‘i have no qualms About spying’

Shona Sibary, 47, lives in West Sussex and has four children, Flo, 19, Annie, 17, Monty, 15, and Dolly, eight.

Every night before going to bed I have a little ritual I have to undertake. It’s got nothing to do with brushing my teeth or washing my face. (although I do these things too.)

I creep into my 15-year-old son’s bedroom and remove the mobile phone that’s charging by his bed, and then I scroll through his call records, text messages and web history. Yes, his phone is password locked, but mothers can get around anything. once, when he wasn’t looking, I registered my thumbprint in his settings so that now I can access his phone whenever I like.

Some may be horrified by this. But the thing is, teenagers lie. They do it all the time. It’s part of the job of growing up, and pushing boundaries. and it’s part of my job as a mother to catch my son when he falls – something I can only do if I actually know what’s going on. and the only way I can know that is by spying because unlike my daughters he definitely isn’t going to tell me. Everything that happens in teenager’s lives happens inside that rectangular device. Knowledge is power.

For anyone who doesn’t agree with me, take this recent example. I spent five minutes on monty’s phone the other night and found out he’d been on the back of a much older boy’s motorbike – something he has repeatedly promised he won’t do. I found out too, that he was planning to skip an after-school detention in favour of hanging out somewhere with his mates.

Both these decisions were bad ones and obviously needed to be addressed. If I hadn’t looked at his phone I’d have been blissfully unaware and he’d have got away with them. as it was, I was able to gently probe and ask the right questions to enable the truth to come out. But he’d never have confessed otherwise, in a million years. which is why I have absolutely no qualms at all about spying on my kids. In fact, I see it as the responsible thing to do.

‘teenagers lie All the time’