh noes, especially girls!) are accessing information about sex?

I’m sorry, but you have backwards. There isn’t a universal right to Internet access, but people should and do have a right to access information, and to privacy. And, in case you have become confused, I am including teens in the greater category of people.

Part of becoming fully functional adults is learning to tell you exactly what adults tell other people who try to coerce their private information from them. I understand you want to be active in your child’s life, and that you want to protect him from certain things, and that you want to be there when certain issues arise, and that is fine, but you really have no business demanding an all access pass to their social networking accounts.

 

[pacioli]

Minors don't have a right to privacy from their parents.
A minor earns the privilege of privacy when they demonstrate the maturity level required.

I like to think of children as auditioning to become adults. When they reach the age of responsibility no matter how much self discipline they have developed they can do whatever they want to do. Those that have control over their own decisions and are not guided by self destructive impulses get the title of "adult" the ones that fail have to keep auditioning. Some never make it...

I expect my teenage son to behave in a manner consistent with the upbringing he has had. That doesn't mean that he gets unsupervised access to the internet. It means I am going to check up on his activities and if I find an inconsistency we are going to talk about it until there is a clear understanding of what the expectations are. That is what being a parent is about.

 

[pacioli]

Just an FYI... I failed my own audition to become an adult at the age of 18... I was in my early 20's when I finally could consider myself a true adult.

 

[teh_chem]

[citation][nom]Anon1415[/nom]Lol at these hippie parents. I will watch my kids every move. Kids must be watched on the internet. What I can't understand is how many parents are so lazy.

The Internet is not the same place it was a few yrs ago when the worse you could do was look at some porn.Teen pregnancy is on the rise and every time I watch any type of expose on it what do you think is the first thing the parents say - " We had no idea, we trusted him/her'

Hippie parents - okay trust your children . Believe that your a good parent. I'm telling you that no amount of parenting well is gonna stop peer/social media pressure.You can say that you have installed value and morales but when your daughter is being pressured 24/7 to sleep with the hot guy via - facebook/text message/bbm/class/twitter good luck. Just don't expect any sympathy when she gets knocked up.

Will all teenagers turn out to be bad cause of the internet ? No. But it only takes one mistake to end up with a kid/std/or hooked on some drug.[/citation]

You're missing the point--you're assuming a dichotomy, where one assumes that if there isn't total control and information-filtering over what their kids are doing, then it must therefore be total 'hippie' anarchy.

What you're failing to distinguish is the fact that people here aren't necessarily saying "give your kids free reign and don't bother to look into what they're doing," they're saying, "you're a bad parent if you think a lock-down of information is the way to allow your kids to grow up into mature adults."

There has to be mutual understanding (teens should be old enough and advanced enough with socialization and their relationships with their parents to do this). There has to be mutual respect and a certain amount of openness. If all you do is lock-down every social aspect of your kids life, they will not learn on their own--they'll be dependent on you as a parent who meters what they're exposed to. Which just retards their development.

 

[airborne11b]

Personally I think there are very few "bad" things on the internet.

Sexuality is natural, so if kids wanna go look at porn, I say have at it.

Gore/Violence? I say that's fine too. A lot of gore websites have tons of wounded/dead people, complete with extremely graphic pictures/videos and most of which are a result of bad choices made by the victim in the images. Don't want your kid to get drunk at a party and drive into a brick wall? Send em on over to a gore website and show him what a human head looks like squashed between 2 tons of steel and fiberglass.

Now there are bad things on the internet like child porn and stuff like that, and they should be told to stay away from it, and that viewing illegial material can get them in serious trouble...

But as far as censoring the things teens are allowed to see? Hell no. I say force it on em. A little reality never hurt anyone.

 

[Guest]

This problem is going to be the new epidemic facing our children in the coming generation. I am part of Generation Y and this occured in my years, and I didnt have the availability that kids have these days.

I have started a petition to help solve this problem. Please visit my website and click on the Change.org banner.

www.jasondubin.net

 

[danny777]

First thing first, is the picture on the blog post of a parent or that of a predator? So yes, actually it looks for more of a predator. It is so true that teens are definitely hiding many things so these could be bad, very bad or normal teen activities however we as parents need to know. Software known to me AceSpy ( www.retinax.com/acespy ) records and tracks PC activities like websites searched, emails, chats can help.