@Roz Right.
It was a post about their special-needs child being exposed to potential online pedophiles that included useful "here's how to find support" advice for parents, turned quickly into a bizarre accusation about being an abusive evangelical-style parent who equates doing as they say with being loved.
Anyone who has ever been a parent knows a few key things...
- It's best to be honest about where they don't have privacy rather than do it on the sly. If it's about contracting to safety when using the internet then it's not snooping. It's a family decision.
- If you dont have a teen who doesn't sneak around or get into stuff they shouldn't? Congrats. You won the genetic lottery.
- It's better to identify problems before things become criminal investigations and years of therapy
What I found neat about @buttercup 's post is that their child came to them about this stuff. God, I would have been so grateful for that because most teens dont have the experience, maturity, or legal knowledge to know how to handle this stuff. They usually get scared, hide it, get devoured by it. There have even been cases of pedophiles collecting sexually explicit content from the minor and using that as blackmail to keep them from going to their parents or the law.
The discussion about whether or not keeping an eye on your teen's online activity could inadvertently "out" them to their parents before they are ready to "out" themselves (and the topic of how parents abuse their children for choosing different sexualities than the parent would prefer) is another topic entirely.
Let THIS ONE be about protecting your kids from pedophiles in the MU/online community. Open up a SEPARATE one for the other topic, please.