Harlan Coben The Undercover Parent Summary

“Maybe it’s the word: spyware. It brings up associations of Dick Cheney sitting in a dark room, rubbing his hands together and reading your most private thoughts”. In the article “The Undercover Parent”, writer and father, Harlan Coben argues that parents spying on teens is a good precaution to take. Coben was very indecisive on whether spyware was a good concept to use to find out things about your teen, though, in the end, he concluded that it was a good solution, but conditions had to be enforced. Coben illustrates the point that the internet is a dangerous place, not everything on the internet is private, and it's a parental responsibility to know what your child is doing. For the most part, I agree with Coben, but I still do disagree with

him in some of his claims.
Coben’s first claim is that the internet is a dangerous place.

I immensely agree with Coben because there is so many dangers that the internet has to offer that we don't know about. In the article, “As Kids Go Online, New Tools For Parents To Spy” a child who has a love for sports was watching the game on YouTube and an advertisement pops up and shows a man smoking, and a woman dancing provocatively. Your child may be searching innocent and kid-friendly videos, but the ads are not as kid-friendly as your child’s search history. This situation was merely a rough experience because there are many other situations where it is way worse. On the internet, there are stalkers, impersonators, scammers, and so much more. Criminals also create innocent looking websites and communicate through that using keywords to notify each other. The internet can expose your home to many online dangers such as “Pedophiles” or “Beheadings”. The internet is a source for everyone which makes it a danger to everyone as

well.
Coben’s second claim is that not everything on the internet is private. I agree with Coben because if your child posts something that can compromise their future plans, then you need to be able to prevent that from happening. In Coben’s article, he writes, “...everything your child types can already be seen by the world — teachers, potential employers, friends, neighbors, future dates. Shouldn’t he learn now that the Internet is not a haven of privacy?” This shows that whenever your child posts something it’s not just going to be seen by her friends and family, it can be seen by anyone. There are many situations where people don’t get the jobs they wanted because of something they posted years ago and it now affects their life. A post from People magazine, “20 Tales of Employees Who Were Fired Because of Social Media Posts stated, “I was younger and an idiot. I posted something on Facebook about wanting to go home and play The Sims so I could create [telecommunications store I worked for] on it and then slowly kill off all the customers. I was working a late night shift in a mall and forgot our new coworker had added me on Facebook days before.” This shows that his actions from before affected his life now. Many people don’t get the jobs and opportunities ahead of them because of these stupid mistakes they made before. Additionally, in the article, “As Kids Go Online, New Tools For Parents To Spy” they talk about Luma. She states, “Luma is a device that revamps the home wifi using their smartphones, parents can see every wireless device attempting to use a network, block access, set levels of permission.” This device can help your family tremendously because it’s the kind of protection and safeguard you need to ensure safety among your family.
Coben’s main claim is that it’s a parental responsibility to know what your child is doing.

I disagree with Coben because overprotective parents can actually harm your child more than it can protect them. In the article, “ Yes, Overprotective Parenting Harms Kids” by professor Nathan H. Lents, he states, “Helicopter parents that seek to shield their children from all forms of adversity are not doing them any favors...Falling off of a swing, for example, teaches a kid a variety of lessons that just can't be learned any other way. If kids are protected from all possible risks when the stakes are low, how will they navigate risk-taking when they are older and the stakes are much higher?” This article talks about the effects of a child if they have a helicopter parent. Kids need to learn from their mistakes, but if your monitoring and protecting them from these dangers then how are they supposed to learn? However, there are the certain thing you need to protect them from like pedophiles and bullies. In Coben's article, he writes, “we’ve all read about the young boy unknowingly conversing with a pedophile or the girl who was cyberbullied to the point where she committed suicide. Would a watchful eye have helped?” Monitoring your child could have helped the young boy and the innocent girl by making the parents aware of the situation and stopping it. There are some scenarios where space is not an option and you as the parent need to

act.
Overall, I agree with Coben's argument about spyware. The internet is a dangerous place, not everything is private online, and it's a parental responsibility. There are many situations where your child cannot make their own decisions and you, the parents have to guide them in the right direction. Your child still does need to be able to make mistakes and learn from them, but it’s still a good idea to take the extra precaution and use spyware.