Some Kids Turning To Cyber-Snooping To Peek At Christmas Gifts
CHICAGO (CBS) -- It's not unusual for children to sometimes snoop around to see what they're getting for Christmas, but some kids are taking it up a notch, using technology.
"My 13-year-old kind of stumbled into this," said a Naperville mom named Amy. (Her full name is not being used to protect the guilty.)
Amy said one of her daughters figured out that, by going through Amy's email, she could see what gifts had been ordered for her for Christmas.
However:
"My youngest one decided she was not going to do any online snooping, because we had our 'Elf On The Shelf,' George, sitting nearby, and she didn't want him to take a bad report back to Santa," Amy said.
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Of course, kids talk, and the word has spread to her older daughter's friends, and beyond.
"It's a wake-up call for me as a parent, and hopefully I will be smarter in terms of what I'm doing down the road" Amy said.
Liz Repking of Cyber Safety Consulting suggested parents should change their email and online passwords, keep them private, and close all windows on the computer when finished browsing the Internet. She also sayid parents need to have ongoing serious talks with their children about what is and is not allowed online.
Amy has had a talk with her girls about good online behavior and also plans to be more digitally savvy about her privacy. She said the girls, meanwhile, already had been spreading the word about the tactic among friends at school.
