"Snooping" and "Tattling" Can Save Teen's Lives

Parent Cafe
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<p>I have seen (and participated in) multiple threads on whether or not it’s ok to “snoop” in your kids’ Facebook, and when to tell other parents if you know their kid is up to something. The article below gives an agonizing perspective on what can happen when parents don’t check up on their kids’ Facebooks and when parents don’t tell each other what they know:</p>

<p>"Kathi Meyer agonizes over life’s irreversible tragedies, knowing how the simplest things have a profound effect on fate. </p>

<p>Like her regret that she didn’t check her 17-year-old’s Facebook page so she could have seen how much her daughter was hiding her drinking with friends.</p>

<p>Or the wish that parents who saw Taylor Meyer drunk in the bleachers of King Philip Regional High School’s Oct. 17 homecoming game had picked up the phone to call Meyer then, not days later, when her only daughter was already dead after another drinking party.</p>

<p>Timing and awareness are everything, Meyer has learned."</p>

<p>[Plainville</a> mother draws from tragedy to warn teens of drinking dangers - The Boston Globe](<a href=“http://www.boston.com/news/education/k_12/articles/2009/05/19/a_mothers_message_in_aftermath_of_tragedy/]Plainville”>http://www.boston.com/news/education/k_12/articles/2009/05/19/a_mothers_message_in_aftermath_of_tragedy/)</p>

<p>Taylor Meyer was a 17 year old honors student when she died last October, alone in the swampy woods on a 45 degree night. She wasn’t driving or riding with a drunk driver. She was with a group of kids who were drinking at a bonfire in the woods after a football game, until she left the group to head back to the road because she thought a friend was coming to pick her up. She headed the wrong direction, and ended up in a swampy area. Her body was found 2 days later, not far from the bonfire, stuck in the mud, in 2 feet of water. The official cause of death was drowning. She was drunk, but her blood alcohol level wasn’t nearly high enough to die of alcohol poisoning. According to my D’s friends who know Taylor’s friends, Taylor’s FB status the night she disappeared was “Getting smashed after the homecoming game.” </p>

<p>I don’t want to turn this into a discussion of Kathy Meyer’s parenting skills or what she could have done differently. And obviously, the person most responsible for Taylor’s death was Taylor herself. But I do think this offers a very interesting perspective on the discussion of:

  • is it ok to snoop on my kid’s Facebook? YES IT IS.
  • if I see a friend’s child doing something the friend would be concerned about, should I tell on them? YES YOU SHOULD. Even if it costs you the friendship.</p>
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<p>How do you snoop on your kid’s facebook page if it is set on private and she doesn’t accept your “friending” her/him? I am facebook uneducated and neither of my kids enlighten me…</p>

<p>Good idea in theory, but our parents had NO idea what we were doing when we were in HS/college…we all survived before facebook…</p>

<p>agree that one should help out if information is out there…</p>

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<p>Just open your kid’s computer when he/she is not around, go to FB, most likely no login is required.</p>

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<p>There will be a login required if your kid logs out when they leave their page. Some kids might leave themselves logged in, but mine doesn’t. You can tell your kid that every so often they have to show you their page, or they have to give you their password, if they’re not willing to “friend” you.</p>

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<p>doesn’t matter if you make them “friend” you. There are settings where the owner of the page can control what each friend can see. Taylor’s mom could have been on facebook but not seeing pictures or posts from other people.
The real tragedy here is that people are now telling the mom what they knew then but didn’t tell her at the time. I don’t care if you like the connection with (I don’t) Hillary Clinton or not, but it does take a village to raise a child. Each of us are part of every kid who’s life we touch. Tell the parent, even if it might cost you a friendship…</p>

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<p>So, at what age do you stop snooping? 17 is already getting up there. 18, 21, 30??</p>

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<p>Mom’s will snoop. It’s their nature.</p>

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<p>This Mom doesn’t. And maybe because of this, my D is very much an open book. But I know I don’t know everything, and I don’t want to. I’ve done everything I can to teach her to have good judgment and to behave with integrity. It’s hard, but I’ve made a conscious choice to have faith that my words (and deeds) stuck. What kind of role model would I be if I snooped on her? (and lest I come across as morally superior, another big reason I don’t snoop is because I have in the past – I read her diary, and it aged me two decades overnight. There are many behaviors which are normal for teenagers, but that doesn’t make them any easier to digest when it’s your kid. The least of it, badmouthing mom, hurt the most.)</p>

<p>Looking out for others’ kids IS every parent’s responsibility though. I agree with that. But what if the other parent is not receptive? I’ve dealt with that too. No fun, and no more friendship.</p>

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<p>I am a snooper, but I don’t do it often. I know of a family whose daughter killed herself due to severe depression that she hid from everyone, but expressed it in her journal. Literally not one soul knew, even her boyfriend. It was a very close family, too. </p>

<p>Depending on the kids’ behavior, I will not invade their privacy or I will use a stealth software program that allows me to monitor what they write and visit on their computers. And anything in between. </p>

<p>Privacy is something that teenagers often misuse. They are not adults. I need to know what is going on in their lives. I don’t need to tell them what I know, but I do need to know.</p>

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<p>“Or the wish that parents who saw Taylor Meyer drunk in the bleachers of King Philip Regional High School’s Oct. 17 homecoming game had picked up the phone to call Meyer then, not days later, when her only daughter was already dead after another drinking party.”</p>

<p>If the parent had checked on her D when her D came home, the parent would have known that her D was drinking. The parents who stay up to get a good-night kiss from their teens are the ones who have the wisdom to be smelling their kids’ breath and seeing if the kid looks drunk.</p>

<p>Hard for me to imagine that the D wouldn’t have displayed signs of drinking when she came come.</p>

<p>As for Facebook, etc. a parent can have a rule that their high school students have no access to home computers unless parents have access to their facebook and other accounts.</p>

<p>“Or the wish that parents who saw Taylor Meyer drunk in the bleachers of King Philip Regional High School’s Oct. 17 homecoming game had picked up the phone to call Meyer then, not days later, when her only daughter was already dead after another drinking party.”</p>

<p>Those parents needed to have told school officials when they saw the girl drunk in the bleachers.</p>

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<p>I used to snoop when my kids were younger. I did find a few things I wasn’t happy about. We had to have our talks.</p>

<p>I used to stay up for D1 when she was in high school. She always had to come say good night to me and carry on a conversation with me for 15 minutes. She used to tell me everything that happened at the party. In high school, the girls are required to call us from a land line where ever they are suppose to be. One may debate about trust issue, but to me trust is earned.</p>

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<p>“Hard for me to imagine that the D wouldn’t have displayed signs of drinking when she came come.”</p>

<p>Not to mention the next morning. A lot of parents are in deep denial, and some phone call from a classmate’s parent (“She’s a busybody! She should worry about her own kid sleeping with the whole hockey team!”) won’t change that.</p>

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<p>oldfort, I did something similar, except rather than waiting up if I were tired, I took my pillow and went to sleep in her bed!</p>

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<p>Sorry, kiddo, it’s my house and you’re a minor for whom I’m responsible. We have software on the computer that records keystrokes but I only check it if I suspect something is up. Facebook and MySpace aren’t allowed but I look at their friends’ pages about twice a year. I also record phone calls if I suspect something. It may be 3, 4, 6 months between phone snoops but it’s there if I get a bee in my bonnet. I’ve maybe snooped in their rooms 3 times, ever. </p>

<p>All their friends’ parents know I want to be called if I should be told about something especially if they’re sleeping with the whole hockey team… not that we have a hockey team but yeah. No, I wouldn’t think you were a busybody if you called to say you saw my kid drunk in the bleachers. If I found out later that you didn’t call, you’d be getting a piece of my mind. About half of son’s group drives and I’ve had calls from parents saying they saw him driving and he was doing the speed limit and using his signals (knock on wood) so not all calls or snooping has to be negative.</p>

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<p>The few times I have told parents what their kids were doing, it was not well received. Parents who want to know, generally find out on their own. Those who need to be told are because they don’t want to know. It’s not that hard to know where your kids are, what their Facebook page shows and if they come home drunk.</p>

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<p>Northstarmom and Hanna, you didn’t read the article. Taylor Meyer never came home from the football game - she had told her mom she was sleeping over a friend’s house that night. Her mother never had the chance to see that she was drinking. </p>

<p>“Taylor had initially planned to spend Friday night at a friend’s house. She failed to return home on Saturday…” per the article. This happened VERY near me, so we’ve all heard the detalis dozens of times.</p>

<p>Taylor went from the game to the drinking party/bonfire in the woods, then left the party on her own after making a cell phone call around 11 pm and telling her friends that a ride was coming to pick her up. But the person she called later told police that the call was garbled and they couldn’t understand her (whether that was due to her condition or the fact that cellphone coverage in that area is notoriously bad, we’ll never know). Anyway, Taylor walked away from the bonfire, through a thick wooded area, and into a swampy area, where she became stuck in the mud and drowned. No one looked for her until the next day - when she didn’t get home from the “sleepover” by noon, her mom began calling people, and by 5 pm she had called the police, who began searching. </p>

<p>The most frightening part of this article to me is at the end, where Kathy Meyer relates what another student recently told her: “One girl came up to me afterward, and she was hysterically crying as she talked about an underage house party she was at,” Meyer said. “She said: ‘The police came, and I ran into the woods and was lost. I fell in the swamp. And all I could think about was how I could have been your daughter.’” And this girl was drinking at a HOUSE party - not in the woods.</p>

<p>I don’t want to judge Kathy Meyer. Odds are that there were signs of her daughter’s drinking that she overlooked. But Kathy Meyer could be almost any of us. Taylor was an honor student who had a close relationship with her mom, even though she didn’t tell her mom that she occasionally drank with her friends. Kathy’s trying to make something positive come out of this tragedy, by warning kids that it CAN happen to them, and reminding parents to watch our kids, tell other parents if we know their kids are drinking, and that kids don’t have to be driving to die as a result of drinking. She reminds us not to assume that MY child would never do that. Hers did.</p>

<p>I know a lot of parents who think that teen drinking is a rite of passage. As long as the kids don’t get too out of hand, and as long as they don’t drive, what’s the harm? These parents don’t look TOO hard because they don’t want to see the negative. They want to get along with their kid. They want to be “close” to them - which doesn’t happen if the parent is seen as snooping or as being ridiculously strict. Kathy’s message reminds us that we don’t have to be “close” to our teens, and our kids don’t have to like us - we can be close and they can like us when they survive to adulthood. The consequences of not paying attention are deadly.</p>

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<p>“Northstarmom and Hanna, you didn’t read the article.”</p>

<p>We did, too. We’re not talking about the night she died. That wasn’t the first time she went out and got smashed. It was a pattern. There’s not a 16-year-old in the world who can hide her first hangover from a parent who’s paying attention.</p>

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<p>“The most frightening part of this article to me is at the end, where Kathy Meyer relates what another student recently told her: “One girl came up to me afterward, and she was hysterically crying as she talked about an underage house party she was at,” Meyer said. “She said: ‘The police came, and I ran into the woods and was lost. I fell in the swamp. And all I could think about was how I could have been your daughter.’” And this girl was drinking at a HOUSE party - not in the woods.”</p>

<p>Well, she wouldn’t have ran into the woods if the cops weren’t there…And they wouldn’t have been there if the US had a reasonable drinking age.</p>

<p>But alas, that is neither here nor there.</p>

<p>Anyways…As for snooping, if you bought the cell phone/computer and pay the bill for said device, as a parent you have a ‘right’ to do so. But should you? That’s an individual call. However if you do decide to do so, don’t get upset when your child loses any and all trust he/she has with you and tries to distance himself/herself. Similarly, don’t get upset over the same reaction due to the consequences (a failed friendship, heckling at school, etc) of tattling.</p>

<p>Context is key here. If you snoop because you suspect your teen has a major (key word) problem with alcohol/drugs or is highly (key word) promiscuous, then you are probably justified in your action. But if you snoop to check if your teen may have tried a beer at a friend’s house, or is getting is getting more involved with a boyfriend/girlfriend (and let’s be honest, that is typical/normal teen behavior) then you may be going too far. The former is watching out for your teen’s safety, the later is being overbearing. The same concept applies to tattling, as well.</p>

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<p>if you don’t trust your children and your parenting enough to believe that they will make the right choices, then perhaps you should snoop your way on to their facebook. </p>

<p>If you believe your kid has enough senses to do what’s right, then you have no business on there.</p>

<p>But I think that it is prudent to call a kid’s parent when you see the kid engaging in obviously dangerous behaviour that the parent might not know about. </p>

<p>and if your kid has the sense not to hit “remember me” or “remember password,” then you’re out of luck.</p>

<p>^and to the above poster, how much do you want to bet that the kid was under 18?
your “reasonable drinking age” won’t solve underage drinking. 14-year-olds through 17-year-olds will still go out and get drunk.</p>

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<p>My mom was a snooper. Her snooping on me didn’t keep me in line (I was never out of line, I was a good kid), it just made me distrust her. I still don’t trust my mom (and I’m now 30 years old) and rarely tell her anything important that is going on in my life. If you want to snoop on your kids you have that right, but once you break their trust you will probably never get it back.</p>