Every now and again, I check my 13 year old son’s text messages. I almost always do it in front of him so he knows I’m doing so, and I do it completely randomly so there’s no time for him to delete anything.

I believe in invading a kid’s privacy, but I’m nonjudgemental about what I see, unless there’s something serious going on. I’ve seen some text messages that are on the racy side (forwards about farting, or a banana flasher- eww!), but largely, my kid is still staying safe and fairly innocent.

Even so, I think knowing what’s going on is really important when you have a teenager. My son’s been good about talking to me about what’s going on with him, even if it’s a subject he’s afraid I’ll be mad at him about. I also read any notes that end up in the laundry because he doesn’t clean out his pockets thoroughly. These are far more interesting than the text messages. All his notes are from girls, and they range from terrible spelling and grammar being the notable parts of the notes, to one girl whose boyfriend was being really, really horrible to her.

I just hope any guidance I give him is heard and applied. Of course, we know teenagers know everything, so it might not. I just hope I’ve built him a solid base of morals to stand on.