Anonymous wrote:Everyone - adults and children - should understand this basic point: there is no privacy when you send a text message.
Every text message can be copied and sent to other people.
Every text message can be read by other people, inadvertently or subversively.
Every text message can be copied for the entire internet to read online.
There is no privacy.
If you want privacy, whisper. Write in a diary with a key. But don't share your private thoughts online unless you don't mind sharing with the world.
For that reason, it is very smart for parents to tell their kids that they can and will read their texts. So if they want privacy, they will know texting is a bad place for it.
Otherwise, they will learn the hard way. Trust me. My friend's daughter learned the hard way when her "private" text messages were shared with her school. This is a lesson better learned through others mistakes. It created a nightmare.
This.
We've had this message in place from the get-go with our almost 11yo. He also has had access to our phones in addition to his own. If I'm driving & need DS to use my phone to send a quick message to my husband, sometimes he scrolls around a bit - no big deal. In fact, I'm happy to have him see examples of appropriate texts. None of us has privacy & there's no sense of unfairness.