"Parental Controls"

The Essential Reality of Parental Consent

Think about the term “parental controls.” Anyone raising children in the past 30 years likely has experience with “parental controls” on their televisions, media devices, and the Internet. I’ve personally used solutions such as OpenDNS to protect my family.

In a world of free expression, a child’s access to content must be rigorously vetted and controlled. As a parent, that means curating the books, media, games, and even the people you allow around your children. No child should have access to the world without a parental filter guiding them along the way. Make no mistake, that’s not “censorship.”

There is no logical reason for my young children to know what drag queens, porn stars, or drug addicts are, even if I happened to be one.

Parents Know Best

To claim that “parents don’t own their kids” pushes a dangerous narrative attempting to characterize children as a potentially “oppressed” group. Parents do know their children best, and they are ultimately far more important in raising them than systems outside of the family structure will ever be.

In Roper v Simmons (2005) and again in Graham v. Florida (2010), the United States Supreme Court agreed with the American Psychological Association’s brief that adolescents are immature, risk-taking individuals who have an underdeveloped sense of responsibility, which can result in ill-considered actions and decisions and are more susceptible to negative influences and peer pressure.

Growing Up Is Uncomfortable

No, kids don’t “know who they are.” The juvenile mind is very susceptible to influence and needs constant guidance and course correction.

Good parenting sometimes requires hurt feelings. If you, as a parent, haven’t made your child uncomfortable at some point, you’re probably doing it wrong. Hurt feelings are not harm or abuse.

We cannot dismantle the parental paradigm for what is, in reality, a very small number of kids with truly abusive parents. It’s entirely possible to have empathy for them while also not turning the system on its head.

Labeling strong families as “privilege” is an attempt at “othering” and wrestling control away from conscientious parents. Good families are still the norm and should be our expectation. Just because you might have had a bad parent doesn’t mean most people do.

Schools Are For Learning

Almost every decision in schools requires signed parental consent: taking an aspirin, opting in or out of instruction, going on a field trip, etc. With any significant concern, a call to the parents should always be the first step.

A preemptive assumption of parental abuse is a dangerous and ultimately destabilizing standard for society. There is a fundamental difference between mandatory reporting of abuse and active undermining of informed parental consent.

Whether or not a minor child is or isn’t LGBT is strictly a family matter and should never land under the purview of a government entity. It’s simply none of their business. It should only become their concern in cases of actual abuse (which is, of course, already subject to mandatory reporting laws).

A minor doesn’t have a right to privacy from a parent when that parent can be held responsible for things that the child does. Guidance and intervention in your child’s decision-making is not only a parental right but also an essential responsibility.

Encouraging and enabling children to harbor secrets from their families is wrong.