What Is Better: Raising Your Child Right or Intruding on Their Privacy?

Totally raising them wrong is the way to go.

You know this is what most of the world refers to as a "loaded question", right?

trust, but verify.
i don't think it has to be either/or.
i tended to trust my kids, but they did little to make me do otherwise. i still kept an eye on things, and discussed rather than dictated.
but on the occasions where i saw things i wasn't about to tolerate, i lowered the boom.
khairete
S.

Sometimes intruding on their privacy mean raising them right. Would it be right to raise a child with blinders on?

Added: Your last question said it was for a college project. If you are making up the question for this as another college project, I truly wish you would work harder on your questions. College isn't supposed to be about manipulation to get the answer you want. (Pollsters and reporters do this kind of thing, and unless THAT'S your area of study, you owe yourself and your college professor more than this.)

You should also state why you are asking the question in the first place.

Original:
It's a pretty leading question, isn't it? Kind of like polls that are pushing people to answer in a certain way.

I am one of those parents who doesn't believe kids have real privacy until they move out of my home. I would have no compunction whatsoever about going through every single inch of my son's room if I felt the need.

However, the way I am reading your question, and remember, this is about how people HEAR your question rather than what's in your mind before you ask it, is that you are judging parents who give their kids privacy, as if they aren't good parents. Because I'm reading it this way, (mostly because of the way your question is phrased, "What is better: raising your child right OR intruding on their privacy?") I think that your premise is bogus. There isn't an either/or here and you are acting like it IS either/or.

Plenty of terrific parents afford their kids privacy and trust their kids at the same time that they teach them all about the issues you mention. Why do you think that they don't? I think it's more likely that if parents fail to teach their kids any of this stuff, that they wouldn't bother to spend the time spying on them. They would more likely be totally ignoring them.

I have taught my kids the right way to act from little on up. I don't go through their rooms with a fine tooth comb, but if I wanted to for any reason (including try to find a misplaced report card), I would. And my kids know it, too. I expect to know where my child is during the day, what he is doing after school, etc. I don't consider that to be "spying".

There is no either/or. So like a poll that would want an either/or question, I would not answer it the way you want.

Dawn

Is this Marina ,Ana, Irina, Geraldine or whomever you call yourself?

First you suggest all but a microchip and tattooed SKU as well a GPS on your child and now this???? Trip trap

Well, if you did the first perfectly and your child is some sort of angelic perfection personified, then you don't have to do the other. However, if your child is human, checking up on them and reminding them is not intruding on their privacy nor is it spying.

Why is this an either/or question?
Your professor didn't like your last paper?

IMO you need to do both: raise them right AND monitor them. That's your responsibility as a parent.
What do you think how many parents of drug addicts have "raised them right" but never bothered to check in on them, find out what they are doing online, who they are hanging out with....
Just telling them so "say no" is not enough.... and IMO kids do not have an expectation of that kind of privacy... at least not in our house.
Good luck.

I wish you would just tell us if you are writing an essay or whatever it is you are doing, and then we wouldn't mind as much giving our opinions on these topics.

I would never spy on my kids. I feel excellent communication is key and building trust on both ends. You have to respect your child and their boundaries as well but still find the balance of how far to "intrude" etc. I feel that leading by example is best and not to follow the do as I say not as I do mentality that some parents have. Be a model for your kids so they see the fruits of your labor and that positive role model. GL

You can raise them right, teaching them to say no to drugs, alcohol and bullying without intruding into their privacy and spying. Establish openess in your family. Talk about these things as a family.

I can't give advice about how much you're into their business without knowing their ages and the amount of trust they've built with you. Never spy. Be above board with whatever you do so that they can feel that they trust you.

Just because you are intruding on their privacy doesn't mean you are spying on them. I mean, you can let your kids know that you will trust them as long as they don't give you any reason to doubt them. But if they do, you have every right to check up on them in any way you need to, and to hell with worrying that you are "spying" on them. You are their parent!! If I had a kid, that I thought was doing drugs, even though I teach him not to, you can bet that I would tear his room upside down to make sure there were no drugs in the house. Who cares what he thinks. My job is to teach my kids right from wrong and to not worry if I am stepping on their toes. And if my best intentions at teaching them go against my wishes, then I'll do whatever I want, since they live in my house.

Why can't there be a middle ground? You don't need to spy on children but you can be aware of where they are, who they spend time with. I have two teenagers. They are aware that they have my trust, until they give me reason not to. If they don't give me reason to snoop, I don't snoop. If I find out that they have lied or broken the rules, I will clamp down. I was raised with no trust, my mother flat out told me that while I hadn't given her any reason, she didn't trust me. If you teach your children that you do not trust them, they will not trust you, and it's vital for children/teens to trust their parents

I think the secret is to model the behaviors you expect them to live by.
Teach them your morals and values.
And keep an open and honest line of communication..

I used to tell our daughter, "I know I can trust you to not get pulled into any situation you know is wrong or you are not comfortable in."

I also told her she was "allowed to call me, at any time and pick her up, with no questions asked, even if she did not want to speak about it. "

When we saw, or heard of other kids or adults who had made bad choices, we talked about it. Talked about better choices and options.

I did not spy on our daughter, I did not go through her things, I did not read her diaries or journals. Instead i I made sure I knew her friends and their parents. I made sure our home was always open for all of them to come over.

I also told her teachers, that if they felt their was something they were concerned about to feel free to let me know. and I said this in front of our daughter.

she knew this is a community down here where the family and school worked together to make sure our children were doing their best and acting their best. She saw how involved we were with her and her friends and their families. and how we watched over and cared for each other.

Think of it this way also - your kids also need to earn your respect. If you have raised them not to do those things yet you suspect they are lying and hiding things from you then they have lost their parent's respect. Now the parents may resort to things like intruding on privacy in order to try to help their children. In most cases I believe that if the children are open and honest with their parents then it will not need to come to this.

Privacy is earned with good behavior and good decisions. How will you know if that's happening if you don't check periodically?

This is a terrible either/or question. Of course most parents would encourage their children to practice healthy behaviors and make healthy choices.

Are you suggesting that one would abdicate responsibility for raising their child and then just peep in on their life? I am not really sure I know any parents like this. Either they teach low-risk behaviors (and then peep in on diaries etc. if they have reason for worry or concern) OR they provide no guidance and believe that the child has a right to absolute privacy. At least, that's what I've seen.

Intrude all you want-it's your greatest and best chance-you never know what you may thwart. Besides, it's not just you against them-it's all their peers, as well-that big pack of buddies that will strive to unravel everything you've taught your children. Next to love, patience, money, hard work, etc-you're best friend moving forward will be sheer luck.

Both sound good to me! :)

Feel like I was a teenager just yesterday, I dont care how well you raise them, they are going to do stupid stuff.

I don't see where ALL of this wouldn't be appropriate. I don't know if you're talking about a specific age, but I think that if parents develop a trusting relationship with them when they're babies, the doors are pretty much open for later on. I believe in the occasional snoop (less frequent with age), but I also believe in open discussion so parents don't have to depend on the snoop. If the trust wasn't fostered early on, then the parents have to work at developing it by, basically, starting over and saying the words in a meaningful conversation and then expressing expectations.

I don't think you need to spy on everything they do - just let them know that you have the option of intruding on their privacy if you think you have reason to.

I think if you raise them right, you don't need to intrude on their privacy as a regular occurance. They need to know that if you see danger signs, that you will investigate, but spying on them doesn't exactly engender trust.

And if this is the person that keeps trying to convince others how "necessary" it is to track/gps/whatever with some awesome program/invention - please, get a life - you are not going to get the answers that you want. Or get help, because this obsession with "security" is not healthy.

Wow , what a loaded question (the way you've positioned it here as an either/or scenario)! You know, they are not -and they should not- be mutually exclusive approaches. A parent can do all the right things: "teach them" right from wrong, how to behave, what's expected of them, etc. and kids can still make lousy choices. So unless a parent monitors what choices their kids are making, they might not even know if any of their messages 'got through'. And even if the right messages did get through, kids STILL sometimes do dumb things b/c that rational part if their brains isn't fully developed yet.

Having said that, a parent must give some leeway for kids to make certain decisions and have a certain level of independence that they must earn the right to. A kid usually (though they'd be the LAST to admit it) wants their parents' attention, wants them involved in at least certain aspects of their life, whether they outwardly acknowledge it or not. They want to know that mom & dad actually CARE about them.

I don't see that there's a defined line here. Raising them right includes (IMO) things like teaching them why drugs are bad, m'kay, and not bullying them into doing what you say but also letting them know that within reason they don't have full privacy. If I have to go get the trashcan from their room because it stinks and is attracting bugs and I see something in there that's concerning, then I'll talk to them about it. Or we'll look at their computer history. I don't sit there and come up with new ways to invade their privacy, but part of being a parent is keeping an eye out. Going through pockets to see what's in there. Reading the notes you find. Following up to see if she's really at Suzy's house tonight. The kids were actually surprised at how little we logged into Edline to monitor their schoolwork. We said we trusted them and their grades at the end of the semester reflected that. We only logged in when we noticed a problem, like interims indicating that they didn't turn in HW. Parenting is using many tools to get the kid to be a productive adult. Like Suzy T. said, trust but sometimes verify.

Both. Because they are young and don't have their brains all put together yet, they are prone to bad decisions. Only pry or spy if you have good reason to suspect something. Otherwise, you will drive yourself crazy.

Don't make a mountain out of a mole hill. If they make a bad decision, be sure that the consequences fit the crime. E.g. don't ground your son/daughter for a month for telling a lie about who they were talking to if he/she is just embarrassed to be caught talking to someone they are enamored with.