Technology Is Your Friend

When working with at-risk teenagers, technology can be your best friend! It can help you monitor your son's behaviors and it can protect you in the event he makes allegations against you or anyone else in your home, especially when he's corrected for wrong doing.

If you have a sneaky teen and haven't looked into security systems, you should! Let me share a little of what I've learned over the years. I'm not trying to sell you on anything so I'm not going to include links to any specific products, but just give you an idea of what's out there.

First, there is software out there that businesses use that will enable you to put a program on your son's laptop or tablet that will record every keystroke and every screen he looks at. You can log into something on your own computer and check 100% of his computer-related activity at any time you'd like and he will never know it! Just install it on the laptop or tablet before you give it to him!

Secondly, either take off his bedroom door so he can't hide out in there doing things he shouldn't be doing, or put a camera in his room. Just make sure he has a place where he can change clothes without being in camera view. But do try to have his bed in view of the camera so you can check on him any time of the night to make sure he's still in his room, and so that he knows you have that ability. They make cameras that you can check from your cell phone - so you can check it anytime, from anywhere.

Don't stop with putting one in his room. Put a camera just outside his bedroom window. Put on in the hallway going to and from his room. Put one in the kitchen and in the living room. Put them outside any doors. You don't have to have them wired into any security company. You can go that route, but for the purposes of keeping tabs on your son, you don't need to. You can monitor him yourself.

They also make hidden cameras. You can buy a lot of different devices that already have cameras hidden in them. Clocks, pencil holders, smoke alarms, fans, all kinds of things. So if you don't want your son knowing you're watching him, look for those types of options.

In addition to cameras, you can easily install door and window alarms. But know this - if your son has many friends at school or if he's tech savvy, he will likely find ways to bypass those alarms. 

You can set up a tracker on his cell phone, if you choose to allow him to keep one of those, that you can use to secretly track his physical location at all times.

If your teen drives, get a driving tracker which will give you insight as to how safe or unsafe your son is when he's behind the wheel.

If you don't think these things are appropriate in the home, ask yourself why they're appropriate in the workplace? Why they're appropriate in hospitals? Why they're appropriate in jails and on the highways? Whey they're appropriate at gas stations and in grocery stores? There's a reason they're in all of those places. They're there to deter crime and to provide evidence when someone does something they shouldn't.

You've been given the responsibility of training that boy up in the way he should go. You owe it to him and to your family and to your neighborhood to keep an eye on him.

Give it some thought!