Protection Or Invasion – Are you monitoring your child or invading his privacy?

“You are not allowed to lock your door from inside”

It is one out of the hundred statements made by parents which makes us believe that the thin line between protecting a child and being possessive about him has faded out.

Yes! You heard that right.

If we talk about the equation between the personal space of children and their parents, we think it’s quite unbalanced.

Parents need to understand that their teenage kid also needs to have the same level of privacy as them.

But we cannot blame parents alone. This is not their fault as they don’t have enough knowledge about how much privacy should be given to their kids. Thus here we will highlight some major issues where parents invade their kid’s private space instead of being protective of them.

But before we start with our blog on personal space for kids, we would like to address those parents who believe that nothing like “Personal space for kids” exists, it’s their right to know what their kids are doing.

Well, we might agree with the fact that you should be aware of your kid’s activities. But monitoring your kid’s activity and looking out for any breach of trust by them is far away from invading your kid’s phone or keeping an eye on his room.

To belittle specific, your invasion will just give your kid opportunities to hide his true self from you. He will not only try being shut behind a curtain but will also do every possible thing to keep you out of his folder of life experiences.

Moreover, this will be leading him into deep troubles which you will never know because he will be scared to share his problems with you.
Thus you see, personal space issues can be harmful.

We also guarantee you the fact that your kid will start restricting you from his life which will bring breakpoints in your bond with him. Giving space and respecting privacy is necessary to establish a healthy family relationship. If you breach any of it, your family fall apart.

With that being said let us move ahead with our article.

Read | How Social Identity Impacts early Childhood Development

Are you invading your kids ‘personal space in the name of monitoring him?
 
“Respect others privacy” – That’s what you tell your child when he accidentally peeps into your phone but it is also essential for you to follow the same. 

Adolescence is a phase where kids face challenges, and try to understand what they are. It is a phase when a child explores the different social interests and wishes to have a private space where he can unveil his true interests.

But what parents believe is, their kid is getting in the wrong direction, he is hiding something and a lot more.

They fail to understand that they are not even letting their child understand what would be the right and the wrong thing for him. However, here we have a few tips which would help you understand what privacy means for your kid and whether you are actually protecting him or invading his privacy.

But for that, you need to understand what privacy means for your kid as many parents confuse themselves with different meanings of privacy.

Privacy – What privacy means is a psychological space that your kids need to understand his true self. He needs it because he is dealing with a lot of new challenges. Moreover, he is also gaining some new changes both physically and mentally.

Now, it’s time for you to understand how you are not respecting personal space by masking it as a mere monitoring activity or to be more specific, how you are making your kids feel that you don’t have faith in them.

When does monitoring become an invasion of personal space?

There is a thin boundary between invasion and monitoring. But parents often cross this line and step into activities which they shouldn’t be doing.

Let us first understand how monitoring is pretty much different from keeping an eye on your kids every activity before we show you how you cross the line and invade the personal space of kids.

Monitoring – Monitoring your child means nurturing him with advice and support whenever you find the need to do it. The monitoring styles change as the kids grow up.

It can become more sensitive and discretion.

However, it doesn’t mean that you keep a tally of his every activity.

Monitoring is an answer to “What do I need to know for his protection”. for example, if your child is going out with his friends, you just need to know where he is going, what mode of transport he’ll be using, and when would he be returning. Other things can be between him and his friends.

But if we talk about invading one’s personal space, invasion here means keeping an eye on every activity of your child. It clearly shows that you don’t even trust him for a second. This will bring in a lot of miscommunications and might land your kid in trouble.

Thus, instead of keeping an eye on his every move, make sure you just know what you need to for protecting him.

Let us give you a few cases where you might feel that you are doing a good thing for your child but you are creating personal space issues for him:

1. Listening to his conversations on the phone

2. Checking his room now and then

3. Checking his email account and keeping an eye on his diary

4. Making a fake account on social media to keep an eye on his social activity

5. Calling him after every few minutes to see where he is

6. Checking his phone without his knowledge

7. Stalking him to his Saturday party

These were just a few cases, there are many more things that happen daily making your kid feel insecure from you.

Instead of doing such acts of not respecting the personal space of your kids, you can try monitoring him in different ye acceptable ways.

How to monitor your child successfully?

You must already know how to respect others’ privacy but when it comes to your children, you believe that not giving him his personal space will help you monitor him well.

But that’s not true.

You can monitor your child well even if you allow him his space activity.

Let us give you a brief on the benefits that this type of monitoring brings to your life.

Benefits of monitoring your child while you respect his personal space activity

Here are a few benefits which respecting the personal space of your kids brings:

1. Kids do not indulge in any sort of anti-social behavior like stealing or getting into secret activities

2. They get less involved in underage activities like drugs and alcohol as they learn to respect your trust in them

3. Kids are less likely to get depressed as they have a strong bond of trust and love with you.

4. They have better self-confidence.

5. They tend to bounce back stronger when facing a problem.

6. Have better school outcomes.

7. Learn to respect others privacy

As you can see there are so many benefits of respecting your child’s personal space activity, let us give you some tips on monitoring your child successfully without causing any personal space issues.

Tips for monitoring your child:

1. Try building family rules like when your kid returns from school he has to give a call to any of the parents if none of them are home

2. Make ground rules for your child’s free time. For example, set his screen time or ask him to stay at home on Saturdays.

3. Keep a check on what he is reading or watching on his laptop

4. Talk to him about what you expect from him in his teenage days

5. Keep good communication with your child

6. Have family dinner and discuss his activity for the day

7. Allow him to bring his friends at home so that you know what types of a friend he has

8. “DO NOT” break your child’s trust by invading his personal time but you can sometimes be firm about his were beings