My teens are on notice. They should have no expectation of electronic privacy as far as their mother and I are concerned. We consider everything they post to Facebook, every text message or photo they send, every website they visit and every email they exchange to be our business, subject to review at any time.
Harsh?
Occasionally, when I mention this policy in conversation with other parents, I get a politely horrified reaction, as though I’d just transformed into Dick Cheney in front of their eyes.
What about trust and respect among family members? Autonomy? Dignity? As your children travel
the road toward maturity and independence, don’t you want them to see you as a loving guide leading the way, not a traffic cop hiding in the bushes?
These concerns nag at me. I think of myself as an enlightened parent (don’t we all?) who values an open, honest, supportive relationship with his kids. And I remember how righteously I demanded my privacy when I was their age.
I resolve those concerns with a shopworn cliche: Things are different now.
Electronic communications have a permanence and a susceptibility to being duplicated and disseminated that the diaries and conversations I considered off limits to my folks didn’t have.
My ill-chosen words and humiliating admissions from high school either faded quickly from memory or ended up packed away in closets and crawl spaces. Theirs stand to be archived in searchable databases along with the thousands of digital images everyone with a cellphone now seems to generate.
And they do nearly all their communicating in writing, a medium in which it’s particularly easy to be misunderstood. Emoticons are a poor substitute for facial expressions, body language and intonation.
And then, of course, there are Internet predators, cyberbullies, scam artists, propaganda and porn, just to name a few of the lions, tigers and bears along the road.
Yes, I know. This reads like it’s copied from the Fuddy-Duddy Dad’s Handbook (for instance, the telltale reference to email, as if kids use that anymore) — specifically the chapter on how to rationalize one’s conversion to domestic fascism.
But my job, at this point, isn’t to be cool. It’s to help my 14-year-old twins learn to harness the awesome, seductive power of the communication tools we now hand them — we must hand them, as they are virtually a necessity in modern life — at an age when they don’t yet have the judgment or experience to use them wisely and in moderation.
And since we wouldn’t want to lurk over their shoulders at every moment or monitor every digital back-and-forth even if we had the time, we simply reserve the right to snoop without warning or notice. We tell them they should think of every IM, every text, every post and every comment as containing the header “cc: Mom & Dad.”
We won’t listen in when they’re just talking to their friends or search their rooms unless we feel we have probable cause (defined as notably unusual and otherwise inexplicable behavior).
All computer screens in our house are in public areas with the screens facing out. The kids aren’t allowed to have their cellphones at hand while doing homework or after bedtime. They must “friend” us, mortifying as that is.
This topic has already touched off a spirited conversation on Facebook and my Tribune blog, where without prejudice I threw out the question: “Do you, should you, reserve the right to read your teen’s Facebook message threads, text message conversations and email?”
I haven’t totaled up the responses, but quite a few parents have echoed the sentiments of my Facebook (and real life) friend Darrah Cousino, mother of three, who wrote, “Once your child is in high school, there has to be probable cause before you are invasive. It is a matter of respect.”
But many sided with Mike Wean, who anticipated my answer when he posted, “I feel I have to. The Web is a minefield, you can literally be bullied to death via social media, and a loose text can ruin your reputation. My wife and I keep tabs, but rarely intervene. More important, we talk a lot about how to have fun with all these cool tools without doing anything too stupid.”
There isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach to teens and digital privacy. But there is one common goal: To minimize the number of serious mistakes they make with electronica before we unleash them into the adult world, and to have them look back one day and text us: “Thanks. Well done. :)”
Join the conversation at chicagotribune.com/zorn or facebook.com/eztrib
