I have a 16 year old daughter...

[tumbler 0]

last night was a pause for thought...

I had posed the original question not to seek parenting advise but to seek computer spying advise.. I got a bucket full of both and glad to have it. As one post said I see things from one myopic view, that as a middle aged dad.

The conclusion I came to is that the real answer is somewhere in the middle of all these posts. She had much more freedom before the school year started than she will now. I am indeed going to put a keylogger on her machine, but also the family machine in the den as well. I am not there in the house 24/7 but until I know that this is nothing more than her spreading her wings for some independence I will watch her like a hawk. I am willing to deal with the consequences of this action.

My wife and I disagreed on telling her that the logger is there. I am against, she is for. More talks to come on that.

Setting up meetings today to meet with her school counselor and her teachers. Perhaps more insight will be gained there. Either way it is worth my time. Also note, I have met with them before when she needed help with some grades that were slipping so those lines of communication are already there.

In talking to her again last night (and again a one way conversation) I do believe that something is amiss. I don't know what it is... but something is wrong and she wont tell me.

Thanks all.

Dave I will try you again today.

[TCMRigging 0]

If you have any questions about keyloggers and accessing that computer remotely from work send me a private message. If your daughter uses programs like spybot or virus software they will sometimes find keylogging software and disable it. If you want to keep everything hidden it will take some extra work other than installing the programs.

Chris

[daniel_owen_uk 0]

Another thing to remember is that a keylogger will only tell you what she types, it will not tell you what she reads. Unless of course you track her passwords and log in to her email account.

As for telling her you are installing a keylogger, thats just silly, a keylogger is supposed to be secret, not only that but for anyone with any sense it would make it very easy to circumvent (on screen keyboard for example).

Be very careful, if you put a keylogger on my computer it would take me about 15 seconds to know about it. That said IT is my job. All depends on her computer literacy.

There has been a lot of talk about whether you should invade the privacy of your daughter and whether or not this monitoring is a good idea. Personally I think it's much more important what you do with this information once you have it.

I suppose your actions will be determined by what you find. Either way I wish you luck.

__________________

BOOM Headshot

[AlexCrowley 0]

as someone with more than a passing aquaintance with computer security from both sides of the fence, I'm going to say it again:

"unless you are very proficient with computers this is a path that is not a good idea, better to stick to what you are likely better at: parenting and discipline".

But go ahead, I'm sure there's someone at her school thats making $25 per 'clean my harddrive of the bullshit tracking software my father installed'.

TV's got them images, TV's got them all, nothing's shocking.

[jumpergirl 0]

Like many other teens, I went through my own rebellious stage at one time. Nothing my parents said would make a difference. I thought they were out to make my life as terrible as they could. We didn't talk, we yelled. We didn't do things as a family, except for Thanksgiving dinner and Christmas. That went on for about 3 or 4 years. Looking back now, it was even worse than I thought it was then, because I lost all of that time with them.

One day I got home from school and had a letter on my bed from my mom. Basically it said that she and my dad (who are still married - 30 years this year!) loved me very much and would always be there for me no matter what. It was a long 3 or 4 page letter, but that was the jist of it.

Maybe you can take the time to hand write (not type it on a computer) a letter to her. Tell her you love her, you know she's growing up and things are changing, you don't know everything that is going on with her and her "old" friend or the "new" ones, you might not have the answers she is looking for, but you will always have a home and a big hug for her.

I found that in the hard years of growing up (about 12-18) my parents and I could communicate better through letters than verbally. You can say your part without worrying about her yelling back and vice versa. I honestly believe it has helped me have the wonderful relationship that I have with my parents now.

If you don't have the words to write to her, get her a card. Something that says, "Just Because." Something that says, "I'm glad you're my daughter." You'll know it when you see it.

Good luck to you.

• Quote

[polarglitch 0]

I think spying on her is your personal choice. but DONT GET CAUGHT or you'll lose her faster then u can say A and it'll rocket her further away from you. Secondly, knowing what she is up to would be able to put u at ease and perhaps make u rspect her more because of her actions. As a teenager I do not find it useful to tell my parents oh yeah I feel proud because of this and that reason in this and that situation. It is one of the growing stages which teens like to keep private to themselves. Did u do it when you were 16? Thirdly, if u do find something thats going on, how would u address it?
The idea is helping your daughter, yourself and the family get closer, building trust and respect. My parents and I didnt quite see eye to eye on how to address issues and we have grown quite distant since my teenage years so much so that I dont really think of them anymore. I doubt this is how u want your kid to turn out. =)
I would ask you how much of your daughter you actually know.. a simple test:
Find a situation, think of what your daughter might have done, check with your daughter what she actually did. It does tell alot and it helps to keep track of her changes in thought, maturity and inner strength. If you find yourself failing at this... I would suggest telling your daughter u have no idea how to understand her and maybe it might be all she needs to open up to you.

When you come close to losing your life, you learn to value it.
I jumped, I survived, I learnt.

[skymama 35]

We started having a few attitude/behavioral problems with my daughter when she turned 16. After a few heated arguments, we figured out that she resented being treated like a little girl by us still being "on her" about homework and such. On our side of things, we didn't see that she was even trying to act responsibly so that we could give her more freedom. It was the never-ending circle.

Our solution was to draw up a contract with her, where we stated our expectations and consequences. We would stay off her back with the nagging and such but as soon as she broke the contract, she had to face the consequences so it taught her that freedom=responsibility. In her case, she was spending way too much time on the computer and cell phone and not enough time on her school work. We stopped harping on her about homework every night, but we also told her she had to carry a 3.0 GPA. If she doesn't, she loses her computer privledges until her grades are pulled back up. If she still doesn't do it, she loses her cell phone. I won't go into the other specifics of the things we covered because I'm sure yours would be different anyway for your household.

We also had quite a few talks to her about who she was hanging out with and the behavior that we expected out of her. We had a lot of talks about her just respecting herself enough to want more out of life. I'm happy to say that she has a batch of new friends now and is done with the ones I didn't really like. I never told her she had to stop being friends with them, I just had these conversations with her and let her figure it out.

Now that we've had this for about a year, I can honestly say that things are much calmer in our house. She has held a job for 6 months (we were surprised!) and even got a raise, she's getting along with everyone in the house better and she even earned her own vehicle last week for her 17th birthday (of course with strings attached!). Hopefully your daughter is just going through one of the same kind of phases and things will settle down for her too.

She is Da Man, and you better not mess with Da Man,
because she will lay some keepdown on you faster than, well, really fast. ~Billvon

[stoneycase 0]

Quote

Another thing to remember is that a keylogger will only tell you what she types, it will not tell you what she reads. Unless of course you track her passwords and log in to her email account.

As for telling her you are installing a keylogger, thats just silly, a keylogger is supposed to be secret, not only that but for anyone with any sense it would make it very easy to circumvent (on screen keyboard for example).

Be very careful, if you put a keylogger on my computer it would take me about 15 seconds to know about it. That said IT is my job. All depends on her computer literacy.

There has been a lot of talk about whether you should invade the privacy of your daughter and whether or not this monitoring is a good idea. Personally I think it's much more important what you do with this information once you have it.

I suppose your actions will be determined by what you find. Either way I wish you luck.

1 - i think in this instance "keylogger" has become "tracking software". telling him that a keylogger will only snag what she types isn't correct. take a look at some of the options folks have suggested, they do far more than just grab keys (for ex, screenshots of webmail, IM logging, online habits, etc etc)

2 - i would agree, the idea of installing the tracking software is to get some information on what she's doing normally. alerting her to the presence of the software does not help you accomplish your goal: figure out what's going on in her head.

3 - an onscreen keyboard wouldn't circumvent most keyloggers. it certainly won't circumvent any normal tracking software (again, it's doing far more than just logging keystrokes).

4 - yes there's a chance she could find whatever software you install. but, i think everyone is skewing the statistics here. your daughter doesn't sound like the type that is into programming, scripting, networking, security, etc. if she's "getting into trouble" etc etc something tells me that her interests aren't really computers and whatever tracking software you choose to install is going to go unnoticed for at least a few months. sure if you're daughter is a member of the computer club and designs websites in her spare time maybe she's a candidate to find it. but i haven't seen you write anything to suggest that she is that type of girl. (seriously guys, we are talking about a girl here...how much can a *girl* know, j/k!!!!)

Question for those of you parents that have employed a keylogger, tracking software, etc - did your children ever find out on their own? Seems like most of you are suggesting quite the opposite, that the software yielded valuable information pretty quickly and the kid was none the wiser.

[tumbler 0]

I certainly hope this is the case Skymama... but I need to know if it is normal teenage angst being brought on by that need to shed the childhood restrictions ... or.... is this something that may hurt her.

I can't, won't sit and wait to see how it ends...

I hope, like you had, I am nothing more than a slightly nervous parent possibly seeing the boogie man when none is there. If he is there, I need to know so I can kick his arse.

I think long term the suggestions here are good. Short term, in this current climate in the house, I will take a more immediate and drastic approach.

thanks...

[AlexCrowley 0]

"my dads been acting really odd lately. he was all over my shit for a while there and all of a sudden backed off. My computer crashed a couple of times too"

She may not, her boyfriend/friend/friends boyfriend might very well be smart enough to notice.

Now, you may know how true that is, I may also.

Bear in mind that he thought deleting the sent folder in the mail client was 'too computer savvy for me'.

I get the sense that security software may be a little beyond reasonable.

TV's got them images, TV's got them all, nothing's shocking.

[flyangel2 2]

Contracts with my boys did wonders.

It's in black and white and no "he said, she said". Sit down with your daughter and see if you can come to terms and work out a contract.

Just make sure you and your wife see eye to eye on subjects concerning your daughter. If you disagree on anything in front of your daughter, she will smell it like a shark smells blood and be on that so fast, it will make your head spin. It's okay for you and your wife to disagree, just not in front of your daughter. Show a united front.

In the contract you may want to do what I did with my boys.

They had to earn time on the computer or watching t.v. by doing such and such. Once they honored their side of the contract, I honored my side.

Check this out:

http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101010806/selftest.html

I scored 22.

May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds. - Edward Abbey

[PhreeZone 15]

I scored a 23 and I don't have any kids..

Yesterday is history
And tomorrow is a mystery

Parachutemanuals.com

[flyangel2 2]

Quote

I scored a 23 and I don't have any kids..

It's not hard to raise kids. You just have to remember to be the parent


With a good score like that, I guess you and Daisy are ready

May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds. - Edward Abbey

[PhreeZone 15]

HUSH!

I'm ready to kill the two cats so thats not a great idea right now.

Yesterday is history
And tomorrow is a mystery

Parachutemanuals.com

[skymama 35]

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Sit down with your daughter and see if you can come to terms and work out a contract.

Just make sure you and your wife see eye to eye on subjects concerning your daughter. If you disagree on anything in front of your daughter, she will smell it like a shark smells blood and be on that so fast, it will make your head spin. It's okay for you and your wife to disagree, just not in front of your daughter. Show a united front.

Yes, her dad and I wrote down the terms of the contract before we even met with her so we could think about everything we wanted to cover.

Tumbler, you could always start out the contract with, "you understand that at any moment I deem necessary, it is my right and responsibility as your parent to search your room, diaries or computer if I think that your actions do not meet with the way your mother or I would approve". That way, she can have no complaints if you do need to go to those extremes.

She is Da Man, and you better not mess with Da Man,
because she will lay some keepdown on you faster than, well, really fast. ~Billvon

[freefallfreak 0]

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With a good score like that, I guess you and Daisy are ready

Quote

HUSH!

I'm ready to kill the two cats so thats not a great idea right now.

*giggle, giggle*

(Stealth Mode) Oh, Daisy....Daisy....

TripleF

"Upon seeing the shadow of a pigeon, one must resist the urge to look up."

[Nightingale 0]

From the point of view of someone who remembers very well what it was like to be a teenager, because ten years isn't all that long:

If you do track her computer usage (and I don't recommend it, because if she finds out, it probably ruins any chance of her voluntarily opening up to you about anything), remember that what you see is out of context.

If my parents had been monitoring my computer usage when I was in high school, they would have found that I visited:

the planned parenthood homepage
playboy.com
the anarchist's cookbook
national rifle association
whitehouse.com
PFLAG

And probably a few other things they would have flipped out over that I don't remember right now. Had they been monitoring my computer usage instead of talking to me, they wouldn't have known WHY I was looking at those websites, and they would have freaked, probably jumping to the conclusions that I was pregnant, looking at porn, trying to blow something up, thinking about shooting somebody, and a lesbian (none of which was actually the case). I would have been completely offended and extremely upset that they didn't trust me, when I was visiting those sites for completely innocent reasons, and we would have had a major breakdown in trust and communication.

I went to plannedparenthood.com for information on STDs for a project for health class.

I stumbled onto playboy.com because my girl scout troop was visiting an orphanage, and my patrol was in charge of games and activities. My keyword search was something like "play girl boy game children". Given that playboy gets a lot more hits than sites about childrens' games, it was at the top of the list and I wasn't really thinking when I clicked. When the page popped up, I freaked and ran and told my mom. We ended up having a good laugh about it and a long parent to kid talk about porn and sex.

I looked up the anarchist cookbook for a story I was writing in english class. I figured if I was writing about detectives investigating a building that spontaneously blew up. I should probably have some idea about what makes things blow up.

I went to the NRA website to research a paper I had to write for AP government class on one of the amendments in the bill of rights. The teacher counted the class off by tens, and I happened to be one of the 2s. During this same project, I stumbled upon whitehouse.com when I was looking for whitehouse.gov. Totally innocent mistake, and again, I told my mom, because I knew I could trust her not to get mad without hearing me out first, and we ended up having a laugh over it.

I went to PFLAG because one of my friends told me she thought she was a lesbian. I wanted to understand what she was going through and how to be there for her. My friend's sexual orientation is not my parents' business (especially since I knew she'd already talked to her mom), but I did ask them a few general questions over the next few days in addition to finding info online.

A lot of times, there's perfectly logical explanations for what kids do. Sometimes there aren't. Depends on the kid, depends on the situation. Personally, I think you'll get a lot farther with family counseling than you will with a key logger. Counseling can improve trust and communication. Finding out she's being monitored will probably have the opposite effect, especially if she really isn't doing anything wrong. Remember that if you do find something you don't like and confront her with it, you'll have to tell her how you found out.

[Nightingale 0]

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I scored a 23 and I don't have any kids..

I got a 21.

• Quote

[RhondaLea 3]

I scored 21.

But what one knows to do and what one does are often different.

I made a lot of mistakes with my daughter, and I paid the price, but there was never a time that she didn't talk to me, confide in me, trust me, most especially about sex and drugs.

The only thing I would say to parents who are still actively parenting is that if you don't give your children a chance to make mistakes they can learn from, they'll never learn anything, and the mistakes they make later will be a lot bigger. Childhood (and the teen years) are a time for figuring it all out. If they don't figure it out sooner, they won't figure it out later.

But no one learns from anyone else's experience. We all have to make our own mistakes.

rl

If you don't know where you're going, you should know where you came from. Gullah Proverb

[1969912 0]

Read "Green River, Running Red" by Ann Rule. ISBN #978-0-7434-6050-7, or 0-7434-6050-2. Sorry to be shocking.

EDIT: Got a 23

"Once we got to the point where twenty/something's needed a place on the corner that changed the oil in their cars we were doomed . . ."
-NickDG

[kirrz 0]

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(seriously guys, we are talking about a girl here...how much can a *girl* know, j/k!!!!)

Question for those of you parents that have employed a keylogger, tracking software, etc - did your children ever find out on their own? Seems like most of you are suggesting quite the opposite, that the software yielded valuable information pretty quickly and the kid was none the wiser.

I'm not a parent but my dad put all that tracking stuff on when I was a teen.. and I found it. And then I managed to break through it & find a way to disable it whenever I was online. So I would stay online for that 1 hour time limit allocated & know that I was being tracked, then disable it & do whatever the hell I wanted to.. & simply enable it again at the end of my session.

(and I'm a *girl*.. whoa)

[tumbler 0]

Of course none of you know me as I know none of you. I appreciate the different points of view and the different ways of looking at things... ways that I would never be able to see without some form of input. My job doesn't lend itself to being able to garner this as can be gained in this setting. I take none of this lightly and have read every reply.

I have one major point of reference that perhaps many of you do not. I say this only to give some insight into why I think the keylogger is a tool that can help me...

My brother in law and his wife had the most beautiful 12 year old daughter you can imagine. She was bright, happy and fun. She was taken in the most classic way we can imagine... playing at the park with friends. In an instant she was gone. They found her 6 hours later.

She has never been the same.

So yea, I may be paranoid. I may be a little to tight with the leash and I may be suspicious of innocent things. I am not afraid of changes, but she has changed, or is in the process of it and I want to know why. These two things may have zero in common but I don't know.

I also know there are wolves at the door and I believe it is my job, first and foremost, to protect her and that is what I will do.

I scored a 26.

Tom

[BASE1036 0]

I have a keylogger installed on my kids computer (keyloggerpro) and I use it. I dont use it to bust him on the normal things kids do, (porn sites, mistif, ect..) I do use it to monitor his conversations via IM with friends, and I use it to spur talks about things I feel may be relevent. For instance the other day he was talking to one of his friends about drugs, I took this as an oppurtunity to have another conversation about different drugs and which ones are the best..(just kidding) It allows me a view into his world, that maybe he would not be as open about with a parent as a friend.
In respect for his privacy I will not go into detail about all of the things I have found, but Most of it he has approached me about within a few days of discussing it with his friends. The things he hasnt, I try to find a way to help him out, with out him knowing he is getting help.
The keylogger just like anyother tool is only a tool, it depends on how you use it. If you abuse it you can hender her delevopment, used right you can really help her out.

.

Daniel
Protect Yourself and Your Loved Ones
Tasers - Pepper Spray - Stun Guns and more!
www.dallassecuritysupply.com

[polarglitch 0]

wow. i scored an 18. if this keeps up I just might raise a kid normal without any major psycho problems.
I think its about patience when raising a kid and being careful, not overbearing.

When you come close to losing your life, you learn to value it.
I jumped, I survived, I learnt.

[riddler 0]

23. No kids. Sounds like a lot of people are hitting the middle. Is this a test that shows you who you are, or a test that's designed to make us feel good about ourselves?

Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD