Do you/Would you periodically check texts to and from your 13 yo child?

[MysteryJen]

I did check dd2's ipod randomly for messages when she was 13. But that was mostly because I live in the land of very serious helicopter parenting and I hate, hate to be blindsided by parents freaking out over silly things. She is 15 now and due to the random checking and other friends getting into trouble (which she reported to me before discovery by other parents) she earned my trust and now I do not check her phone. But she does share things with me and seeing how coaches use social media to make decisions about recruiting, she is very, very careful. Right now, she only has Snapchat.

13 yo boys are a different story. I have not allowed individual ownership of phones for boys at that age. Because, stupid...

Generally, stupid will happen no matter how hard you try to police things. So for us it is better to have open, frank discussions and less punishment or restriction on devices. 

[Greta]

...I try to live on my phone/Internet in a way that I wouldn't be embarrassed if it were put on the front page of the news (an ethics guideline we were encouraged to consider in the military).

 

 

 

I like this - seems like a very good principle on which to operate.  Thanks!

[fraidycat]

I reserve the right to access all phone & social media stuff with my kids. I pay for internet/phone access, so I can see it whenever I want. They are aware of the rights-responsibilities "law" in our house - that it's my responsibility to keep them safe and well, physically and mentally/emotionally, which includes checking for inappropriate content coming in or going out from their social media. Which gives me the right to access it any time I ask.

 

That said, I don't exercise my "privilege" very often. I'll do a random check once or twice a year or so, just to make sure accounts are kept private, followers are personally known, etc. I operate on the trust, but verify model. If I had a reason to believe they required more supervision or more restrictions, I absolutely would do more and have in the past when they had friends who were less than awesome.

[Lady Florida.]

I did check dd2's ipod randomly for messages when she was 13. But that was mostly because I live in the land of very serious helicopter parenting and I hate, hate to be blindsided by parents freaking out over silly things.

 

13 yo boys are a different story. I have not allowed individual ownership of phones for boys at that age. Because, stupid...

Generally, stupid will happen no matter how hard you try to police things. So for us it is better to have open, frank discussions and less punishment or restriction on devices. 

 

This is why I reserved the right to check, and did a few times at first. Where we part ways is that I have a boy. He had a phone and was allowed to text.

 

My husband is an attorney, and he says, "what you call Facebook, I call evidence." People do a lot of dumb stuff via Facebook and texting.

 

Few teens use facebook. Facebook is for old people. Note that old can mean someone in their twenties. Old people in their twenties also post stupid things that can become evidence.

 

My 13 year old did not have a cell phone, but I gave on to my 14 year old when he started high school.

 

And yes, I did on occasion check his texts if only to see how he was using it. It was spectacularly boring, lol.

 

If you want to know what your teen is really saying to his or her friends you have to check their social media.  They can dm on instagram etc and that is where the real conversation is happening. There are also other texting type apps a teen can put on his or her phone and those can be hidden. My kids can't download any apps etc unless I put in the itunes password.

 

Now that my son is 16 I feel like I have to give him a lot more privacy and control over his private life. He's a junior in high school. In two years he won't even live here any more. I need to let him figure this out while he still has us around to help him out if he gets into trouble.

 

But when he was younger I kept a much closer eye on things. So when he was 14 I checked his phone every couple weeks, then less regularly over time. Now I would only do it if I was worried he was in trouble or using drugs or something like that. Fortunately, he's a fairly boring kid, lol. 

 

This sounds pretty much how we handled things. I checked ds' texts at first because I knew it would be easy for him to say something stupid and not realize the consequences. After a while it became a privacy issue. It's tricky balancing your teen's privacy and your right/need to make sure they aren't doing anything that can come back and hurt them. 

 

By 15 he knew I had the right to check his phone but I rarely did unless he gave me reason to suspect a need (which he did once or twice and it turned out to be nothing). Eventually it felt like checking his texts was like eavesdropping on his conversations. I stopped even the threat of checking by the time he was 16.

[kewb]

Our rule during the teen years is mom and dad had to have all of your passwords and we reserve the right to look at any and all of it.  At 13 we definitely checked periodically to make sure they were being responsible.  Now it is more of a "I will only check if I think there is something being hidden from me that may be dangerous".

[Tanaqui]

Few teens use facebook. Facebook is for old people. Note that old can mean someone in their twenties. Old people in their twenties also post stupid things that can become evidence.

 

But it doesn't have to be Facebook specifically. Heck, people have had their data handed over from Snapchat, and the whole idea is that your pictures disappear automatically from Snapchat after a short time. (Except they don't really disappear, apparently. Or at least the metadata doesn't, and that can be almost as damning as the picture!)

[MysteryJen]

Most of the trouble in dd2's group was on Instagram. I don't know that many of them really use Facebook at all.

[Ravin]

My DD texts with her cousin on Kik, I don't check that. My niece has a good head on her shoulders and if DD shared something with her that needed disclosing to an adult she would do so. And the converse is also true (DD has, in fact, discussed with me when DN told her something that troubled her). I keep an eye on her YouTube and Facebook accounts and have the passwords to them, but I usually only step in when she asks me to. A majority of her regular phone texts are to me.

[Farrar]

Generally no. If I had any specific issue or suspected something, in a heartbeat. Also, they know that.

[mommyoffive]

Yep I would.  

 

My kids don't have anything now though