The Importance of Cell Phone Safety

As a parent or guardian, do you often wonder who your children are calling or what they are texting? In the past, children were required to meet their parents GPA requirement before they can get a separate landline. Then, a parent always had the opportunity to know who their children were talking to. These days, parents don’t even have the chance to hear their children’s’ conversations due to the fact that children these days are always texting. Consequently, there are many discussions nowadays regarding the best way to handle how children make use of the cell phones.

When the misuse of phones among children is discussed, most parents usually agree that there is a high rate of phone misuse by children. However, parents are also quick to point out that their children are not involved in this practice. With the reality of today that children as young as seven years old now have access to cell phones, the question of whether parents should monitor the cell phones of their children becomes inevitable. Under what circumstances should parents monitor their children cell phone activities?

Basic parenting method could be effective enough if you don’t sense any trouble with the way your child uses the phone, however, with the technological advancement we have today, where children have access to unlimited information – both positive and negative, Should parents monitor their children’s use of cell phone?

I believe that a simple word that says “privacy ends where safety begins” suffice in answering the question of whether parents should use spy ware for cell phones to spy on their children phone use or not. There are adequate reasons why a parent ought to be concerned with how their children uses the phone; from the amount of times many children spends gazing into phone screens to the software applications they are using, the data they are sharing  and the destinations they are located. According to a research, 80% of young people make use of cell phone of which 50% of them are sophisticated cell phones. Another research showed that as much as one in four children confirms that they have been bullied online. It is believed that approximately 10% to 40% of adolescents have either sent or received sexual photographs or sexually expressed instant messages.

As children approach the age of adolescence, they began to demand privacy. Nevertheless, there should be a straight line between the child’s honesty and the privacy he is permitted to have. A child that behaves responsibly all the time deserves all the privacy he wants, but on the other hand, if a child has given a reason why he should not be fully trusted or has shown a criminal tendency, it is the responsibility of a caring parent to observe them closely to find out what may be going on in their life. Certain steps must be taken to protect a child and one of the easiest and surest ways to do that is by monitoring the child’s use of the cell phone.

Children can be denied the use of a smart phone till they are mature enough. Alternatively, they should be allowed to have a Smartphone which can be monitored using the cell phone spyware software which can be installed in the child’s smart phone without him being aware of it. This will help the parent to monitor his phone usage, thereby giving them the opportunity to protect the child if the need arises. Nonetheless, children of these days can be super smart and find a way of avoiding monitoring. Conversely, any action taken by the parents must not be deemed as spying on the children. It is now considered by the experts currently that taking such protective steps are not spying - instead it is parenting in the 21st century.