Should we spy on our kids? (PART 2)

In my previous blog, I discussed the multiple new technologies that allow you to keep tabs on your 21st century child. But should you? It led to interesting opinions expressed in the comments - from "Spy, spy, spy" to "No way, you should trust your kids".

I've been thinking a lot about it and wanted to share my thoughts, with the usual caveat that there is no "one size fits all" way to go. Some kids will be trustworthy and safe no matter what you as a parent do (or don't do), and some kids are going to engage in very worrisome, dangerous, behaviors even if you implanted a nano-chip in their brains that monitored their every movement and thought.

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Question #1 : Should you spy on your kids?

This is the only question about which I feel there is only one answer: NO!

Spying implies gathering information on your child without him/her knowing it. This is a bad idea because:

• It will surely erode their trust (rightfully so!) if and when they find out you've been sneaking around, playing gotcha!
• It sends the message that you absolutely have no confidence in them (on whom do we spy? Terrorists and such!).
• Since it's a secret, it does not let them know you are concerned about them and want to keep tabs on their comings and goings and be involved in their lives.
• Since it's a big secret (at least, for a while), it doesn't lead to discussions about what is and isn't reasonable behavior (both teen's and parents').
• Most importantly, it does not serve to prevent any dangerous behaviors, since they are unaware you are even monitoring them.

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Question #2: Should you monitor your child's activities with technology?

I vote YES.

"Monitoring" (as opposed to "spying") efforts are known and discussed with your teen. This sends the right message: I care for you. I'm concerned about you. I trust you, but with verification. I want and need to be a part of your life, even if you don't like the idea. Let's talk about this.

However there are levels of intrusiveness in monitoring. I am not in favor of the most intrusive monitoring: reading their e-mails or text messages, because it smacks of spying. But less intrusive monitoring makes sense to me:

• Using a device in the car to monitor speed, location, swerves, etc. (Sorry, teen drivers scare me, I don't care how responsible s/he is.) Having this monitored allows him/her to resist the goading of others to speed or head off to a bad part of town ("Oh, I'd like to go 85, but mom and dad will know and kill me."). Surviving the teen years trumps everything else and I think this helps.
• Watching the sites frequented on the internet seems an important and reasonable (only mildly intrusive) area to keep tabs on. We all know the internet has plenty of icky, dark corners and you want to be sure your child isn't visiting any of them.
• Certainly you should read whatever your child has publicly posted on the internet. Why should any nut job be able to read her profile on MySpace, but not you?

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The bottom line, of course, is that nothing beats open communication. But (sorry, folks) all teens lie to their parents or, at least, don't tell the whole truth. That's OK, except in cases that could seriously jeopardize their well-being.

I think the mistake many parents make is to disengage from their teens' lives because they feel so unwelcome in it. Instead, I would argue that's when you need to be even more - not less - involved, to be a pain in the butt, to be "too strict", to show you still care, to endlessly talk about it.

Spy, no. Monitor, by all means.

Your thoughts?

Related Topics: Teens and Cybersex: A Threat to Real Intimacy?, WebMD Video: The Teen Brain

Technorati Tags: teen behavior, monitoring children, spying

Heads up: Great upcoming "WebMD University" on healthy nutrition for kids.

I think you all know how important this area is for promoting kid's health (eg, see my latest blog on "Dr. P's 8 steps for a healthier family").

Next week we begin the last WebMD University: "Healthy Habits, Healthy Kids." It's open to all of you and I encourage you to participate.

Have a look:

• Read about it and sign up at http://www.webmd.com/content/pages/18/101907.htm
• The live events schedule is at http://www.webmd.com/content/chat_schedules/5/116450.htm.
• The course leader is Rallie McAllister, MD, MPH, author of The Healthy Lunchbox: The Working Mom's Guide to Keeping You and Your Kids Trim.
• We have some great guests, including Reginald Washington, MD, professor of pediatrics at the University of Colorado and co-chairman of the American Academy of Pediatrics
  task force on obesity and psychologist Sylvia Rimm, PhD, author of Rescuing The Emotional Lives of Overweight Children: What Our Kids Go Through - And How We Can Help, as well as WebMD's own Elaine Magee.

This will provide a lot more detail and helpful tips than I can ever cover in this blog. Plus, the teachers are fabulous! I'm signing up myself to see what new tips and advice I should be offerering! When it's over, let's blog about what we liked best and what we've learned to help our families.

- Dr. P

Technorati Tags: webmd university, childhood obesity, nutrition, diet, healthy children

Big mother is watching: Should we spy on our kids?

Here's the scenario. You are making the bed in your teenage daughter's messy bedroom and come upon her private diary. Do you read it? Should you read it? Do you tell her if you do? What if you stumble on some disturbing news?

Or your teen's computer is on. You know if you just hit the "Back" button, you can view everything he's been watching. Would you? Should you?

Or the cell phone lies carelessly on the desk with a new text message that almost screams: "READ ME". Do you read it and scroll backwards and read others?

To read or not to read, to snoop or not to snoop, to keep close tabs or not, those are the questions. Do your kids have privacy rights? Is it a parent's responsibility to snoop around and, when necessary, protect them from themselves?

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New technology is bringing these questions home on a whole new and more urgent level. Take a look at some of the new gadgets available to keep tabs on your kids:

• GPS (global positioning system) in cell phones so you always tell where your child (or, at least, his/her cell phone) is. In school or playing hooky? At her girlfriend's house, as promised, or gallivanting with her creepy boyfriend?
• Computer programs that will tell which web sites your child has accessed.
• Computer keyboard devices that keep track of every key stroke, so you can know exactly what your child has written and to whom.
• A GPS device in the car that will inform you, in real time, exactly where it the car is (apparently they also now have them for backpacks).
• A car speed monitoring device that informs you (via cell phone or e-mail) exactly how fast your teen is driving, if s/he is speeding, and if there have been any sudden swerves. (You can then remotely beep the horn or flash the lights to remind your charge to slow down!)

And this is only the technological infancy of this kind of stuff. Watch for small video cameras so you can see and hear all that goes on in the car (or the classroom or ...). Even better, a little implantable chip under the skin that will do all of the above, plus eavesdrop on conversations and tell you his/her physiological functions, e.g., if s/he is having sex. (OK, I made this last one up, but who knows.)

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So that's the easy part: what we can do. The important question, of course, is: what should you as a parent do? Here are the pros and cons, as I understand them, of using technology to monitor your child's comings and goings:

Pro:

• Even the most mature and responsible teenagers are still teenagers, i.e., s/he thinks s/he is immortal, invulnerable and hence is susceptible to doing incredibly dangerous and stupid things (as, let's face it, we all did).
• Kids lie. Most parents would faint if they actually knew what really was happening in their child's life.
• The biggest cause of death for age 17-25 is car accidents. Anything that minimizes the risk is worth it.
• Kids can better resist peer pressure in the car (e.g., to drive fast or pay a visit to the wrong side of the tracks) with the excuse that their speed and location is being transmitted to Mom and Dad, even as they speak.
• The internet has plenty of nasty, unhealthy nooks and crannies. It's your job to be sure your child is not accessing them and/or subjecting him/herself to dangerous situations, unsavory material, exposure to predators, etc.
• Despite their protestations, adolescents really appreciate and are comforted by having an involved parent, and this sort of monitoring expresses just that.
• Technological, automatic monitoring leads to less anxiety and fewer frantic cell phone calls.
• If kids are putting personal information the internet (and more than 20% or 4.000.000 teenagers do) for every weirdo or hormone-crazed teen to read and respond to, why shouldn't parents also read it?

Con:

• This sort of spying erodes your relationship with your child who feels unjustly accused and mistrusted.
• Your child needs to learn the internal controls to behave sensibly, not because his/her behaviors are being policed by you. What will happen when that monitoring stops? Will they then do all the things they had avoided once they are on their own?
• Some kids are so angry at being 'spied on' and mistrusted that they misbehave even more, as a sign of rebellion and independence.
• All this is part of the creeping culture of "paranoid parenting." After all, we all did a few (or more) dumb things as teenagers that our parents never knew about and we ended up OK (didn't we!?). The world isn't really all that dangerous.
• It will make kids more secretive and inhibit open communication between parent and child.
• Like a bacteria becoming resistant to an antibiotic, our very savvy kids will come up with ways to circumvent the surveillance anyway.
• These measures don't come cheap. There are better ways to spend your hard-earned money.

Which side are you on? I'd appreciate hearing how you intend to handle, or are handling, this important 21st century danger/opportunity. After the dust settles, in my next blog I'll weigh in on my opinion.

Related Topics: 10 Signs You're a Micromanaging Parent, Teens Look to Parents for Sex Info

Technorati Tags: parenting teens, spying on teens, text messaging, myspace

Overweight toddler, overweight teen? Dr. P's 8 steps to a healthier family

"So, Billy" I said to my cherubic six year old patient, in for a routine check-up. "I see your birthday is next week. What are you hoping to get as a present?"

He looked at me with shiny, hopeful eyes. "A Barcalounger," was his breathtaking response.

I think it this was at this exact moment (which happened about a decade ago) that I finally realized how profoundly the landscape for kids and obesity had changed. Now, of course, you can't avoid reading about it. And for good reason: the number of overweight kids is skyrocketing and worthy of every parent's attention.

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I've blogged a lot about this subject before:

• Obese toddlers who can't fit into a normal car seat
• Overfeeding as a sign of love
• The advantages of a low animal fat diet
• Soda and juice intake contributing to obesity

Now comes new research* showing that overweight toddlers have a 40-50% chance of becoming overweight 12 year olds - which is a 6 times more likely risk compared to their thinner toddler pals.

This is still complicated. Genetics, as always, plays a significant role in both directions: some toddlers and children (and adults whom, of course, we all hate) can eat non-stop and never become overweight. Others might just as well apply the ice cream directly to their cute and ever-growing pot bellies and thunder thighs. It's those kids, this study suggests, for whom more care to prevent them from becoming overweight would be worthwhile.

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What does this mean for you parents? As usual, it's hard to find the right balance.

Certainly, putting a toddler on a diet is almost never a good idea. And obsessing about overweight so much that it becomes a constant battle and source of worry also misses the boat. After all, a childhood without any ice cream is unthinkable, I don't care what you weigh.

But, as parents, there are measures you can take for the entire family that will benefit everyone's health and, at the same time, serve to keep the excess weight off those of your kids who are susceptible to becoming overweight.

Dr P's 8 steps to a healthier family:

1. Cut down on animal fat (skimmed or 1% fat milk and dairy products after the age of 3; use unsaturated oils; more broiled and baked, fewer fried foods).
2. Smaller portions of foods for all.
3. Don't use food as a reward for good behavior.
4. Minimal junk food.
5. Nutritious, low-calorie snacks like fruits and veggies. If they don't like it, tough. They can wait until the next meal to eat. They won't starve.
6. Remembering that health, not food = love.
7. Minimal juice and soda. Water as the beverage of choice!
8. Plenty of opportunities for exercise (it's estimated that kids need at least 90 minutes / day of moderate exercise to stay fit).

Your goal is not a skinny toddler, just one who is not overweight and who, hopefully, will learn excellent eating preferences and exercise habits that will benefit him/her in the teen years to come.

I'd welcome hearing about nutritional and exercise strategies that have worked with your kids.

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*Article cited:
"Identifying risk for obesity in early childhood"
Pediatrics, September 2006, e594-601

Related Topics: WebMD Video: Keeping Kids Active, Motivating the Overweight Child, Extreme Obesity in Tots Linked to Low IQ

Technorati Tags: obese toddlers, diet, exercise, family nutrition, parenting