Protecting Children Requires Letting Them Go

Information and access is power - for kids and adults

As a parent working in technology, I understand that the world is so vast and hidden from my sight that I will never be able to follow everything that my daughter does or understand her experiences. She is also introverted and does not naturally share her experiences with us as a matter of course. The truth is, though, even before technology and even with a chatty child, parents cannot keep tabs on everything their children do, and, if they did, it would be suffocating.

The only way I can protect my daughter is to teach her how to think and behave responsibly. To understand the world around her so she understands her responsibilities and the boundaries between her responsibilities and the responsibilities of others.

Knowledge is power, and I want her to be powerful.

What I have done is explicitly expand her zone of freedom and responsibility before she chafed against imposed limits. Some examples of that:

• Every year on her birthday when she was very small, I gave her more freedom when walking with me to preschool. At two, she had to hold my hand all the way. At three, she had to hold my hand when we got ready to cross the street, but not walking down the sidewalk. At four, she could cross the street without holding hands as long as she stayed next to me. By five, she had a very good understanding of how to carefully cross the street and how important it was.

• When my daughter was eight, we started letting her walk around our neighborhood by herself, and I might have allowed that sooner, but she wasn’t pushing, and culturally in our town, it was still young. At nine, I allowed her to go downtown by herself (a 3 block walk for us).

• When my daughter was 9, I started being quite explicit about online harassment and things that were happening, like boys/men sending dick pics or asking for naked pictures of girls. I wanted her to understand very clearly that it was something that happened and that it was not her fault if it happened to her. Ignorance, guilt, shame, and privacy are the tools of abusers.

• In spite of childhoods where sex, relationships, and romance were not discussed, my husband and I did a lot of uncomfortable swallowing and talked about things - not in big sit-down conversations but in small comments sprinkled throughout conversations.

• When we gave our daughter a cell phone at 12, we also gave her a contract in which she could determine some of the rules but which required a commitment to use it responsibly.

At thirteen, I have seen my daughter

• Report online abuse to platforms without prompting.

• Relish the freedom to go out for a walk or downtown with friends.

• Share details about sexual health/relationships as a matter of family discourse without any hint of embarrassment.

• Wean herself off of watching TikTok videos in favor of reading (real!) books.

My daughter has friends who are authentic, comfortable with themselves, and don’t feel the need to conform or push their friends to - the type of friends who are unlikely to try and entice her to do something she would not otherwise do. We still have some fights over cell phone use and eating in her room, but in general, we get very few complaints about not being allowed to do things.

Ironically, sharing more of the world and some of its ugliness reduces her anxiety. I think anxiety often stems from the disconnect between what people perceive as reality and what people in positions of authority tell them. While the truth may be ugly, it allows kids to understand how to deal with it instead of feeling unsettled but not having the specifics to know what is going on, which is disorienting and impossible to pin down.

My 13-year-old makes good choices. It is as much as I can hope for, and THAT is what will protect her more than any surveillance tools or protections I can employ.