I just gave my 12 year old a smartphone. Now, before you get
on your high-horse and judge me, let me explain why I did it and what I did in
order to make sure she used it responsibly.
My daughter Katie is a very responsible girl. She gets top
grades in school, does all of her homework and chores without being told to,
and treats others better than anyone I know. Her amount of empathy for those
around her is unmatched by anyone I’ve ever met. She’s also a good
athlete—playing lacrosse, basketball and soccer throughout the year—as well as
an excellent pianist for her age.
Recently she asked if she could have an iPhone. Her mother
and I balked at first—we didn’t really think she was old enough for one, plus
they are really expensive—but we changed our mind when Katie offered to pay for
it herself with her own money. We didn’t think it would be right of us to let
her spend all of her saved birthday and holiday cash on a smartphone—seeing as
the device would also help her with school work and actually be a bonus for us
in keeping in contact with her—so we told her we’d pay half.
Katie was ecstatic and we were glad we said yes, but we were
also concerned. We knew of all the dangers and temptations that lurked on the
Internet. We had a home computer. Giving her a device filled with all of those
dangers to be carried around in her pocket scared us. Yes, there’s a lot of
porn. Believe me, I know. I’m a man. I know how easy it is to find it. There
are also a lot of ways for pedophiles and perverts to get at my daughter.
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, chat rooms, texts, emails—all can give any creep
direct access to my little girl. If Katie was going to walk around with
something that put her at risk, we needed to lay down some ground rules. And we
did.
We told her she couldn’t use the device during school except
for an emergency of course. We explained all of the things that bothered us
that she could see. We told her we would check the device with software that could spy on someones cell phone from time to time to
make sure everything was kosher. She agreed without question. Katie also was
fine with the stipulation that she only use the device in a public space of the
house—no bedroom or bathroom. And we also told her that we would install a
mobile monitoring app on her phone, just to make sure that she was being
responsible (which we knew she would be) and that no one was trying to harm her
in some way. We used to software to spy on other cell phones free of actual physical contact for her safety from whats going in and coming out of her cell phone.
So with all of that in order, we bought her an iPhone—the
previous version since it was cheaper—and looked for mobile surveillance
software program that would give us the most bang for our buck. After searching
through countless ads and websites we found one that worked like a charm. We
went with one called SurePoint Spy. It installed easily and within minutes I
was able to start monitoring Katie’s phone. We told her to sign in to all of
her accounts and play with the phone for a few hours. Then we sat down with
Katie and showed her how it worked. At first we were all shocked at what we
could do. We checked her calls and texts and searched through her browser
history. We looked at the three selfies she took of herself in the mirror and
then at her posts of it on Twitter and Instagram. After that we activated her
camera and microphone to see how well that worked. Crazy.
There was a lot more that we could do, but we didn’t want to
spend the whole day spying on our daughter. She’s a really good girl and I know
she will continue to be that way. I just want to make sure that she’s always
safe. I think that with this mobile monitoring app on it, I can probably feel
that way. This software was so interesting that I could even spy on spouse cell phone to monitor what's going on on my wife's phone too. Of course I'd never think she was doing anything wrong, but it could be a good way to protect her from any unknown harms that could come her way.
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