I know you mean well. But I strongly urge you to reconsider your parenting here.
You should not be going through your teenager's text messages... that is absolutely insane.
My parents were kind of similar and I had a very negative experience growing up as a result. I still remember my mom throwing out all my NiN CDs I had bought after she read the lyrics. And all my DnD material because Satan was controlling my brain through it.
As a parent you should be teaching your child to be independent and learn how to make the right choices themselves. Micro managing every aspect of their lives is the absolute wrong approach.
how do you teach them what the right choices are if you don't actually see their choices? if your teenager is texting on TikTok with a 40 year old man who's asking them to send them underwear pictures,
how do you find out about that except by reading their text messages?
we don't know from the singular fact that they're reading through teenagers text messages how heavy handed that monitoring is. Maybe there's a recurrence of satanic panic, but we don't actually know that. That you had that experience with your parents is awful but it sounds like parents are more likely to be their kids DnD DM than anything else these days.
Every generation of parents seems to have some moral panic. It's a way for those people to feel like they're in control (because losing control is scary and uncomfortable). But, well, news flash, teenagers are all about rebelling against their parents and it's perfectly natural for parents to lose most, if not all, control of their teenagers.
So do you leash your kids and monitor every single one of their actions? Do you really think that is the solution? Parents have tried this for millennia and it never works. Some go completely overboard and shelter their kids, who have mental breakdowns when they enter the real world. I've seen it happen first hand with home-schooled/overly protected friends.
You throw out an extreme anecdote. Remember the war on drugs? It was the same thing. Oh, your kids are gonna do crack at their friends house if you are not careful. Drugs are everywhere and kids are melting their brains. Yes, extreme things can happen to anyone, you can get hit by a car and die, that doesn't mean you ban your kids from crossing a road.
How do you teach them the right choice? Well, this is the art of parenting, and is hard. There are many approaches here. My approach is to treat my teens with respect, have frank conversations with them, and set some clear boundaries and expectations (you must do your schoolwork).
I also try to set myself as a role model for them by living my life to the same morale standards I'd want them to. I don't do drugs, I don't smoke, I don't drink lots, I don't go on random hookups (all things which I see common in men my age). I work hard but also try to remember to have fun and laugh.
It's worked so far. They are confident and happy and will confide in me things they are struggling with. I know they will do things that I wouldn't be happy with and will be unaware of, but that is the risk inherent in life and they will learn from it. All I can do is try to set them up for success best I can, and impart my limited wisdom.
> how do you teach them what the right choices are if you don't actually see their choices? if your teenager is texting on TikTok with a 40 year old man who's asking them to send them underwear pictures, how do you find out about that except by reading their text messages?
> how do you teach them what the right choices are if you don't actually see their choices? if your teenager is texting on TikTok with a 40 year old man who's asking them to send them underwear pictures, how do you find out about that except by reading their text messages?
General rules, like:
-Assume everything you send can at some point become available to everyone, forever.
-Anyone saying "don't tell your parents" is definitely up to no good and should not be trusted.
-On the internet anyone can convincingly pose as anyone.
etc.
Also children usually converse with their peers, so you'll be going through messages of quite a lot of other people's children. Do you have the consent of all the people involved, including their parents?
> -Assume everything you send can at some point become available to everyone, forever.
Forever is a hard concept to grasp for a kid - I was doing stupid things in my 20s that could have had forever consequences. Much worse than something available online forever. I was lucky and had none, but this argument wouldn't work on me
You should not be going through your teenager's text messages... that is absolutely insane.
My parents were kind of similar and I had a very negative experience growing up as a result. I still remember my mom throwing out all my NiN CDs I had bought after she read the lyrics. And all my DnD material because Satan was controlling my brain through it.
As a parent you should be teaching your child to be independent and learn how to make the right choices themselves. Micro managing every aspect of their lives is the absolute wrong approach.