Monitoring and privacy
Monitoring software can show you activity. It cannot tell you what any of it means or how your child is. Used openly, with a stated reason and a stated end date, some families find it useful. Used covertly and indefinitely, it mostly produces anxiety in the parent and evasion in the child, and it is usually discovered.
If you need help now
Call 911 if someone is unresponsive or badly hurt. Call or text 988 for thoughts of suicide or self harm. Both are free and open all day and night. All crisis resources
What these tools actually do
They report activity: apps opened, time spent, sometimes messages and location. That is data about behavior, not about state of mind.
A dashboard showing six hours of use tells you what a conversation about sleep would have told you, and it costs something the conversation does not.
Openly or covertly
These are different acts with different consequences. Telling a young person you are going to monitor, why, and for how long is a rule they can argue with. Installing it silently is a discovery waiting to happen.
The cost of discovery is not the argument. It is that the next thing they are frightened about, they handle alone.
Age changes the answer
Most families treat a twelve year old’s phone differently from a seventeen year old’s, and that is reasonable. What is hard to defend at any age is a rule that changes without warning.
What we do not do
This site does not recommend particular products and takes no payment from any of them. Comparison pages for monitoring software are one of the most heavily monetized things in this category, which is a reason to be careful about who is telling you to install what.
Three different kinds of help
These are separate on purpose. A parent looking for clinical help should never arrive in a legal intake queue by accident.
Getting help
A family doctor first, the school counselor second, a therapist third. The first two are faster and cheaper, and both can refer you onward.
Finding helpWe do not provide treatment and take no payment from anyone who does.
The lawsuits
How the claims work, what has to be shown, and why the deadlines are different for a child. This comes second to getting your child care, and that is not a formality.
How the lawsuits workContacting us does not create an attorney client relationship, and what you send is not confidential or privileged.
Reporting and resources
Reporting an image or an adult, what a school can actually do, and the organizations worth your time.
ResourcesNobody pays to be listed and listing is not endorsement.