Summary of Harlan Coben's "The Undercover Parent"

In this essay, Coben is suggesting that parents put spyware on their children's computers so that they may monitor their child's activities online.  He argues that parents should be able to know what is going on in their children's lives, and that bad situations can be avoided by monitoring what children are doing online.  While it is a violation of a child's privacy and innermost thoughts, Coben states, it is the responsibility of a parent to know what goes on in a child's life.  Spyware can prevent children from being targeted by internet predators on social networking sites and even prevent children from being cyber bullied.  Coben states that parents should also be able to discuss such matters with their children in a calm way.  He says that with new technology and such bad things that children can find on the internet, spyware is necessary.