@facebook #privacy

PARENTS JUST DON’T UNDERSTAND

As a parent, is it your right or better yet your responsibility to snoop around your kids lives?  Find out who they’re hanging with? Dating?  With the advent of social networking, parents are now faced with the responsiblity of maintaining a balance of keeping their kids safe all while giving them some sort of privacy.

But one mother in Arkadelphia, Ark. is now facing charges after authorities determined she took the snooping too far when she hijacked her son’s page.  Lane New (16) filed a harassment complaint after his mother, Denise New changed his password and began posting allegedly slanderous posts after discovering some information on his page she didn’t approve.

“Denise first hacked my Facebook and changed my password,” Lane, who lives with his grandmother, said in his complaint. “She also changed the password to my e-mail so I could not change it. She posted things that involve slander and personal facts about my life.”

Denise who in all fairness does not have custody of her son said she was merely acting as any concerned parent would.

“I read things on his Facebook about how he had gone to Hot Springs one night and was driving 95 mph home because he was upset with a girl,” she told KATV News, “and it was his friend that called me and told me about all this that prompted me to even actually start really going through his Facebook to see what was going on.”

I’m not a parent and don’t even remotely know how to parent a teenage child so I will lean on my neighbors in the Nation that have kids to provide input.  When I finally do have kids, I believe I’m going to be a very hands on parent especially early on at least until I’m able to gain the trust of my child.  The advancement in technology have made it much more tempting as a parent or as a spouse or significant other to betray the privacy of loved ones.  By violating that privacy you’re deteriorating that relationship.  By establishing a set of ground rules you set a baseline.  Once the child or even you as a parent cross that line unprovoked, you lose that trust.  Many parents believe they don’t HAVE TO gain the trust of their children.  Maybe not but good luck parenting a kid who will do exactly the opposite of what you want them to just to spite you.