Hypercontrol and Oversharing: How Not to Violate Your Children's Personal Space

All parents have to go through their own eightfold “Buddhist” path between overprotection aimed at total control of the child and complete exclusion from his or her life due to deep involvement in one’s own affairs: work, socializing, traveling. Extremes always lead to problems, but it is difficult for modern parents to find the golden mean: either they are trying to know too much and get too involved or ignoring the child and failing to notice obvious problems that require immediate intervention. These extremes of behavior are particularly dangerous when it comes to your child’s online safety. Let's try to figure out how to maneuver between the two fires without losing sight of your child.

The Hyper-Controlling Parent

So, the monster of hyper-control is constantly whispering in the parent's ear: "Watch out! Don't miss a thing! Control!" Such a parent is never calm: what if the child is not learning math, but texting with a pedophile? What if he is not researching geography, but playing online with his friends? What if they subscribe to illegal channels and use the Darknet?

The controlling parent does not know the word "privacy": they vigilantly monitor the browsing history, limit the time spent online, talk to the child about his virtual friends and read personal emails. Some children think this is normal and do not even try to limit their parents' interference in their private world. As a result, the child develops neither personal boundaries, nor clear understanding of what belongs to others, and what is his or her own. Such a child in the future may have difficulties in separating from parents, choosing a profession and an adequate partner.

Another problem which hyper-control poses is the complete merging of parent and child and the attempt to live life not "with" but "instead of" each other. Such parents may constantly post their child’s pictures or facts about their life, name places they study or work out. Oversharing, or the need to share information about your child beyond measure, can play a tragic role in situations where children are being spied on by mentally ill people, Internet trolls, and simply envious ill-wishers.

The Indifferent Parent

But there is another extreme point of "parental love" - parents who don't care. The indifferent parent is so preoccupied with his or her own person that he or she has no idea how much time the child spends on the Internet or what sites the child visits. Reasons may vary:

too early or accidental parenthood,
unsuccessful experience of living in a family with equally distant parents,
lack of interest in the child,
the belief that one should not interfere in the child’s life, etc.

In such a situation, the child also forms neither personal boundaries, nor understanding of what is good and what is bad. Spending days on the phone or computer, replacing real life with virtual communication, suffering chronic overexcitement and lack of sleep – these are nothing compared with what is to come because of the unlimited consumption of Internet content. In the future such children may have problems with self-control, switching to other activities, getting pleasure from sports, communication or relationships.

I agree, times are tough for modern parents. No matter what they do, there will always be "experts" ready to shout, "What a shame! Have you ever seen anything like this?"

Therefore, In Order to Maintain Balance, It Is Very Important for Parents to:

Build a trusting relationship with your child and tell them that you will always support them no matter what.
Be truly interested in the child’s life and remember that the older they get, the larger their “private territory” becomes.
Try to explain things without becoming boring; negotiate without pressure and manipulation; talk about the potential consequences of this or that behavior without intimidation.
Do not forget that the parents’ task is to help their child to “fit in” in this difficult, constantly changing life, and to create comfortable conditions for his/her development.
Watch your child becoming more independent with a slight sense of nostalgia and deep joy that you have done everything right.
Remember that mottos like “nobody looked after us”, “they used to beat us”, “they used to yell at us so much” ending with “and look at us now: we are ok” does not work – because gigantic changes have occurred in our social life.
Keep up with the times, study modern Internet traps, be interested in new products, which will allow you to keep your finger on the pulse in the field of rapidly developing AI and the Internet.