The Reflective Parent: Parenting Strategies to Improve Communication And Build a Strong Relationship With Your Teen and Family

S2 E4 —Parental Surveillance and Trust Erosion

Jason Denham - Parent Coach Season 2 Episode 4

Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.

0:00 | 14:34


The apps promising to keep your kiddo safe are doing something else underneath. Life360, Bark, mSpy, Qustodio, Norton Family, the whole category of parental surveillance technology sells you peace of mind and delivers a family system built on watching instead of connecting.

This is the mirror of Season 2 Episode 2, Cheater Buster. Same business model. Same false promise. This time the kiddos are the ones on the receiving end, and their nervous systems are still developing.

Three things these apps are doing to kiddos right now. The constant low-grade activation of being watched. The erosion of the practice of trust, which is a muscle that only grows when it is used. And the reciprocal lesson, where kids who grow up surveilled grow up to surveil their future partners and their future kiddos. The surveillance economy has built its next generation of customers.

The package is a phone app. The product is mistrust packaged as love. The relationship is the only safety that holds.

Your invitation this week. Sit with your kiddo and have one direct conversation. Tell them what monitoring you currently do, why you do it, what you wish you could let go of, and what they would have to do or show you to earn the trust to release it. Then listen. Listen long enough to hear what actually comes back, all the way to silence on the other side of their answer. Most parents have never had this conversation out loud.

If today's episode moved you, the best way to support the show is simple. Come hang out. Follow on Instagram at theattachmentcoach and on Facebook. Jump in the comments. Tell me what you are wrestling with as a parent right now.

The Family Agreement Workshop is open right now inside the Reflective Parent Support Group on Communi. Come in early and grow alongside it.

Website: awakenedshadow.com
 Support group and Family Agreement Workshop:

https://communi.com/reflective-parent-support-group

I'd love to hear from you! Whatever it is that comes up for you after listening to today's episode, please share it with me in a text message!