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I understand that parents really want to know what their child is doing on their phone, and without going into the politics of it, they pay the bill most of the time, so they have the right, and they're the parent, so whatever. But as a teen, it does feel super intrusive on my privacy, especially when I know I do nothing wrong (we're just being hypothetical here ). The normal phone monitoring software is basically the same thing as the parent saying "Hand me your phone.". What's the point of that? To seem "hip" and "sneaky"? Why not have software the reads through text messages, Kik messages, WhatsApp messages, etc. and looks for certain keywords and if a keyword is found, the message is redirected to the parent. The keywords and whatnot would be controlled by the parent's phone/a website. This way, the parents can keep tabs on the kid but not totally invade their privacy. Thoughts about an app like this?

lol! Well I am a parent and my children have devices that have passwords. I have a policy with the kids that we communicate with each other and talk things through. I have done my best to explain to them all about their online presence, security, etc. The only reason I would require my child to unlock their phone would be if I knew they were hiding something. It is pretty obvious when you are a parent and your family has a routine, then once that routine gets interrupted. A fellow parent would understand, as it is more of an intuition thing. But back to my kids, I have never had to do this. I respect my childrens privacy and I expect them to respect that. I also trust my children and show them that. Mostly it is communication.

Therefore, I wouldn't waste money on this crap. Just to have a hacker be able to hack into my kids phones to see what they are up to. NTYVM!

I am not a parent, but if I was I would also respect their privacy until they give me a reason not to. But if I got to a point where I felt I needed spying software on their phone, I would just take the phone away. Need it for "safety"? I'll get you a kid phone that can only call back home until you earn the trust back.

The only problem with that strategy, though, is that good kids who aren't knowingly doing something wrong can get tricked online, such as going to meet this "13 year old boy from down the street" only to find out its a predator. Not sure what the answer to that part is. But if they are using their phone to knowingly break your rules, the phone has to go.

I think we're taking it way too logically. IE, I search "parent monitoring" on the Play Store and the first app that pops up basically makes hte phone into a kids phone, it has 500K downloads. The second is a monitoring app that gives you ALL activity, and it has 100K downloads. One app that controls the apps your kid downloads ion their phone has over 100K downloads. I guess this is basically creating a split of people who want full control and monitoring and people who don't care, and there just wouldn't be a market for it.


BTW, I'm completely against any of this kinda stuff.

Xaos wrote:BTW, I'm completely against any of this kinda stuff.

I am too, simply because I think if you can't trust your kid with a phone, they shouldn't have one.

Jackolantern wrote:

Xaos wrote:BTW, I'm completely against any of this kinda stuff.

I am too, simply because I think if you can't trust your kid with a phone, they shouldn't have one.

Yeah. I really don't understand the "Sure, you can have your own computer and game console, but no phone" crowd.

Xaos wrote:

Jackolantern wrote:

Xaos wrote:BTW, I'm completely against any of this kinda stuff.

I am too, simply because I think if you can't trust your kid with a phone, they shouldn't have one.

Yeah. I really don't understand the "Sure, you can have your own computer and game console, but no phone" crowd.

I think that comes more from parents not understanding the technology. When they were kids, you communicated through the phone and that was it. They probably don't understand that you can use almost any device to communicate.

If my kids gave me a serious reason not to trust them, they would lose everything with a connection.

Ideally you don't allow your children to have things you don't trust them with, to begin with.

Phone monitor seems to be for parents who don't trust their children, but were too spineless to say no.

Which is probably a big market, if my pessimistic intuition on the matter proves true.

Callan S. wrote:Ideally you don't allow your children to have things you don't trust them with, to begin with.

Phone monitor seems to be for parents who don't trust their children, but were too spineless to say no.

Which is probably a big market, if my pessimistic intuition on the matter proves true.

Exactly lol

It is all about communication. You need to talk to them a lot, reiterate potential scenarios of how the technology is used and in what manner. You need to talk to them about their online identity and how to keep their RL secret, regardless of who they are. My kids are smart and know their friends, anything that fits outside of that is a warning bell to them and they come to us to talk. We are big on communication in our household, from what the kids are doing to their relationships.

I agree that there are a whole fuck load of people who don't understand the technology and thus resort to various methods to try and use their technology to help them. Plus my kids know better, if something fits outside of their routine, then it is pretty obvious that something is up.

I think it goes back to us the parents, we need to be communicating with our kids and providing a safe and comfortable environment at home for them. It also holds to the fact that us as parents need to be current with the technologies so that we understand what the fuck is going on. What ever happened to common sense?