Counter-Argument Essay
Should parents monitor their children’s emails and texts? This is the question that Judith woods answers in her article “should parents spy on their children’s emails and texts?” along with other questions such as “where do the boundaries lie between safeguarding and surveillance” or “to snoop, or not to snoop?. The topic discusses that all teenagers want their privacy to be respected and not to be spied on; it also discusses if parents get caught while spying on their children’s emails and texts, they risk maintaining a trustful relationship with their children, which would lead their children to keep secrets from their parents; moreover, it supports that parents should keep an eye on their children’s emails and texts but without getting caught. Despite there are some strong claims, there are also some false assumptions, logical fallacies, and weak evidence that make the article weak and not convincing.
The author is right when she mentioned what site editor Tamsin Kelly said “If you are caught spying on your child, you risk creating a situation in which the child keeps secrets, angry at you, and rebels by leading a separate online life.” Parents who get caught spying on their children will jeopardize the trustful relationship with their children; furthermore, it will make children closed on themselves. The writer is also correct when she mentions what director of campaigns at the Young Minds of charity Lucy Russell said “when my children were younger, I insisted I was a friend on Facebook, but now they are 15 or 16 they have blocked me” she also said “I accept that but I have friends who tell me what’s going on. The relationship with your children should be one of trust and honesty- but with a little well intentioned spying, via a circuitous route.” Children do make their parents engaged in their lives, but when they grow up they begin to be enclosed on themselves, so parents should try to build a trustful relationship with them; however, keeping a close eye on children is a healthy and a good thing to able parents to treat their children in a suitable way and to know what is going on the children’s minds. The author is also very convincing when she refers to what site editor Tamsin Kelly said “I wouldn’t demand that my child hands over the phone for me to check it, but I would expect to be their Facebook friend, for them to leave laptops downstairs at bedtime and to have ongoing conversations with them about potential dangers.” She says “ I also think it’s my role as a parent to keep up to date with any new technology that my children might want to use.” Parents who create a relationship with their children where a child can trust his parents to leave his cellphone or laptop anywhere knowing that his parents trust him and that both the parents and the child openly talk about everything is the healthiest and most successful relationship between parents and children.
The first problem is that the author mentions some false assumptions in her article in an attempt to support her argument. For instance, she mentions that a friend of hers has a child who was using chat room although she was forbidden from doing so, her father said “the computer was in a family area, and in one evening when I walked in, I noticed my daughter, who was then 13, scrambling to shut down the site that she had been looking at,” he says “ I forced her to put it back on screen and discovered she’d been suing a chat room and had been getting deeply inappropriate messages from a man with unthinkably crude logon.” According to Caroline Knorr, instead of using technology to snoop on kids’ digital activities, she encourages parents to discuss boundaries and appropriate online behavior with their children and to “parent around the device” by “doling out features sparingly” when the phone is new. She also suggests opening up more features as the child demonstrates the ability to “follow the rules and meet expectations and understand the consequences. “The second claim that wasn’t convincing was mentioned by Claire Perry, who has three children and who represents Devizes, a constituency in England, she suggests curtailing online activity late at night by unplugging the internet router; moreover, she says that teenagers have no right to keep their messages private and that parents ought to feel empowered enough to demand access to them. This is a huge mistake because children would feel dominated by their parents without any sense of freedom. According to a parenting editor at Common Sense Media Caroline Knorr, who was mentioned in the article “should parents snoop on their kids online?” by Eleine Augenbraun from BBC News, parents need to recognize that kids believe that phones are sacred and private; to her, parents who try to intrude on that are setting up a “parents versus kid situation, even for good kids who aren’t doing anything wrong.”
The second point of weakness is the weak evidence sometimes the article uses. For instance, “a recent research revealed that sexting is so widespread as to be considered mundane”. The author didn’t mention the name of the research or any details about it instead she said “a recent research”. Another weak evidence that was mentioned: “While middle class parents might be horrified, evidence suggests that sociodenographics do not play any role in dictating in the practice.” The writer didn’t mention the evidence’s details at all. The writer does the same thing when she mentions that “only 30 percent of parents claim to understand their children’s internet slang”. The writer didn’t say from where she claims the percentage of parents who understand their children’s internet slang.
The third point of weakness is the logical fallacies that is found in the article. The author mentions what psychologist Oliver James said “If you have a good relationship with your children, you have nothing to worry about.” This is a logical fallacy particularly hasty generalization, which is a conclusion based on insufficient evidence, because having a good relationship with your children doesn’t mean that children hide nothing from their parents. Many parents have a good relationship with their children and get shocked to find out that their children do horrible things. Another logical fallacy that the writer states “Girls as young as 13 send topless and naked photographs on their mobile phones without hesitation, regarding it a s a form of flirtation.” This is a logical fallacy specifically ad hominem, which is attacking someone’s appearance, personal habits, or character rather than focusing on the merit of the issue at hand, because the writer here attacked 13 year old girls rather than focusing on the issue that is being discussed. The writer again mention another logical fallacy when she recalls what Oliver James, a psychologist, stated “if your child has half a brain they should spot a fake.” This is false dichotomy, which is a false a dilemma assists that a complex situation can have only two possible outcomes and that one option is necessary. Oliver James here mentions a logical fallacy because sometimes children might not figure out that an adult is texting them and not someone their own age and they might easily get tricked because they are still children.
The topic that has been discussed is convincing and contain some claims that have been supported with evidence; however, there are some weak evidence, false assumptions, and logical fallacies that were mentioned and corrected. I believe that parents should give their children a sense of freedom and privacy to feel independent and to learn to trust their parents as it was mentioned in the article. All the logical fallacies, the false assumptions, and the weak evidence have been discussed and mentioned. I agree with the article that parents should keep a close eye on how their children deal with texting and how they thing, and that sometimes it’s necessary to keep a close eye on a child especially the ones who are caught with bad behavior; however, the demanding attitude that parents sometimes use can lead to a bad relationship between parents and their children with other terrible consequences.