Is it OK to spy on your children’s online lives?

Rachel Halliwell seeks out advice on how to keep our offspring safe but not mollycoddled

It’s the great modern parenting dilemma: how far off the metaphorical leash ought we allow our children to roam when it comes to navigating an increasingly complex technological world? For just as views on when to let a child venture out unattended vary widely, so too does parental thinking on how closely monitored their online activity ought to be.

The levels of freedom youngsters are afforded in either area rarely seem to align. Little wonder, says a friend, pointing out how different the two environments are. She happily trusts her 12-year-old twin sons to safely take the bus into town, and they’ve been allowed to hang around our village with their pals for the past couple of years. Yet she worries deeply about the trouble they could get into using their smartphones, despite being physically safe inside their bedrooms. And so she surreptitiously monitors the conversations they hold in cyberspace, going through every message they’ve sent or received while they sleep.

I argue that she might as well hide behind a bush when they meet their mates at the skate park so she can eavesdrop on their conversations there as well.

“I’m just keeping them safe,” my friend insists, adamant that there are far more dangers lurking in cyberspace than our children have to face in the real world. After all, an adult with terrible intentions can’t hide behind a fake profile when approaching a child in the street, while face-to-face bullying rarely gets as nasty or escalates anything like as quickly as it can online.

Then there’s the threat of a child seeing pornographic or violent imagery, which is never more than a few clicks away, inadvertently or otherwise.

“I need to make sure that they’re not looking at or saying things they shouldn’t. And I don’t want to rely on two young boys to spot something untoward,” she says. “Also, if they are being bullied – or, as bad, bullying – then I can help to nip it in the bud.”

She’s right, of course, but it still feels like espionage to me. As do the myriad parental monitoring apps now available to download on to your child’s mobile phone, allowing unfettered access to their online activity.

I prefer to carry out occasional spot checks – randomly asking my own 12-year-old to open up a message in

UNDER CONTROL Monitoring apps can be useful – up to a point; below, Rachel Halliwell with daughter, Bridie