Teen Privacy

Thanks to everyone who offered their input on my teen privacy dilemma recently, and to those who participated in my poll on this topic. It looks like out of the people who voted in the poll, roughly half monitor their teens' email, cell phone usage and texting, and nearly everyone monitors online social networking. Thankfully, we haven't yet been faced with the social networking issue with Kevin - maybe it's more of a girl thing? He does have his own YouTube account, as he makes some really cool stop action movies with Legos and clay and whatnot, and uploads them, and he's developed a small following. Even that I'm a little wary of, just because there are all kinds of weirdos out there and I don't know how well Kevin can handle himself online with strangers. He knows never to give out any information to anyone online.

We're going to continue with the limits we put on his cell phone/texting usage, just because I don't see any reason to allow him at this tender age to use it for socializing. For the time being, it's really nothing more than a safety measure, a way for him to keep in touch with us, and vice versa, when he's not with us.

The biggie, though - email. I've stopped reading his email. I still have access to it, but I haven't read anything for the last couple weeks. I was feeling really guilty about it and the more I thought about it, the sillier it seemed to me that I thought I could rely on that to tell me any real news about my son. He's never given me any reason to be concerned or distrustful of him, so I'm going to allow him that privacy.

Ahhh, parenting. Just wingin' it here. Aren't we all?