In article .com,
"Curtis CCR" wrote:

dragonlady wrote:
In article , "Dave C."

wrote:

That *is* ridiculous.

Mom pays for the phone, she pays for the computer, she pays for
the
electricity; she has the right to monitor the communication
taking
place using her property

No, it's not ridiculous at all. The mother can ALLOW the child to
use the
phone. If she does, then the child has an expectation of privacy
while
using it. If the mother can't live with those terms, then the
child
shouldn't be on the phone at all. Put another way . . . if you
don't trust
your child to use the phone without illegally spying on him/her,
then your
child shouldn't be using the phone, period. -Dave

When one of my children was clearly getting out of control, I handled
it
differently: I TOLD her that her behavior had cost her her privacy
rights, and that I would search her room or listen in on her phone
calls
at my discretion.

You don't necessarily have to give you kid advance notice. The problem
with the phone monitoring, in many states, is that the third party has
a legal expectation of privacy. If you could bug your kid's room and be
able to listen to just her side of the conversation, you would probably
have no legal worries.

My own position is that my kids started out with a high expectation of
privacy from me and their dad (and each other). When that changed, I
felt morally obligated (not legally) to tell them, and to tell them why.


The way I read the article originally posted, the issue privacy issue
was applied to the other party in the conversation, not the daughter.

Your daughter's expected level of privacy is controlled at your
discretion. But you can't control the rights of people she talks to on
the phone. So you have use even more discretion when eavesdropping on
both sides of a phone call.

I understand that -- but, since I was only "using" the information with
my daughter, and would not have used the information in any other way, I
decided to do it anyway. (The only exception was towards a young man
who had been ordered to have no contact with her -- but I never listened
long enough to hear what he was saying, only to tell him to get off the
phone immediately. He's in prison now, so I don't worry about him any
more....)
--
Children won't care how much you know until they know how much you care