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Privacy not Secrecy

I have an 18-year-old daughter at home.  She needs her privacy.  Your boys need their privacy.  But, they don’t get their secrecy.  My daughter is the last to leave.  She is in her senior year so let me say, we didn’t always get this right.  My wife and I first recognized this with our son when he got his first cell phone.  As a parent you appreciate the technology and what it can offer in the way of safety and connectivity, but you don’t always prepare yourself for the down side to it all.    Our son, a GMA, is now a junior in college and is living for the Lord, and is a servant leader in many on campus organizations.

When our son hit those teenage years the conversations of phones, computers and TV’s moved to the front and we had to make some choices.  Does he need a phone?  Does he need a computer and does it go in his room?  Should he be watching TV in his room.  These affects what your kids do in private, and what they do in secret.

We live in the most connected world mankind has ever known and as parents that can be a great thing.  No matter what curve ball life throws at us we can tune into every part of our kid’s life.  Now there is no substitute for being present but I’m just making the point that when we can’t we can usually still find a way to see it all live.

On the flip side that connectivity also comes with a dark side.    The enemy can now connect with our kids and as parents and Commanders we must be smart.  I am not one of those, Instagram is evil, Sanpchat is evil, kind of people.  I believe all those platforms can be fun and useful but kids must be made aware of the dangers and instructed on how to use them safely.

The number one challenge that your son will face in his lifetime is pornography.  If you have a 13-year-old he has already been exposed to porn and knows how to access porn.

So how do you respect your kid’s privacy but not their secrecy?

As with all of life’s choices, they are made within the boundaries you are aloud to operate.  If you are about to make a purchasing choice you hopefully operate with in the boundaries of your budget.  Set clear boundaries and let your kids know what the consequences will be.  The Huffington post recently posted an article titled. “How to spy on your kids without them know it”.  I don’t think that’s how a Christian household should operate.  Accountability is a part of life and should be clearly defined and out in the open.  Spying on your kids feels a bit like setting them up for failure.  Accountability will set them up for success.

For example, we set a time of the day when all texting and phone call ended.  That time will change as your kids age.  At one point it was 8:00pm.  Our kids knew we could access the phone bill and it was certainly part of my responsibility to look over the bill and make sure we were good stewards and that we were being accurately charged.  This is not spying.  If you see a string of text messages at 11:00pm, that needs to be addressed.  They know the instructions we gave them and they didn’t follow them.  The other thing you need to find out is who they were texting.  All your phone carriers will allow you to put a name next to the number.  Who your kids befriend and who is influencing them is one of the most important things a parent need to know and be actively involved in.

We never allowed our kids to have a computer or TV in their rooms and they survived.  Does that mean they never took a laptop in another room or their room to do homework, no, but the time and environment of those moments were not conducive to secrecy.

Are you stalking your kids on social media?

This is one of those ever-changing areas and we all must stay vigilant.  Do you have to follow every social media outlet your kids are on?  I don’t think so.  I think you must be intelligent about theses sites, how they operate and who has access to them.  Be involved in the setup, keep most of them private and always have a password file.  Again, privacy not secrecy.

If you find out they have an account you didn’t know they had, you need to know why.  I you see them at an event sitting with a friend you have never met before, it’s time for an introduction.  Never every apologize for being your kids biggest fans, largest supporters and forfeit your life protectors.

Divide and Conquer

The enemy is after our kids and will stop at nothing to steal, kill and destroy.  We want to trust our kids, and we should, but one of the age-old tactics of the enemy is, divide and conquer.  That division happens in the secret places in life where we indulge the weaker side of our nature.