What is striking about the moral panic over teenagers, social networking sites and the general perils of life online is that British parents do not yet seem to have resorted to American solutions.
Allow me to introduce you to a whole new world of specialised electronic surveillance of young people - teen tracking. Nothing illustrates it better than a device called the SnoopStick.
The SnoopStick looks like a memory stick. You plug it into your teenager's computer when they are not around, and it installs stealth software on to the machine. Then you plug it into your own computer and can sit back at your leisure and observe, in real time, exactly what your child is doing online - what websites they are visiting, the full conversations they are having on the instant messenger (IM) service, and who they are sending emails to. It is as if you are sitting and invisibly spying over their shoulder.
The child has no idea their computer is being monitored. And you, the parent, need not worry about missing any salacious, incriminating detail, because the software records everything, so you can download and view what your child was doing earlier on. At any time you can call up a screen capture to see what they are looking at. Or - oh clever SnoopStick - the software will take screenshots on its own when the user lingers for five seconds or more on any web page.
And what a control trip this must be! It gives you the power remotely to cut off internet access, log off all users, or shut down the computer. There's no revealing message when you do this - the teenager supposedly (uhuh!) just thinks it's a network problem.
Significantly, the £37.50 device comes with the warning that, if you use it to monitor an employee's computer without notifying them, you may well be in breach of employment laws. But install it secretively on the computer of your teenager, who has absolutely no rights at all, and no one can touch you. The moral argument doesn't come into it.
SnoopStick is part of a positive stampede of parental control products. There are sinister programmes such as Net Nanny, Safe Eyes and Sentry At Home, which all spy to different degrees. For those parents who cannot decipher the abbreviations online, there is something called a Teen Chat Decoder.
And surveillance of young people does not end there. Worried what your teenager is getting up to in a car? There are lots of creepy solutions. DriveCam, for instance, is an American system in which a small video recorder is mounted behind the rearview mirror to captures sights and sounds inside and outside the vehicle.
DriveCam, which is used as part of the Teen Safe Driver Program, is marketed in the manner of a horror film, bombarding parents with lots of paranoid-inducing facts. Once a parent leaves the vehicle, it says, seat belt use goes down to 40 per cent and the crash rate increases 700 per cent. In other words, spy or they die!
The driving data is centrally monitored and parents receive a weekly report card that compares their teen's performance with their peers. In 2006, DriveCam made the top 500 fastest-growing, privately held companies in the US for the second consecutive year. Tragic, isn't it, that the removal of personal freedom should be so commercially successful?
Internet car-tracking devices marketed specifically for teens mean you can watch where your children drive, on real time on your computer. Given, that is, you are a sad, mistrustful person without a life. A covert GPS tracker can store 250 hours of travel; a covert in-car camera records what happens inside the vehicle.
For if you really want to catch them out doing something inappropriate, then it is time to move on to a higher level of personal surveillance. The following devices, please note, are not just being marketed to private detectives to catch errant spouses; they are being targeted at parents of teenagers.
You can get clothes with tracking devices fitted into them. You can fit such devices covertly into mobile phones. For $149 you can purchase a mobile spy data extractor, which reads deleted text messages from a SIM card. For $79 you can buy a semen detection kit, to test your teenage daughter's clothing. And for $99, if you really want to ape the mad ex-Marine father in American Beauty, you can buy a drug identification kit which can detect up to 12 different illegal drugs.
There are real warnings for hand-wringing British parents here. Online teen tracking amounts to a form of internet child abuse even more potent, I would suggest, than the kind which parents seek to prevent in the first place. Once upon a time foolish mothers betrayed their children's trust by reading their diaries; now, prurient and paranoid parents can invade every aspect of their children's private lives.
How tragic it all is; how belittling of the adults involved; and how deeply disturbing the apparent lack of moral outcry.
The SnoopStick symbolises the modern obsession with control. The American psychologist Robert Epstein, who wrote the controversial book The Case Against Adolescence, estimates that young Americans are now ten times more restricted than adults, and twice as restricted as convicted criminals. He says teenagers are infantilised and deprived of human rights. As well as the obvious legal bar to prevent them smoking, drinking, marrying, voting and gambling, teenagers have no privacy rights, no property rights, no right to sign contracts or make decisions regarding their own medical or psychiatric treatment.
It is a strong argument: that by increasing restrictions upon children, and denying them civil freedoms and responsibilities, neurotic parents are in fact facilitating the very thing which they seek to prevent - they are driving their offspring even deeper into the toxic world of online teenage culture.
Above all, teen tracking compounds what has gone wrong in the first place: the lack of time and communication parents have given their children. And that is not just an American problem.
Children are not stupid. They quickly get wind of the fact that their parents are spying on them, either by putting two and two together about the extra processes running in task manager (as i said, they are not stupid) or when their parents slip information or directly mention things they would not know otherwise.
gavin, leicester, UK
Interesting from these comments that - by and large - our American courins appear far stricter with their children than we are. Would this spyware have helped to prevent incidents like the Columbine High School massacre?
Archie, Thrapston, England
I have a unique experience in the matter of being under surveillance and I can say it is completely exasperating at best. I think it is not only wrong but altogether inadvisable unless a specific security reason arises.
Henry Percy, London, UK
good
majuchuan, hangzhou, china
As a teenager (just turned 18) myself, I know that one of the most important aspects of my relationship with my parents is our mutual trust. My parents have educated me and guided me to the extent where they now feel I am capable of making my own decisions and taking responsibility for my own safety. I am aware that other teenagers may not have such strong relationships with their parents and may not have such a responsible attitude. However, surely it would be better if parents invested this time spent snooping into their children's activities into actually improving their relationship with them and beginning to treat them like an adult. If you have aspirations for your child to go off to university at the age of 18 or 19, how can you possibly expect them to cope on their own if you have held their hand all the way through some of their most formative years? You cannot maintain complete control and then expect a fully fledged adult to appear when they turn 18.
Elinor, Maidstone,
Surely the danger comes when your teenager installs stealthware on your computer. Would you be sufficiently computer-wise to realize? Better stay off those porn sites, and keep your bank details private!
Dwight Vandryver, Scholar Green, Cheshire, UK
Terminal 5 is an international showcase that highlights all the short comings of Britian. However, if this causes the government and more importantly, everyone in the country, to reflect on the way we work and live together then maybe good will come of this mess. I know nothing of the background detail of Terminal 5 but from my personal experience, I can so easily imagine arrogant senior management combined with institutional deceit and denial, or do I mean spin, that is endemic throughout business in this country.
Over the 30 years of my working life I have seen UK industry, business and social cohesion fall apart while Governments, newspapers and indeed most adults look for scape goats and distractions. This is the reality of life in the UK; terminal 5 is a wake up call and we had better take heed. Of course, BA will probably increase the marketing budget and spin the failures and inadequacies into a triumph to rival Dunkirk. UK Plc will lumber on into oblivion.
Brian Knight, Shoreham by Sea, UK
Last week I really enjoyed the well ballanced combination of 1kenken, 1sudoku, and 1 killer on the back page of the times 2. This week you have reverted to 2 sudokus and a killer, much more boreing. The kenken is now on page 2 of the main paper. This is on the same sheet as the crossword, which has always been my husband's favourite, so I can't get at it easily.
Judy Haynes, Willoughby on the Wolds, Leics
Had any of the parents of the dozens or so "school-shooters" over the last decade bothered to look, even slightly, into what was occurring in their children's "private" conversations, lives would surely have been saved.
When the hugs, support, and conversations ceases to work due to the unbelievably irresponsible and immoral society in which we live, monitoring and responsible use of knowledge gained is a parents responsbility.
Do you suggest that a hooded loner's "right to privacy" trumps the actual lives of those around them??
lee in colorado, monument, colorado
Hmm; what with being over the age of eighteen and having parents who would never be that stupid, this strikes me as more than slightly Orwellian. Whatever happened to, 'if you don't make mistakes, then you wont learn from them?'
Its the nanny culture all over again!
ACS, Canterbury,
Teach your kids. Trust your kids. Give them all the guidance you know of. IF they screw up and get into trouble THEN resort to these technologies.Trust, respect and integrity go a long way but it must be fostered their entire lives.
Most of all talk to them on their level from a non combative standpoint. Don't try to be their friend; you are the parent. Just show you care and love them no matter what. Learn about their lives and issues that matter most. .
Leonard, Denver, Colorado USA
So how do you monitor your kids’ online activities? How do you know your daughter isn’t corresponding with a predatory paedophile and planning to meet up with him tomorrow. When I was a kid, my parents could see what I was doing. When I smashed a window or got up to mischief my parents knew about it. That isn’t possible now.
Parents who “abuse†snoopstick will forfeit the trust of their kids who will find other ways to get up to trouble. Snoopsticking parents will have to just watch and guide and intervene only when a child makes a life-threatening error (which is eminently right).
Z Smith, London, UK
A computer can be many things. Some, but not all, of those things can be extremely dangerous. To the degree that you have trained your child to make good decisions in life and to the degree that your child has proven herself in previous difficult situations, she may deserve to be given responsibility and trust in small steps.
Monitoring your child sends the message that you don't trust them. I agree with the author that this is probably damaging to the child. But if you have done your job as a parent, led by example, given incrementally more responsibility and the child has stepped up to the plate, then giving that child your trust can be one of the most liberating experiences of a lifetime for you both.
Leetncamp, San Diego,
So, some parents are too busy to sit down and discuss these things with their children, but they've got the time to sit and traipse through all the websites and conversations they had online.
Absolutely pathetic. I would much rather have a parent stood over me telling me what I can and can't do online than be given the illusion of freedom and responsibility. How dishonest can you get? I'll bet the people who use and believe in this stuff are the same ones that believe that films/video games/sweets corrupt our youth and make them violent, and that when they were children none of this ever happened anywhere. What rubbish.
Jessica, Bath,
I take great offence to the insinuation of some posters that all teenagers are irresponsible hormone-crazed lunatics who are dangers to themselves and deeply need constant parental supervision. Some teens-- perhaps 'most' teens-- are like that, but most certainly not all. I, for one, wasn't. I just wanted to be left with my computers and books and video games. Many teenagers are 'underparented', but many are 'overparented', and some, in fact, need relatively little supervision. I speak from personal experience.
Jessica (28), new york, NY
Parents have a responsibility to teach their child what is the right / safe / prudent thing to do, not to safeguard their every action just in case it might end in disaster. Teenagers must take responsibility for themselves, as one day they'll become adults and suddenly they will be expected to know how to look after themselves. By all means ensure they understand the dangers, but you have to let go of their hand sometime.
Ella, London,
Im 21 years old, and so with my teens not being too far behind me, I think i can relate to their point of view pretty well.
The idea of this technology is frankly sickening.
@ Stan Stephens: You totally contradict yourself. If US teens are getting pregnant or driving too fast etc. purely to get away from over bearing, paranoid parents and to feel a degree of freedom, then a technology which spies on teens is only going to push them further into the situations you describe.
The current generation of parents dont seem to understand the importance computers play in teenage life. It isnt just a machine. It gives a personal link, be it via chat or blogs to express how you really feel. This is essential in a society where teens feel more controlled, depressed and isolated than ever.
In short, this is no less than a way of monitoring what young people THINK! Shouldn't your thoughts be private? Only irresponsible parents who'll lose their kids anyway will buy this terrible product
Martin, York, U.K.
Don't you just love someone who looks down their nose with moral superiority by judging how others parent? Involvement in a child's life by monitoring their behavior is excellent parenting, whether one does it with or without technological assistance. The actual immorality is the parent who cares nothing of their children's behavior, and refuse to be involved to know what, where, why and how a child spends the day. Any parent who spends the time and money using technology to monitor their children gets my vote of confidence and thanks for responsibly raising offspring!
Michael, Mount Airy, Maryland, USA
What a stupid article! On the one hand the media are warning parents that they do not monitor their children's internet activity enough - and that this amounts to abusive negligence, and now it is being suggested that monitoring their internet activity is a form of abuse.
You have no idea! And worse, your opinions, if ever put into practice, would be a direct threat to children's lives.
Kids need to know they are being supervised - it's called parenting - and if they don't want to sit in front of their parents on their computers then it is entirely reasonable that their computer activities be recorded - for their safety and that of others.
Peter, Maidstone,
Oh please. Were all children consistently able of making good choices while online we would not need such devices. Unfortunately, they are not all made the same and regardless of how much close parenting and counseling you might do with some kids they are going to abuse privileges (Yes, in a world of responsible parenting, being online is a privilege...NOT a right). This and other types of devices enable to parent to extend their oversight into their pre-teen and teenager's online habits. Not doing so, when the technology is readily available, is like sending your child out the door without knowing the names and reputations of their "friends" they are going out with. This is not about being on a "control trip". When used without guile these devices are extremely useful for responsible parents. Ms. Reid...I would rather help my child recover from an early stumble than to have to piece them back together after something more catastrophic occurs that I should have helped them avoid.
Paul, Mesa, US / Arizona
The world is hurtling towards totalitarianism once again and this time it is the Western World that is the culprit. The rationale is that someone feels that they have the right and a need to know everything about another person. This brand of "I need to know everything" is inappropriate for parenting and for the workplace. I have six children and don't feel the need to spy on them. One day, we'll look back and wish the citizens of the world had risen up in defiance of super-technological spying. Great article!
Jeff, California City, CA
How very formulaic. Demonize the extreme, represent it as the norm, and use the resulting red herring "crisis" to advocate granting children the same rights as adults. I can think of nothing more frightening than eliminating from our children's lives the very constraints and protections that they require to become functioning, responsible adults. It is a sad state of affairs when the notion that children can be treated just like adults actually attains sufficient legitimacy to require serious rebuttal. In case you haven't noticed, wisdom isn't innate, it must be learned. Parents making decisions on behalf of their children isn't totalitarian, it's common sense.....or at least it used to be.
Bruce Keller, St. Louis, MO
Two bits says Melanie ain't a parent.
CB Maxwell, Sonora, California USA
The problem here is that parents have abdicated their responsibility to public institutions, TV, and any other artificial baby sitting device that makes their lives easier. For crying out loud. Adults are supposed to be the responsible parties here. That implies "responsibility". Would you put your children out to play in a front yard next to a busy street and then not check on them to see if they were safe? Observation is not the same as an attempt to control as some would suggest. You can't give effective guidance to a child without knowing what they're up to. Seems like a no brainer from here.
Aaron, West Allis, USA/Wisconsin
A breathtakingly stupid essay.
Amother demonstraton of why newspapers and magazines are going the way of the flintlock, the high button shoe and sealing wax.
Good riddance to workfare for idiots and liars.
Thank God for the internet.
Markw. Hodgson, Whiteville, Tn.
I am now 70, and my mother is dead, but I never forgave her for reading my diary and using it to accuse my then fiancee, now my wife, of being little better than a whore.
It did one good thing, though - I was never the least tempted to spy on my own children. It is such a loathsome thing even to contemplate. (As for using semen-detection devices, that is just plain obscene.) If you want to protect them, earn their trust so that they will let you talk to them about people or things that might do them harm.
If they find out that you have been spying on them, they will never forgive you. So is it really worth risking the loss of their respect and trust for ever?
JF, Canterbury, UK
Completely agree with the author, and completely disagree with TY below. Youth today are growing up the same as youth have always had to, they need to test boundaries and find their own limitations. The internet has become a part of life for better and for worse, and just like real life they need to find their own way through it. Guidance and advice from adults is of course necessary, however actual abuse of privacy is unacceptable under any circumstance.
RB, Herts, England
Parents are responsible for their children until they are adults at 18, and are entitled as well as morally obligated to monitor everything they do. Just because technology has changed doesn't mean the parent's responsibility is any less. This tool, and the others, is just a way to make that possible.
Jenn, LA, US, CA
... And by the way all these new electronic surveillance systems just restore the level of control that parents could exercise on their children before the use of computers, mobile phones and internet connections spread over teenagers, so what's all the fuss about?
Marco, Venice,
What an incredibly stupid editorial. This person obviously has no children or at least cares nothing for them. Children are just that children. I suppose she believes they have complete rights to be had by any online predator who can find them. How incredibly absurd!!!
Ty, Oxford, UK
To Panama City, Florida Dave's point: Parents are not only responsible for the moral upbringing of their teen, they are increasingly held directly legally responsible for that same teen.
Steve, Portland, OR
Dave from Panama City, I totally and utterly agree with you.
"The real problem is not the lack of moral outcry, it is that so many people apparently have no moral boundaries and think that our precious children should be left to their own devices."
That's precisely the point. There should be more parents like you.
Marco, Venice,
Amazing, I am surprised that Gordon Brown and his control freak pc cronies havent insisted on these devices be inplanted by law to all new births in the UK so the every movement and thought of the next generation can be controlled. We could then do away with the irritation and bore of general elections.
Ian, Bristol,
Forget teenagers, in my experience it's us adults who really need watching online - we have a damn sight more experience and know perfectly well what we're doing! The thought of someone reading some of my past IM transcripts/e-mails brings me out in a cold sweat!
Jezebel, London, UK
This opinion piece is - an opinion. The opinion of someone who believes that personal rights translate to the right to do anything I want anytime I want. I find her statement "how deeply disturbing the apparent lack of moral outcry." quite ironic. The reason parents MUST know what their child is up to - even when the child doesn't like it - is that the same parent is respoonsible for the moral upbringing of that child.
The real problem is not the lack of moral outcry, it is that so many people apparently have no moral boundaries and think that our precious children should be left to their own devices.
For the record, my children can expect that if they ever give me any reason to suspect they are involved in anything inappropriate, I will search their closets, bureaus, cars, computers, and cell phones by any means I deem necessary, because I love them and will do everything in my power to help them to survive to maturity and become responsible and - yes - moral members of society.
dave, Panama City, Florida
Thanks for a great article. I was shocked when another university professor of my acquaintance admitted bugging her teenager's computer. My students, aged 18-21, are in late adolescence, and I never fail to be amazed by how infantilized modern culture has made many of them: The end result of all the helicopter parenting is that too many young people have little self-control and less (genuine) self-respect, as opposed to the useless arrogance of "self-esteem." At the same time, as someone who was raised in the U.K. in the 70s, I do know that many British parents and kids today feel --rightly or wrongly-- that parents and teachers are powerless, and that this is creating a vacuum of respect among teenagers. Orwellian surveillance is no preparation for life. It also doesn't give teenagers credit for knowing that they're wrong when they misbehave, and that they don't always mind firm and honest--as opposed to creepy and intrusive-- adult intervention.
Annette Laing, Statesboro, Georgia, USA
Maybe I'm strange, but I've never perceived the existence of a child's privacy right in regards to their own parents. Yes, even when I was a child myself, if my parents snooped something up about me, the thought would never have come to me that their snooping was some how wrong. Whenever I have heard a child claim great hurt at a parent's, so called, invasion of their privacy, I have always concluded their hurt was merely a ploy to regain control of the situation. I also saw any refusal to drop the ploy as a sign that their associations were leading them in a sociopathic direction. Hurray for parents who love their children enough not to fall for such ploys. Shame on those adults who attempt to legitimize such ploys.
Ken Menzies, Longwood, USA
We seem to live in a society where prurience sells papers and paranoia gets votes. The spyware referred to is merely a symptom.
Is it not possible that young people resent being spied upon and 'nannied'. Hence the 'Hoodie Culture'.
More of the same will surely increase the alienation.
The vast majority of young people have a greater sense of responsibility and social awareness than their parents and many 'adults'.
For heaven's sake just try talking to them!
nick ford, king's lynn,
I'm glad I'm not young these days - we thought nothing of going off on our own or witha friend with parents not monitoring us. Children need to take some control of their lives how else will they ever develop as humans - I work with someone who rigidly controls her 19 year son so much so that I feel quite sorry for him. One phone call to her husband consisted of 'Do you want him to waste his time with his friends?' and she revealed to us that she found condoms amongst his personal possessions which I thought was appalling. Control freak government- control freak population
carole, London, UK
Parents can't do right for doing wrong. If they treat their teenagers as 'young adults' and let them 'find their own way', they are bad parents if something awful happens, or if their kids' lives are adversely affected as a result of inexperience and lack of judgement. If they monitor their kids and take a close interest in what they are doing, they are 'spies' and beyond contempt. Teenagers are often very difficult to handle, no matter how sensitive their parents are to this hormone-fuelled phase. Good parents protect their children, whether they like it or not, until they can make their own decisions with a clear understanding of consequences, rather than just be there to pick up the pieces, if they can be picked up, after the event. My parents were very strict but, although I felt hard done by at the time, at least I knew that they cared very much what happened to me. Years later, as a parent myself, I realised how seriously they had taken their job to be and I'm grateful.
anne, bournemouth,
One note: simply because these items are available for sale in America does not mean that U.S. parents are using them! I suppose a few might, but that's probably the same in the U.K. It's a rare parents who is that mad, on either side of the Atlantic.
katy, Minneapolis, USA
Hilarious - clearly 11 years of this useless government has actually convinced some people that kids have the same rights as their adult parents.
What ever happened to "my house, my rules"?
Alex, London,
I take great offence to the insinuation of some posters that all teenagers are irresponsible hormone-crazed lunatics who are dangers to themselves and deeply need constant parental supervision. Some teens-- perhaps 'most' teens-- are like that, but most certainly not all. I, for one, wasn't. I just wanted to be left with my computers and books and video games. Many teenagers are 'underparented', but many are 'overparented', and some, in fact, need relatively little supervision. I speak from personal experience.
Jessica (28), New York, NY
This goes beyond vigilant parenting--it's a real breach of privacy and a breakdown of any trusting relationship between parent and child. Thank you for writing about this.
Elizabeth, Washington, DC, USA
I love it. An author in Britain (the home of the most invasive and pervasive citizen-surveillance capability on the planet) deplores all this stuff as coming from America. Pot, meet kettle!
Oh, and where does this little gem come from, anyway: "Online teen tracking amounts to a form of internet child abuse".
That's easily the dumbest thing I've heard in a looooong time. What exactly *is* "internet child abuse", anyway? Is tracking pre-teens some form of this amorphous abuse as well, or is it only teens? What if you're not 'tracking', but just listening?
Please.
Ken, Blandford,
this is classic control mentallity. It goes like this - I need to control you so I give you little responsibility - this leads to you acting irresponsibly confirming my assumptions and meaning I have to control you further.
I practical terms we've took bonfire night from kids and now we are watching them through CCTV cameras ! That used to keep us preoccupied for about 6 weeks every year and tidied the neighbourhood of everything flammable !!
Give kids responsibility and they won't need CCTV they will control themselves - Like we did !!
It's all the Politically Correct brigade's fault
I believe theyare banning conkers from schools now !! crazy
so go ahead snoop on your kids and your prophesy will be self fulfilled - they will need more control because they wont have it themselves.
john, manchester, uk
I can well understand the aching concern of parents (particularly those of girls) to ensure their offspring's safety vis a vis the Internet. But what I'm not clear on is, when they say to their child (having used this device) "You've been giving out personal information to what is clearly a 56-year-old paedophile", how are they then going to respond the obvious question "How do you know?"
And once having answered it, how is their relationship with the child ever going to be repaired?
David Garfield, London, UK
Can you please tell me exactly which part of Matt Hughes Arsenal v Liverpool 'match report' actually referred to the match ?
Some of us pay for the Times in the mornings to read the reports especially as we didnt get a chance to see the game.
If you're not going to report on the games then I see little point in purchasing your paper.
Tony McGrady, Glasgow, Scotland
It's depressing that technology has brought us to this. I'm 22 now, but if my parents had spied on me like that (which I don't think they would have done, even if they were remotely technology savvy), then I'm sure that now I wouldn't get on with them as well now.
Doing rebellious things and then coming to your own conclusions about why they aren't a good idea is part of growing up. Also, I didn't like some of the things my parents put me through as a child and now realise that they were helping me - I appreciate that they never bought me the latest games console for example - but spying on your children betrays that sense of trust and solidarity that is built between parents and their children over the years.
James, Chelmsford, Essex
Ms Reed,
I am smiling over your naivte. If you think there aren't people all over the world who are already watching everything your kids are doing, you know NOTHING about the internet. The lesson we should teach our children about the internet is that there is NO such thing as internet privacy and if they are posting pictures, intimate messages or anything else, they should expect it to be available to the internets' 2 billion+ users.....because it is.
JD, Boston, MA, United States
We seem to live in a society where prurience sells papers and paranoia gets votes. The spyware referred to is merely a symptom.
Is it not possible that young people resent being spied upon and 'nannied'. Hence the 'Hoodie Culture'.
More of the same will surely increase the alienation.
The vast majority of young people have a greater sense of responsibility and social awareness than their parents and many 'adults'.
For heaven's sake just try talking to them!
nick ford, king's lynn,
I have never snooped on my children (one grown up and two teenagers still at home) and nor would I ever. How else expect them to respect privacy? Open discussion (no topics barred) at mealtimes brings out many ‘secrets’ – I trust them with some of mine too. An open house policy also appears to work well – I get to meet their friends they get to meet mine. Internet access is only on my computer (time permitting) or at school. All this worked with the oldest child and seems to suit the remaining two. After all, parents are custodians of adults in the making not the secret police!
Jo, Devon, England
"A quick search ought to give one all the information and tools they need to detect and remove SnoopStick from their computer."
Which is why a lot of parents would be wise to not allow their kids administrator rights to their computers - no admin rights, no capacity to install anti spyware!
Alex, London,
I'm surprised how some people are praising this surveillance device as a solution to the problem of (their) children looking at internet pornography and similar things.
Why don't you do this yourself and start spending more time with them or put the computer with internet access into the living room? Why aren't you there to check manually from time to time to see what's going on? If you think your child will visit the aforementioned websites, why does it have unmonitored online access in the first place? Why is the computer not locked with a password?
It is the _parents'_ responsibility to keep their children off these sites and not that of surveillance tools (spying on your child, how sad is that?). Using these 1984-ish devices is a evidence of incapacity and nothing else. This ever-increasing prescriptiveness is used by too many people as an excuse not to take or think about personal (not remote-controlled) responsibility - treating the symptoms, not the causes.
Florian, Newcastle, UK,
And what happens to teenagers today will be implemented by the government on the public at large tomorrow. ID cards - CCTV cameras - Automated Number Plate Recognition - monitoring of Oyster card usage - road pricing - need I continue?
Adrian Ryan, Donegal, Ireland
I have a 16 year old daughter. In the space of two months she went from hard-working respectful child to rebellious teenager. It's not enough to say that all children do that and shrug your shoulders. That is merely abrogating parental responsibility. During that time, she has had a pregnancy scare, started drinking excessively and been mixing with children whose advice is "do what you want - your parents can do nothing". I KNOW that all children need to learn life lessons and you can't protect them from everything so the software discussed above allows parents to better understand their children so long as it used responsibly. You may read things that are not particularly pleasant but if it's used as a means of protection (under extreme circumstnaces) and to understand your child, it means you're fulfilling your role as a parent in a time when the state has rendered parents virtually powerless.
Gareth Baddiel, Stoke, UK
While SnoopStick may appear to be an innovative way to spy on your children, don't underestimate technosavvy teens of today. A quick search ought to give one all the information and tools they need to detect and remove SnoopStick from their computer. It IS commercial spyware, after all. And don't for a second think that they aren't aware of this.
Hug your kids and stay in their lives without creating mistrust issues. They're all curious and are gonna make mistakes sometimes, just be there for them when they do.
And you'll save yourself 70 bucks.
Sarah Jo, Fukuoka, Japan
Doug from PA - I agree. I don't yet have my own children, but I work with kids daily outside of a school setting and I agree.
Open discussion is not as prevalent as it used to be. The number of families limiting their schedules to allow for a sit-down family dinner is, to me, very sad. Instead everyone is off to their own thing. The breakdown of communication.
This device does frighten me, because although it is illegal to use it at work - jealous boyfriends/girlfirends/husbands/wives will start using this as well. Often without any cause for the concern.
I wish there was a magic fix-all pill. But there isn't. But that's not what Americans want to hear. Instant gratification seems to be the rally cry all too often.
I hope only a minority of parents give in to this disappointing device.
Abby H, Madison, USA/WI
Internet statistics reveal that 90% of children aged between 8 and 16 that go online will view pornography, most while doing their homework. This involves highly explicit images and movies of sex acts not to mention the violent kind. The software mentioned by the writer as "sinister" in many cases are highly respected programs to help prevent the above. Yes they do often have monitoring facilities and there may be some ethical issue about monitoring a childs computer use but every body that has even a degree of computer skill will tell you that there is no such thing as computer security and it is "user beware". I think most concerned parents will see "spying" as the least of two evils.
David, London, UK
How amazingly out of date the author is. The lack-of-responsibility, totally-lassaiz-faire view of parenting she espouses surely went out a decade ago? Abandoning teenagers to their own decisions, treating them as "small adults," and assuming that all will be well - "they have to find their own way..." has clearly failed. There's a whole generation of kids, raised as small-adults (except with the fairy-tale extra of constant heaps of reassurance and dedication to their self-esteem), who are clueless about responsibility, being held to account, and self-discipline. Teenagers do have 'rights,' but only insofar as they have responsibilities. Responsibility number one is to do as your parents wish. Rights flow from there.
Nick, Rotherham, UK
While agreeing that current trends are deplorable, I would argue to an extent that it's not really about control. At least in the States, I would say this sort of thing is a sign of something much more worrisome. I'll call it the magic pill.
Instead of taking the time to routinely communicate with teenagers (and even more importantly the pre-teens) about expectations and risks, too large of a portion of the public here go for that "quick, easy fix" to solve their problems.
It is most unfortunate that any root issues may largely go unaddressed using this approach. Proactively dealing with a child is surely much better than doing so reactively with one put on the defensive out of the blue. Shame on our society!
Doug Hockenberry, Meadville, PA, USA
True, from the first word to the last
Harry, Oxford,
parents have a right and a responsibility to monitor their children. Children aren't the same as adults and treating as if they should have exactly the same rights is unrealistic.
Chris Dela, Cambridge,
What has gone wrong in the first place is the degradation of education, of cultural values, and of attitudes like yours. Teenagers do have exactly no rights in the sense you want to confer upon them. Teenagers are victimized intellectually and emotionally by the media and the cultural cesspool in which now swim. At the same time, teens lose all rationality to the flood of hormones that consumes them. Teens need closer supervision than ever before.
Teens here are lost to one-car accidents every year as they try to fly their cars over steep hillptops. Teens here want to get pregnant to get government money in order to escape their parents.
Parental intervention in teens lives is absolutely essential. You are completely off base here. As part of the media and media attitude projection, you appear to part of the problem as much as anyone.
Stan Stephens, Lebanon, MO, USA