Teens: Privacy, Trust & Monitoring – A Narrow Line
The desire for more privacy is a natural part of adolescence. At the same time, teenagers can’t face the world without your help and support.
Your child’s need for privacy and your need to know what is going on can only be balanced with a single key: Trust
Privacy:
As your child gets older, privacy becomes one of the vital necessity for them. This is because your child is facing tough teenage challenges, like figuring out their sexuality, personality, and more. Other than that, they are also attaining new physical and cognitive skills and also developing novel social interests.
A lot of the teens want to learn and handle all these challenges, as a part of becoming a grown-up, with liberation and responsibility.
Secrecy:
If your teen asks for more privacy and time alone, it obviously doesn’t mean that he has something to hide. Secrecy and independence are among the core ingredients of development, and it is an expected part of adolescence. However, extreme secrecy needs to be taken care of. If a child spends many hours in his room, doesn’t talk much or seems withdrawn, it could be an indication of depression, anxiety, drugs, smoking, or other knotty activities. It could also be a warning sign that your kid is spending too much time alone with his digital devices.
Monitoring:
Teenagers are not always prepared to face the adult world. Scientifically, their brain is still developing. Therefore, they are not able to make decisions on their own. This is why they usually take a decision without even considering the implications of their choice and may get themselves involved in serious issues. So your teenager still needs your guidance and support. He needs you to keep track of his activities and stay in touch – this is called monitoring.
Obviously, he also needs privacy and independence, so you might not want to brisk things up too quickly. Take small measures initially; see their response and then take any further steps.
Benefits of monitoring:
Teenagers who are well-monitored by their parents have:
- Fewer chances of getting involved in antisocial activities like violence or theft.
- Involve lesser in activities like drugs or underage drinking
- Have fewer chances to encounter depression or anxiety
- Show better educational performance
Parents make two common mistakes:
Let go too early:
The first mistake is to abandon children before they are ready to handle new challenges. For example, you don’t bother to check social media posts of your kid attending middle school.
Let go too late:
The second mistake is not giving them the freedom and power they deserve. For example, you insist on viewing all of your teen’s mobile photos.
Here are some easy steps you can take to ensure your kid’s right level of privacy.
Knowing your child:
Observing your child’s behavior is the best starting point. You can think about their actions in the past years to assess their personality. If they have shown mature behavior in particular areas, then you may not need to monitor them thoroughly. However, it doesn’t mean they can never engage in risky activities. So you will need to be alert in your supervision. On the other hand, you will need to monitor your kid diligently if they have shown actions of dishonesty in the past. Their actions can be potentially dangerous so turning a blind eye to their behavior is risky.
Respect your kid’s privacy:
When it comes to your child’s privacy, the best approach is to ask yourself what you really need to know about him, and this will help you in establishing a boundary for yourself. There are certain things you must know, like how your child is going to spend his weekend night, where he is going, or whether there will be alcohol. You don’t need to know about other things, like what they talked about at a party, or who they danced with.
Monitoring your child successfully:
Trust and open communication are the best keys to monitor your kid while respecting his privacy. When you have a good face-to-face time every day, your kid is more likely to share everything with you.
Rules and routines:
- If you are not around, request him to call you when he comes home. Ask him to leave a message for you when he reaches his friends’ house or anywhere.
- Set some ground rules about what he can do in leisure time. For example, limits on screen time. Make sure your kid is following your rules by monitoring his digital devices remotely. Xnspy can be a helpful app in this case as it can send you a comprehensive report on the mobile usage of your kid with time stamp details.
- You must know what he is watching on TV and doing on the internet. As aforementioned, you can use Xnspy to monitor their browsing history to ensure their digital safety.
- Listening to your child is one of the best solutions that helps you in realizing what is going on in his life. Show interest in his stories, and he will share everything with you.
- Set a family zone where everyone can share about their day and what’s coming up.
- Get to know your child’s friends and give them space in your house.
- In order to be aware of your child’s activities, you have a right to monitor their devices. Without letting them know, parental monitoring apps, like Xnspy fetches all the information of your kid’s phone and stores it in an online portal. You can view their text messages, call logs, and chats on social media sites. You can’t only track their digital footprints but also you can track their moves in real time. You can add words, contacts, and places in your watchlist to get instant notification by Xnspy.
Monitoring children is a tough call: Too little of it and it won’t really help a lot. And with too much of it, your child starts thinking you don’t trust him. All you need is to monitor your child in a trusting environment such that your monitoring leaves a good impact on them.
