I have given many talks on the benefits of monitoring your children and have discussed, often time at length, the reasons for monitoring your kids. Usually the parent will start out with something along the lines of….well my kids are not like that, or… we have a very open relationship and my child would always come to me with something of that nature.

I always offer that as a parent you may very well trust your child, and many times you are correct with your assessment of your child not falling prey to an adult. However, many of the cases I have investigated have resulted in a parent that does in fact monitor their child and their child discusses with another child some inappropriate behavior or relationship. The parents of the child that is not being monitored does not have any idea of the relationship.

So, even as a parent of a child that you trust completely, it is not a bad idea to monitor your child.

In fact, I have discovered several incidents by monitoring my kids that I have had to report as a mandated reporter. (In California select occupations require you to report suspected child abuse, actually it is a crime if you do not report the acts. Occupations such as doctors, counselors, fireman, and police officers to name a few require you to report suspected child abuse.)

The incidents were not directly involving my children; rather it was friends they were communicating with. This is important to realize that you might discover something inappropriate while monitoring your kid’s cell phone or computer usage.