Since the last decade, the bonding between parents and children has been weakening. The worrying quality of family relationship stems form the mistrust between the two generations. While some parents think that their children send out suspicious messages, some children regard their parents as suspicious spies who check their messages secretly. As a result, the distrust leads to the deterioration of family relationship. One main dilemma under this topic is that whether parents should have the right to ‘violate’ their children’s privacy so as to exercise parental guidance. Although this has triggered a hot debate and stirred up much controversy, I don’t think it is the focus of the problem. Parents’ responsibility should not infringe the privacy of children. Maintaining a close relationship with children is their responsibility, instead.
Parents check their kids’ mobile phones because they think they contain secret material which is unwanted by parents, for example, love messages. In other words, they don’t believe their children behave ‘well’. They have little or even no faith in their children, so they start entering their lives secretly in order to find out the truth. But why do the children start to behave badly? It is because of the lack of parental education, including moral and civic education, and all kinds of values and attitudes parents should inculcate in their children’s mind. Why do children start to ignore parents’ warnings? It is because of their shallow relationship. They have no faith in each other. Wait a minute. Can’t the situation be turned around? Yes, of course it can. If parents establish better relationships with their children by making friends with them, they can build up trust in each other. Then the children are more likely to accept parents’ teaching and obey naturally. The children will automatically behave well, so the original problem will be eased. There are no reasons for parents to check their kids’ belongings without their permission. This does nothing good to both parties, but ruins the relationship between one another.
Protecting children is parents’ responsibility. Yet, destroying their relationship is not. Therefore, I think what parents should consider before exercising their rights is that whether it is beneficial to the parent-child relationship. Even if the parents do find unsuitable material in the mobile phones, the kids may not be willing to obey what they say if they have become enemies. This is especially true when the kids enter puberty. When the children are small, parents should teach them how to make decisions wisely and independently. They should not wait until tragedies happen. At an early stage, parents might still need to take great care of what the kids do in kindergarten or primary school. For the more mature teenagers, parents should believe they can already be independent in decision making. I am confident that if parents maintain a close and friendly relationship with teenagers, the teens will be willing to ask parents for advice whenever necessary. In a nutshell, parental guidance and education at an early stage is of utmost importance in building up healthy relationships.
Personally I accept the argument that parents check children’s messages out of love. However, I must say that there are far too many ways to express love, and that by checking personal e-mails is one of the worst ways. So love is not an excuse. All in all, I hope that parents will try their best to understand their children with love rather than discovering everything by brute force. This is the ultimate solution of the problem.