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Would you invade your child's privacy to make sure they are okay?

12K views 292 replies 97 participants last post by  StarJune 
#1 ·
This was on the radio this morning and it got me fired up.
I was curious what some other Mother's thought...

I usually miss the original email in the morning that spawns the conversation, but it had something to do with "spying" or following up on your children to make sure they are not up to things they shouldn't be.

This Mother called in and said that as a parent you have to do whatever it takes to make sure your child is safe and she has broken into her daughter's diary several times to "check-up" on her. She even admitted her daughter gave her no reason to beleive she had any troubles going on or anything, she just felt as the Mother she had every right to snoop in her daughter's things to make sure she was okay.

This really angered me... maybe I'm being unrealistic because I do not have teens to deal with yet... but I plan on impressing an open communication and am hoping if my children are dealing with anything and need help, they know they can come to me... I do not agree with invading their privacy like this.

My Mother did that to me as a teen, and it's still a sore spot. She raided my room and found a box of condomns and I actually got grounded for it... Grounded for being reponsible... yeah I don't think that was the correct message to send.


So anyway... thoughts on this??
 
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#177 ·
i just can't imagine.......seeing my teenager act distant..... and then deciding i had better go search her room for contraband and check out her diary

the two do not go hand in hand in my mind AT ALL

i think i would be a victim of fearmongering to think that a teenager's attitude = the contents of her room.

if i'm worried about my kid, i'm going to try talking to her, or have dp talk to her, or encourage her to talk to her friends or an adult friend about her feelings. i would look for a new regular opportunity for us to reconnect and do something fun together. i would examine my own attitude to see if i've been too dismissive or critical lately. i would sit and remember what it's like to be a teen. i would reassure myself with some books or conversation about how moodiness and attitude and rebellion is so normal and healthy for teens who are learning more about themselves and where they fit in to the real world.

i wouldn't even think to search her room.
 
#178 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by momma4fun View Post
i wouldn't even think to search her room.
I agree with your post and it almost brought tears to my eyes... but i have to say that when you are scared to death for your child and you are standing there looking at an empty room in an empty house... not trying to make excuses ... but you just never know what fear will make you do.
 
#179 ·
there are all kinds of distant. which is why you have to go with your gut. there's teenage moody distant and there's teetering on the edge of a cliff distant... and everything in between. thats when instinct and good judgement come in. sometimes you have to intervene... they may need you to help them help themselves.
 
#180 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by 1littlebit View Post
there are all kinds of distant. which is why you have to go with your gut. there's teenage moody distant and there's teetering on the edge of a cliff distant... and everything in between. thats when instinct and good judgement come in. sometimes you have to intervene... they may need you to help them help themselves.
i agree, but won't be taking privacy away as a preventitive measure, or won't use it as my first means to understanding my teen
 
#181 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by Storm Bride View Post
It obviously varies from person to person, but loss of trust isn't a short term issue with me. It doesn't matter who it is. Once someone has proved that I can't trust them (by snooping my room, for example), I don't trust them. In the very few instances where I've patched things back up to some degree, it's still nothing at all like it was prior to the trust being damaged.
I think that if things had gotten to the point where I felt that I had to investigate my child's goings on, trust would have already been broken--on their part.

I suppose I'm a little leery of making my parenting decisions primarily on how it might affect my children's feelings towards me at that time. I see a lot of people here operanting from the base assumption that parental intentions are automatically bad and suspect (probably reasonably learned for most of us). However, I work very very hard to keep my motivations and intentions "right", going against childhood learning and instinct to do so. Therefore, I assume that IF I've reached that point that this kind of invasive intervention is necessary that frankly the situation is such that trust has already been broken intentionally or not and things will by defnintion never be the same.

If my child has an episode of serious mental illness, nothing will ever be the same, though I would hope that with treatment or reconfiguring our lives things will improve. If my child has an addiction, our lives and relationship will never be the "same". If I discover that my child has been compulsively lying, our relationship will never be the same. Doesn't mean I don't love them, doesn't mean that we can't work through it. But some fights/words/actions leave scars, and parents aren't the only ones who are able to do that.

This is why I guess I don't understand the implication that if you don't intervene in a given specific way that the relationship is somehow preserved. I don't think it is, because in order for someone like me to consider something invasive damage has a;ready occured and I sense danger. At that point, the relationship is already altered (though my child might not be as pissed at me as they're about to be I guess) because of the level of alarm being triggered.
 
#182 ·
If another adult breaks your trust, does that give you the right to do the same to them? If someone, say your neighbour, breaks into your house and looks through your financial documents to see what your up to does that give you the right to break into their house and look through their personal belonging?

For many people, myself included, it's much the same thing. All though we do reserve the right to look around her room if we have reason to believe DD is in danger, we also made it clear that it would take a lot for us to get to that point and so far she's come to us first. We hope to keep that level of trust. If she's hiding things from us, then it means she doesn't trust us to react in a respectful manner. I guess in a way, hiding things can be a sign the parents broke trust first in some way. I know it's not always the case, often times there are issues that are hidden because it means something is wrong on an emotional level. But my experience (and trust me I have a lot of personal experience in the area) is there is often signs left behind, either conciously or unconciously, that say "Help me!" In that case, the first line of action would be to talk. Honest talk to, not the "I feel something is wrong, is everything all right?" junk. Because that will just get "Everythings fine." But more of a "This is what I've noticed, and I'm worried that something is wrong. Can we talk about it please." sort of talk.
 
#183 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by MusicianDad View Post
If another adult breaks your trust, does that give you the right to do the same to them? If someone, say your neighbour, breaks into your house and looks through your financial documents to see what your up to does that give you the right to break into their house and look through their personal belonging?

For many people, myself included, it's much the same thing. All though we do reserve the right to look around her room if we have reason to believe DD is in danger, we also made it clear that it would take a lot for us to get to that point and so far she's come to us first. We hope to keep that level of trust. If she's hiding things from us, then it means she doesn't trust us to react in a respectful manner. I guess in a way, hiding things can be a sign the parents broke trust first in some way. I know it's not always the case, often times there are issues that are hidden because it means something is wrong on an emotional level. But my experience (and trust me I have a lot of personal experience in the area) is there is often signs left behind, either conciously or unconciously, that say "Help me!" In that case, the first line of action would be to talk. Honest talk to, not the "I feel something is wrong, is everything all right?" junk. Because that will just get "Everythings fine." But more of a "This is what I've noticed, and I'm worried that something is wrong. Can we talk about it please." sort of talk.
: surprise surprise
 
#184 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by MusicianDad View Post
If another adult breaks your trust, does that give you the right to do the same to them? If someone, say your neighbour, breaks into your house and looks through your financial documents to see what your up to does that give you the right to break into their house and look through their personal belonging?

For many people, myself included, it's much the same thing. All though we do reserve the right to look around her room if we have reason to believe DD is in danger, we also made it clear that it would take a lot for us to get to that point and so far she's come to us first. We hope to keep that level of trust. If she's hiding things from us, then it means she doesn't trust us to react in a respectful manner. I guess in a way, hiding things can be a sign the parents broke trust first in some way. I know it's not always the case, often times there are issues that are hidden because it means something is wrong on an emotional level. But my experience (and trust me I have a lot of personal experience in the area) is there is often signs left behind, either conciously or unconciously, that say "Help me!" In that case, the first line of action would be to talk. Honest talk to, not the "I feel something is wrong, is everything all right?" junk. Because that will just get "Everythings fine." But more of a "This is what I've noticed, and I'm worried that something is wrong. Can we talk about it please." sort of talk.
Absolutely. Unfortunately for us, with attachment disorders, when you talk, you get I don't know or outright lies in response. Sometimes the only thing left to do is walk right up to the stolen item and say See? This is mine, it's in your room, you didn't ask me for it, end of discussion.

The first time we caught her stealing, dh and I were just talking to her in her room and he accidentally bumped into a hat on her shelf. It tumbled off and our stuff was underneath it.
That was when she was not getting up when her alarm went off in the morning and when ds would get in the shower she would suddenly need to use our bathroom. Now the rule is, she either gets up and pees before he showers, or she waits until he is done with his 10 minute shower. Our room is completely off limits to her until she's earned back our trust. This was about a year to a year and a half ago, iirc, and the last incident was about 2 months ago.

What's wrong? Nothing. Why are you doing this? I don't know. And on and on.

If only talking worked. You really have no idea what you're going to have thrown your way until you're there.
 
#185 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by MusicianDad View Post
If another adult breaks your trust, does that give you the right to do the same to them? If someone, say your neighbour, breaks into your house and looks through your financial documents to see what your up to does that give you the right to break into their house and look through their personal belonging.
In a way. If my neighbor were to break into my house, I would call the police. They might very well indeed lose their freedom. In some states, breaking into someone's house might lead to the loss of your life, in a legally defensible way.

If anyone breaks my trust, there are consequences. For the most part, consequences for adults and children are different. Does anyone think that they should be the same? I hope not.

It makes me really sad though to see so much blaming the parent here. Believe it or not, not everything a child decides to do is the fault of the parent. And this is theoretical here. So you are saying *to parenst here* that if you contemplate doing this, then it was probably your fault in the first place.
 
#186 ·
i'm not sure i understand the concept of trust in a parent teen relationship.

i'm not sure whta my expectations of my teens will be

i know i'm going to trust that they're gonna make mistakes

sometimes i'm too critical of myself, but in a situation where my kid was stealing from me and lying from me, i think the biggest thing that would come up in my mind would be to figure out where i didn't set a good enough example that money wasn't something worth working for.

i know i'm mostly talking out of my A because i don't have teens, yet, but i do have teen siblings at home with whom i have very close relationships, and it's kind of a reoccuring theme in my experience that parents get their feelings hurt by their teens which renders them too subjective to deal with the situation in a way that the kid still feels unconditionally loved.

i want my kids to trust me. i don't think they can trust me if i have all these high expectations of trust from them. it seems like when i have feelings of trust towards my kids, it's because i know where they are at and what motivates them. and again, i will trust that they are going to make mistakes.

EDIT: bigeyes, I'm so not picking on you, just thinking out an example like yours
 
#187 ·
I do have a 15 year old son, and unfortunatly trouble is his middle name. i have never peeped through his journals or personla writing, and never would. EVER. now, im not going to say Ive never looked around his room abit, it is after all my job to keep him safe (flame away, my house, my child, and yes his safety is my responsiblity) But really, it seems to me reading a diary is just plain snooponess... if your children are doing something that would harm them, you should be aware enough as a parent to know, and snooping in a diary shouldnt be the way you keep tabs on your children imo...
 
#188 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by MusicianDad View Post
If another adult breaks your trust, does that give you the right to do the same to them? If someone, say your neighbour, breaks into your house and looks through your financial documents to see what your up to does that give you the right to break into their house and look through their personal belonging?

For many people, myself included, it's much the same thing. All though we do reserve the right to look around her room if we have reason to believe DD is in danger, we also made it clear that it would take a lot for us to get to that point and so far she's come to us first. We hope to keep that level of trust. If she's hiding things from us, then it means she doesn't trust us to react in a respectful manner. I guess in a way, hiding things can be a sign the parents broke trust first in some way. I know it's not always the case, often times there are issues that are hidden because it means something is wrong on an emotional level. But my experience (and trust me I have a lot of personal experience in the area) is there is often signs left behind, either conciously or unconciously, that say "Help me!" In that case, the first line of action would be to talk. Honest talk to, not the "I feel something is wrong, is everything all right?" junk. Because that will just get "Everythings fine." But more of a "This is what I've noticed, and I'm worried that something is wrong. Can we talk about it please." sort of talk.
I do agree with this, but on the other hand I have some very good friends with teenagers, and they've had talks like that where the teen simply doesn't talk, and they're faced with potential runaway situations and things and they have snooped, and from where I'm sitting with my sweet 6-year-old I'm in no position to judge. If I had a child going through some of the things some friends' kids have gone through, I'd do whatever it took to keep them safe. And these friends are good, loving, respectful parents. Teens of good parents do incredibly self-destructive things sometimes too.
 
#193 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by amydidit View Post
But, I don't see how that is related to this discussion? That wasn't a parent snooping.
No, but it would be an argument in favor of having your child's passwords, instead of just being on their Friend list on sites like this, and email/IM....if you're just their friend, you probably can't see what's on *their* friend's pages...whereas if you have their password, you can see exactly what they see. If I logged onto my 13-yo's account to do a spot check and saw a nasty message like the fake kid's account left in the story, I would have been able to talk to her, and try ot help her do something about it...not that it would have definitely saved her, but it might have. My thoughts on the mom who started the whole thing....I can't even compose a coherent sentence to express my outrage.

Reading some of the more recent posts - I would DEFINITELY be trying to talk to my kids, engage them, figure out what was wrong and how I or someone else could help them if I saw them acting differently/worrisomely....but sometimes kids just won't talk, or will deny anything is wrong even though you know something is wrong. And you can't really MAKE a child tell you something (well, I mean you can, but not by using any method that I would want to) - heck, my almost 5 yo sometimes doesn't want to tell me what's going on when he's sad or mad, and I know we have a close, attached relationship - and he's ONLY 5...it's just his personality. I would bet that almost every person here who has said they would snoop/monitor if they felt they needed to would obviously also be talking to their child before it got to that point, and trying to help them first, doing whatever they could to help their child. HOWEVER...if your child won't talk to you, or anyone else, and you think they're in trouble, your options become significantly more limited, and significantly less pleasant.
 
#194 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by The4OfUs View Post
No, but it would be an argument in favor of having your child's passwords, instead of just being on their Friend list on sites like this, and email/IM....if you're just their friend, you probably can't see what's on *their* friend's pages...whereas if you have their password, you can see exactly what they see. If I logged onto my 13-yo's account to do a spot check and saw a nasty message like the fake kid's account left in the story, I would have been able to talk to her, and try ot help her do something about it...not that it would have definitely saved her, but it might have. My thoughts on the mom who started the whole thing....I can't even compose a coherent sentence to express my outrage.

Reading some of the more recent posts - I would DEFINITELY be trying to talk to my kids, engage them, figure out what was wrong and how I or someone else could help them if I saw them acting differently/worrisomely....but sometimes kids just won't talk, or will deny anything is wrong even though you know something is wrong. And you can't really MAKE a child tell you something (well, I mean you can, but not by using any method that I would want to) - heck, my almost 5 yo sometimes doesn't want to tell me what's going on when he's sad or mad, and I know we have a close, attached relationship - and he's ONLY 5...it's just his personality. I would bet that almost every person here who has said they would snoop/monitor if they felt they needed to would obviously also be talking to their child before it got to that point, and trying to help them first, doing whatever they could to help their child. HOWEVER...if your child won't talk to you, or anyone else, and you think they're in trouble, your options become significantly more limited, and significantly less pleasant.
thats what I was trying to say. thanks!
 
#195 ·
As a mother with teens. Yes I would do whatever I felt necessary to keep my kids safe.
Sometimes they don't give you reason, but you have a gut feeling you need to check, so I will check. I ask them to show me, I don't snoop. I used to see Ds contacts on facebook, I aslo had him show me who he talkked to on MSN mesenger. Not really secrets seeing the only computer with internet is in the living room next to where I sit, but still, we've done the talks and given them a good foundation and I hope they make good decisions. But when that gut feeling gets me, I check.
 
#196 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by The4OfUs View Post
No, but it would be an argument in favor of having your child's passwords, instead of just being on their Friend list on sites like this, and email/IM....if you're just their friend, you probably can't see what's on *their* friend's pages...whereas if you have their password, you can see exactly what they see. If I logged onto my 13-yo's account to do a spot check and saw a nasty message like the fake kid's account left in the story, I would have been able to talk to her, and try ot help her do something about it...not that it would have definitely saved her, but it might have. My thoughts on the mom who started the whole thing....I can't even compose a coherent sentence to express my outrage.
I agree with everyone that there might be situations where I would change my mind, but I guess my base feeling is that... I don't expect to hear every single bad thing said to my child at school. I'm not convinced that just because I *can* see it online, I'm justified in snooping around to do so.

To me this is not a MySpace story so much as a bullying story. I think the media get a lot of mileage out of their presentation of these issues.

I can see having clear rules for Internet use.
 
#197 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by The4OfUs View Post
No, but it would be an argument in favor of having your child's passwords, instead of just being on their Friend list on sites like this, and email/IM....if you're just their friend, you probably can't see what's on *their* friend's pages...whereas if you have their password, you can see exactly what they see. If I logged onto my 13-yo's account to do a spot check and saw a nasty message like the fake kid's account left in the story, I would have been able to talk to her, and try ot help her do something about it...not that it would have definitely saved her, but it might have. My thoughts on the mom who started the whole thing....I can't even compose a coherent sentence to express my outrage.

Reading some of the more recent posts - I would DEFINITELY be trying to talk to my kids, engage them, figure out what was wrong and how I or someone else could help them if I saw them acting differently/worrisomely....but sometimes kids just won't talk, or will deny anything is wrong even though you know something is wrong. And you can't really MAKE a child tell you something (well, I mean you can, but not by using any method that I would want to) - heck, my almost 5 yo sometimes doesn't want to tell me what's going on when he's sad or mad, and I know we have a close, attached relationship - and he's ONLY 5...it's just his personality. I would bet that almost every person here who has said they would snoop/monitor if they felt they needed to would obviously also be talking to their child before it got to that point, and trying to help them first, doing whatever they could to help their child. HOWEVER...if your child won't talk to you, or anyone else, and you think they're in trouble, your options become significantly more limited, and significantly less pleasant.
Okay, yes, it definitely is a good example of when *snooping* (seriously, I don't like that word and don't think it's appropriate when you DC KNOWS you do it) could have possibly prevented this terrible outcome.
 
#198 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by momma4fun View Post

sometimes i'm too critical of myself, but in a situation where my kid was stealing from me and lying from me, i think the biggest thing that would come up in my mind would be to figure out where i didn't set a good enough example that money wasn't something worth working for.

EDIT: bigeyes, I'm so not picking on you, just thinking out an example like yours
It was nerve wracking. You do ask yourself what makes them do things like that, especially when all you get from them is I don't know or lies when you ask them. We spent a year or so with shrinks who only made the situation worse, we tried everything we could think of. Unfortunately, we had to become a lot more authoritarian than we like, and she has to be treated like she's much younger than she is because psychologically she is. The right therapist was a godsend.

In her case it's mostly a passive-aggressive thing. She gets mad, she steals something to get revenge. She gets caught, she deliberately does something to annoy someone else. She has to do something she doesn't particularly want to do, she drags it out as long as possible to make everyone have to wait on her and possibly not get to do something they want to do. It's a control issue, as in I don't need parents and I will not do anything I don't want to do. If I have to contribute in any way, I will make the rest of you miserable. For as long as I've known her, whenever she opens or unwraps something, she drops the trash wherever she is, right on the floor. I don't have an explanation for that one at all, but she sweeps the floor a lot because it's the only natural consequence we can think of for it.
:

It's loads of fun.
After almost 4 years of pulling my hair out I finally learned my mantra; It's not my problem, it's your problem. If she lies to me and says she emptied her pockets before putting her clothes in the hamper, when I start to load the laundry, her favorite jeans don't get washed in that load. Not my problem, wear something else. If she lies to me about doing her homework, her teacher calls me to let me know she didn't follow directions and she gives her a make-up assignment to do over the weekend instead of watching a movie. Not my problem, you should have done it the first time. We live in the tropics, so bugs can be a problem if you let them...she piled candy wrappers in drawers, on her closet floor, behind furniture, so now she has to keep gum and any candy she gets at Christmas/Halloween or as a treat in a tin in the kitchen where we can supervise and be sure the wrapper gets thrown away.
It all feels very Gestapo-like, but the alternative is to live in a pig-sty and/or constantly pick up after her, which I am not going to do.

DS has the same kind of thing, though. If he doesn't empty his pockets, his favorite clothing doesn't get washed, and he's been grounded from all things electronic a few times. The difference is, he learns from a mistake and moves on, where dsd repeats the same mistake and seemingly doesn't make the connection between actions and consequences, which is all part of an attachment disorder. All you can do is repeat repeat repeat and hope it sinks in.

I drove myself nuts trying to figure this one out with logic. There is no logic when you're dealing with an attachment disorder, that's the whole point. No cause and effect thinking, no learning from mistakes, no logic, lying about stuff that doesn't matter, bizarre behavior that drives you batty while you try to figure out why nothing works.

Then you find a therapist who actually knows what they're doing and it's almost magical. This has been the most frustrating, heartbreaking journey...dsd has endured so much weirdness and insanity in her short life and is so not to blame for the way she is, but it doesn't make it any less frustrating to deal with on a day to day basis to know that. She's making so much progress, but it's always going to be stressful feeling like we're forced to maintain such strict control over her environment. I don't like it, but I can't argue with the results. I enjoyed parenting so much more when I was able to be relaxed and a bit more permissive, but the current needs of our family won't allow for that. As much as I don't like having to question every little thing I do and having to plan out every move I make as a parent, I do enjoy the relative peace we have in the household since we implemented the new system. I feel like the warden, but I'm not constantly on edge or simmering with rage, and she's definitely doing much better, so I have to live with that and accept it for what it is. And hope when she's older we can relax the rules some.
:

I remember my mom digging through my trash can in my room for no reason at all, just being nosy, and it infuriated me....so having to be all over dsd is kind of a pain to me now.
 
#199 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by H & J's Mom View Post
I truly hope there is never a need. If I suspected a dangerous issue I think I would do what was necessary at the time but other than that - No Way.

I think to snoop and sneak around would only break the trust with my kids that I've worked very hard to establish.

There are things that kids don't want to talk to parents about and they have the right to their own private and personal thoughts. Unless there is a serious concern, I just could not justify invading someone's thoughts and privacy like that.

I can't agree with the my house and the no right to privacy arguments. I might make the house payments but it is our family's home … everyone should feel secure and comfortable in their own home.
i totally agree with this.
 
#200 ·
i was a moody teen. not suicidal or into drugs but definitely in a funk. i didn't want my parents help on it. instead, i spent a lot of time talking to my friends.

to have my parents invade my privacy and snoop in my room and bring up dumb crushes or angry thoughts i wrote in a diary would have created more drama in my life not less.

if your kid is really going off the deep end then room snooping/diary reading/key stroke detecting seems to be a bit too little, too late to be honest.

and if they're not going off the deep end and you are paying attention to their behaviors and friends and you have a good relationship with them why do it?
 
#201 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by stickywicket67 View Post

if your kid is really going off the deep end then room snooping/diary reading/key stroke detecting seems to be a bit too little, too late to be honest.

and if they're not going off the deep end and you are paying attention to their behaviors and friends and you have a good relationship with them why do it?
exactly
 
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