Should You Spy on Your Child’s Cell Phone Use?

“Privacy ends wherever safety begins,” same Marje Monroe, a clinical caseworker, pedagogue and co-founder of ChildrenOnline.org. She consults with colleges across the country to assist students and fogeys deal with the dizzying world of social networking, cyberbullying and smartphones.

Based on numberless surveys and therefore the news, there’s lots for folks to agonize concerning. The National Crime bar Council reports that forty three p.c of teens are the victims of cyberbullying within the last year, however solely eleven p.c ever report the incidents to their folks.

Meanwhile, kids ar progressively victimization cellphones and smartphones to text and surf the online. in keeping with a 2012 bench analysis survey, more or less twenty three p.c of children ages twelve to seventeen say they need a smartphone, and just about all of these surveyed use their phones to text, with eighteen p.c admitting that they send two hundred or additional texts daily. Numbers like that ar leading folks to contemplate the implications even before they hand their kid a radiotelephone.



Parents get Proactive
One New Jersey mammy of 2 interviewed for this story is already being pressured by her 7-year-old for a phone and email account, and he “constantly asks to create videos to transfer to YouTube,” she said. She same that she plans to possess all their passwords and check all of their accounts once the boys ar older, additionally to keeping cellphones and laptops out of the kids’ bedrooms at midnight.

ChildrenOnline’s Monroe same these ar rules and practices that each one folks ought to follow, particularly with kids below the age of fourteen. “Take the phones at midnight. Have them charged within the room, not the sleeping room, so folks have access to the technology,” she said, noting that folks ought to be able to scrutinize younger kids’ texts.
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Eleven-year-old Roxanne (not her real name) has AN iPhone, however her mother polices its use. “I place parental controls on that,” her mammy emphasised, and “yes, I monitor her texts.” She insists on having her daughter’s passwords and access to the phone. The busy unmarried  parent same the smartphone could be a useful gizmo as a result of it permits her girl to remain involved together {with her|along with her} male parent and arrange and schedule outside events with her. “But I build her use her allowance for iTunes.”

Monroe additionally same it may be a decent plan to position limits on texting — the common 12- to 18-year-old sends over three,500 texts a month, she same — and therefore the time allowed on-line on a phone.






source : http://blog.laptopmag.com/should-you-spy-on-your-childs-cell-phone-use