Topic: Nowadays, some parents would like to check their children’s mobile phone text messages, e-mails or online chat records without their children’s permission. They think that they have the right to do so for the sake of proper parental supervision. There is a conflict between children’s right to have their privacy and parents’ right to exercise their responsibilities. Write an article expressing your view on this phenomenon.
Parents nowadays are often anxious about their children. Some are so desperate for a thorough grasp of their kids’ private life that they go as far as checking their children’s online chat records, emails, etc. without prior permission. However, rarely do those parents realize that privacy is of crucial importance to their children’s development and should be respected. Added to these, those parents also neglect the adverse effect of these stealthy acts on the children’s privacy and the mutual trust between them and their kids, consequently impeding their children’s development. Conversely, there are many alternative ways to safeguard their children’s best interest. Thus, desperate means which infringe privacy should not be employed recklessly.
Privacy is essential to everyone and should be respected. Parents having close surveillance on their children via extreme measures shall not be justified. Privacy is essential to everyone, on the grounds that it is the basic need and right of everyone. Just imagine, how would you feel if you daily life was being scrutinized by the government, the content of every phone call, every email being recorded or perhaps used as laughing stocks by other people? One can truly be driven to the brink of madness if every aspect of his life is subject to the keen eyes of others. Similarly, children, too, deserve privacy. Instead of placing their kids’ private life under spotlight or microscopes, parents should leave them some room for themselves, allowing them to establish their social circles without being interrogated with millions of questions about their friends, to have a sigh of grief of resentment online without their courtesy being picked on. Exercising parental supervision at the expense of children’s privacy shall not be justified, as privacy should be cherished and there is no imminent, pressing need to justify the use of such destructive measures.
On top of these, respecting children’s privacy is beneficial to their development. To begin with, by having their own private life with a certain degree of freedom granted by their parents, youngsters will find themselves trusted and respected by their parents. Besides, they are also given the room to relax, to be free from others’ supervision; and to cultivate their individuality via socializing with others more freely on private matters. Conversely, if parents insist on checking on their kids’ private life with some unspeakable ways, it is a vivid reflection of how overprotective those parents are ——their kids may grow rebellious in the face of their parents’ ‘air-tight’ supervision or succumb to their parents’ overprotection, either of them being harmful to the children’s development.
Besides encroaching on children’s privacy, the act of checking children’s chat records, emails, etc. against their kids’ volition contradicts its aim of promoting effective parental supervision.
First and foremost, the act itself is a misdeed in the very first place— those parents set a bad example of infringing others’ privacy by spying on their kids. The thumb rule of good parenting is to be good role models for children to learn from. If parents want their kids to be a virtuous person, it is preposterous for them to do something shady and furtive themselves and claim that it is to prevent their children from going astray or engaging in shady and furtive business. Besides, it is particularly worrying that what those parents are doing may encourage children to belittle others’ privacy, under the mistaken notion they received from they upbringing, that checking others’ private information without authorization is nothing serious. This may aggravate the growing problem of hacking nowadays. If parents genuinely want their kids to be a rightful person, they should not do something wrong in the name of ‘parental supervision’ to achieve their aims.
Some may argue that the desperate situation calls for desperate measures. Checking the kids’ private information to find out what they are up to is well worth its cost. Nonetheless, we should realize that there is no pressing need to do so, but the parents are merely driven by curiosity or anxiety, which is groundless and insufficient to justify their infringement on privacy. Take our city as an example. Interception by police officers is regulated by related ordinances, which confine the duration of interception and define the circumstances under which interception may be permitted. Privacy should be protected and treated as the first priority, unless there is imminent need and there is no other way-out to address the problem promptly. Additionally, the cost of disregarding the right to have privacy is understood—little do the parents know their act can bring irreversible harm to their relationship with their children and make their children even more unwilling to subject to parental supervision of any sort.
Many parents presume that their relationship will not be jeopardized as long as their children do not find out what they have done. This is actually not the case. However well the parents can hide the traces of reading the private information, the damage is already done since one thing cannot be altered—-deep in their mind, they lack trust in their children. The parents must learn that all relationship stems from mutual trust. A relationship falls apart easily when it is enveloped with suspicion, under a lack of mutual trust. It is similar to the fact that a flower wilts easily after being removed from the soil, the very source of nutrients. The lack of trust can indeed ruin the relationship between the parents and kids, making exercising parental supervision an uphill battle when the children realize that their parents seldom trust them. No doubt this problem will be even more worrying if the youngsters discover what their parents are doing at their back. The emotional ones will probably be outrageous. Even the meekest ones will shift uncomfortable at the thought of being treated as suspects. What the parents are doing not only put their precious relationship at stake, it is also evident that parental supervision can hardly bear fruit if parents and children do not trust each other.
Apart from mutual trust, mutual respect and ample communication are also indispensable for good parenting. To our dismay, it is often overlooked by the parents who resort to extreme and pitiful means in an attempt to know more about their children. Kids can hardly comply with their parents’ guidance, and may even do just the opposite on purpose, when they find their parents hold little respect for them. As the more sensitive ones find their privacy offended by their inconsiderate parents, it is only natural for them to feel offended and become uncooperative. Furthermore, communication, the bridge between individual may be obstructed by the act of mistrust. Those parents decide to spy on their children, rather than to strike up for conversations and respect their children’s choices when it comes to things which they want to keep private. Instead of maintaining proper communication, the parents are playing a game of espionage with their kids as in the times of the Cold War. Consequently, the children will grow more and more secretive and withdrawn, unwilling to let their parents learn about their private life. This surely undermines the effectiveness of parenting when kids cease to open up themselves.
On the contrary, there are many better alternatives to exercise proper parental supervision. For instance, parents may draw a clear set of rules with their children, and gradually grant them the freedom to do different things as long as they stick to the rules. Besides, they may get connected with their kids via Facebook. This allows the parents to learn about the teenagers’ world while at the same time establishes a better understanding of their children’s social circle under their permission. Effective parental supervision can therefore be implemented. In addition parents should reserve more time for chatting with their children after work, to care about them through rightful ways.
In my opinion, parents should respect their children as individuals. Even though they may like to say that they gave birth to their kids and the kids’ mobile phones were bought by them, it makes no difference that the kids’ basic human rights, including privacy, should be respected. The children may be vulnerable to misdeeds and temptations, yet there are ways better than spying on them to guide them through ups and downs of life.
It is evident that the act of checking children’s private information without authorization is not justifiable. It is an infringement on privacy which is essential to the children’s development, a wrong doing which warps youngsters’ minds, and a destructive means that brings irreversible damage to the relationship between the parents and their kids. On the whole, it runs counter to the original aim of promoting good parenting and has literally nothing to justify the heavy cost of doing so when there are many better alternatives. The key lies in mutual trust, respect and communication instead. Good parents are those who can step in their children’s shoes and care for their children’s best, not those who spy on their kids in spite of their objection.