Parental snooping monitors teenagers

Senior Michaela Ray rushed to the Dead Yet Alive concert, locking the car behind her. The show was about to start. As she scrambled to find her ticket, her phone buzzed in her pocket. She had received yet another text. Michaela Ray planned on checking the message later, but later was not an option.

The texts were from her parents. Half an hour after she arrived, they started asking about her location. She responded by saying that she had just arrived. Immediately, her mother corrected her.

You arrived half an hour ago, read the text from her mother.

Little did Michaela Ray know that inside her Chevy, a GPS had been tracking her location since she left her driveway. Despite her initial shock, she understood  her parents’ concerns.

“It’s not that they don’t trust me,” Michaela Ray said. “It’s that they don’t trust everyone else.”

Michaela Ray is not the only student at North who faces a degree of privacy control from her parents. Many parents across the nation routinely watch over their children through acts like checking social media accounts, looking through personal belongings and monitoring text messages.

According to a survey conducted by Harris Interactive, 43 percent of students throughout the nation said that their parents check their belongings with their permission. However, 37 percent of parents said that they have ‘snooped’ through their children’s smartphones without them knowing.

While some students say that this parental behavior is invasive, others understand the concerns that many parents have for their children. In general, the survey results reported that students were okay with parental control, but only to an extent.

Glory Jordan, a family counselor based in Naperville, works with children and parents to rebuild trust in family relationships. She believes that the basis of control comes from trust.

“It’s normal for teens to not want [parents to snoop],” Jordan said. “They’re in the process of separating from their parents, so it’s normal for adolescents to not want to share everything with their parents anymore.”

According to Michaela Ray, she understands the reasons behind parental control. However, it can sometimes pose as an inconvenience. In her household, she is asked to communicate her location at all times to her parents.

“I show up to school at 7:43,” Michaela Ray said. “In order to get to class on time, I’m always rushing. I just don’t have time to text them every morning, but I understand the concern.”

Her father, Dee Ray, trusts her and believes that she can handle herself on her own. However, he feels that it is important to guide her.

“She has plenty of time in life to be an adult and fight all the battles on her own,” Dee Ray said. “However, while she is here, it’s my job to help fight some of those issues for her.”

Jordan said that while growing up, most children share everything with their parents. She said that by the time children enter high school, parents should understand the importance of slowly giving children independence as they gain more responsibility from their behavior. However, this understanding process can be hindered by misbehavior.

“When a child starts giving parents reasons by hiding things or not telling them what’s going on, it alarms the parents and tells them that they need to protect the child,” Jordan said.

According to Jordan, by the time a child is 14 and starts gaining independence, trust issues become more significant. She also said that first-born children and families with cultural differences are more prone to privacy control from parents.

Michaela Ray said that she is an exception to Jordan’s theory.

“It’s not that they don’t trust me,” Michaela Ray said. “They do. They are just worried about what other people might do.”

According to Michaela Ray, her parents’ choice to track her location was not a result of her misdoings. However, other parents resort to snooping following serious incidents.

After entering high school, an NNHS student who requested anonymity experienced the consequences of losing parental trust. A nude picture of the student was spread across the student body. The student’s parents were then notified of the situation by a District 203 dean. Following the initial anger, the student was forced by the student’s parents to delete all social media accounts and give up the student’s cell phone as a consequence.

“I didn’t have a phone for a while, and I couldn’t have any social media accounts after,” the student said.

According to the student, the phone was taken away for two months over the summer. Although the student was eventually given some freedom back, the consequences still exist.

“My parents were really hesitant on giving me back my phone,” the student said. “They still don’t let me have any social media accounts, and they go through my conversations every night.”

In addition, the student is only allowed to carry the phone on the main floor of the house and can only use it in front of the parents.

Jordan said that in general, parents are just acting in their child’s best interests. However, both parties must show responsibility and compromise in order to fix any relationship.

“It’s really all about trust,” Jordan said. “Has the child shown that they are responsible and can make good decisions? Once this is proven, parents no longer feel a need to snoop.”