Originally Posted by
boolady
Well, I don't agree with your DS that text messages are equivalent to a diary. A diary contains a person's private thoughts and the things he chooses to record for his own reflection. I think of a diary as a place someone records things he doesn't want to share with anyone. And I respect that and would not read my child's diary unless I thought she was in crisis or some other extraordinary situation.
Texting is the opposite. Text messages are communications to and from the outside world, and can include links, photos, etc. I want to read my DD's texts as much to see what she's receiving as what she's sending, if not more so. In our house, it's very simple. If you want the privilege of communicating with your friends that way using a device and/or carrier I pay for, you accept that the terms of use include my monitoring your texts.
I agree with this and this is exactly what we tell our DS1 (12 yrs old - 7th grade). Now, with that said, do I read all of his text conversations? No, not really. Just from time to time and just really between certain friends (hockey team group texts are a good example because I don't really know all those kids). He knows that I could read his messages at any time and he's ok with that (well, he has to be if he wants his phone!)
We have a few ground rules: (1) no texting after bedtime (2) no bad language
We did have a discussion recently about continuing an argument over text. He and a friend haven't been getting along great and had a tiff at the end of a school day. They ended up continuing the argument via text and both said things that they regret. I agree with a pp that this is the teaching time - we had a great conversation about social media and texting and how all that stuff is so permanent and you might say things via text that you wouldn't in person. Definitely a learning experience
I don't monitor his contact list and he exchanges numbers with kids at school and at hockey. He just started using snapchat which I'm not happy about, but so far he only has me, his younger brother, his cousin (same age/same school) and one friend. I plan to monitor it closely but he's only using the silly templates they have.
Karen
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Mom to 2 hockey-playing, Lego-loving boys DS1 2003 & DS2 2005