Do parents have the right to snoop?

Great Debates
41

  1. An 18-year-old is legally an adult.

  2. Perhaps your mom would feel that the appropriate way to respond to your searches of her room was to tell you to live elsewhere. This would be interesting, because, of course, you could not respond to that by telling her to live elsewhere. In other words, the parent of an 18-year-old living at home rent-free or at greatly-reduced (well below market value) rent still has the responsibility to ensure that her home is not at risk from the activities of her tenant. Of course, if you are paying market-value rent, then you should have no trouble paying it elsewhere, and the discussion becomes academic.

  • Rick
42

  1. Unless it’s a very stupid kid, searching the internet History is probably going to be useless

  2. I can see the arguments for searching rooms, but is there anyone here who can confirm that they wouldn’t have a problem with reading a diary? To me that goes way beyond the limit, but perhaps I’m just being silly.

43

So what makes your kids not stuff their room full of pot, dirty magazines, and bombs once they get to college and there is nobody to search their rooms?

Kids have to slowly learn to be responsible for themselves, and that takes just a little bit of trust and respect. If the only reason that your kid is not keeping her room full of drugs and bad stuff is that you might search it, they will not have learned the kind of restraint and values that they will carry for the rest of their lives. Instead, they will learn that mom is a facist who won’t let them have any fun.

 I've seen so many kids crash and burn once they only learned "Don't do drugs cos mom will get mad", and never learned "Don't do drugs because going to class stoned sucks". It's hard, because you have to let your kids get in a little bit of trouble and learn the natural consequences of some things. If the only thing keeping your kid from going wild is that their parents might get mad, then when those artificial restraints are no longer there, and the temptation for the forbidden has reached the breaking point, there is nothing that is stopping these newly minted adults from going completely nuts.  The only difference is this time around the potential for trouble is a lot bigger, the oppertunities a lot easier, and the consequences include things like jail time and bankrupsy.

I’ve seen it happen so many times it isn’t even funny.

44

Sorry I’m a little late to the party. A coupla things I wanted to comment on:

Bullshit. Being a teen is given as an excuse for all kinds of unacceptable and irresponsible behavior, from surliness, sleeping til noon, lack of respect for parents, bad manners, etc. Not a luxury I and the missus choose to give in to. When you get the hell out of my house and off my dime, you can be as surly as you want. I refuse to accept it as unreasonable for me to require that my kids be respectful and pleasant to immediate family members - and other people including teachers, extended family, some friends, and - yeah - most strangers.

Well, now you have. My kids have to keep their rooms neat and straightened up, but we all have our own chores for cleaning/maintaining the whole house. I do the weekly dusting, sweeping, and vacuuming in all of the rooms of the house - including my kids’ bedrooms.

And there is the periodical cleaning along the lines of "Let’s go thru your old clothes to see what you need this year …"

We regularly tell our kids we can and will search their rooms or their internet usage if we feel we have a need to. So long as they do well at school, perform in other areas we consider important, develop positive relationships, have good attitude, etc., however, we don’t feel we have any reason to.

It is quite an incentive to get our kids to keep their rooms tidy to tell them that if they don’t, we will, which will entail going thru all of their personal stuff to put things away properly.

While we give our kids considerable input in the manner in which their rooms are decorated, we make the final decisions - especially about things like paint, wall decorations, etc. They haven’t offered to buy their own furnishings yet, so we have considerable say in the manner such purchases are made. For example, my one daughter wanted a PURPLE room. The walls are an extremely light shade of violet, which is heightened by the bedspread, etc. My other daughter wants a BLUE room - as of yet, we have resisted painting those walls, which we just painted a couple of years ago. But if she wants to replace her bedding etc. with blue when replacements are needed, that we can do.

I guess they’ll have to grow up repressed by figuring some way to express their individuality OTHER than tacking Menudo and Peter Max posters on their walls.

45

If they have a problem with you searching their room, that’s a reason to search it. It’s a parents responsiblity to know what is in their house and what their kids are into.
If the parents in Columbine knew what kind of stuff their children were storing in the garage and in their bedrooms, the shooting may not have happened.
Children don’t need an explanation of why a parent is being a parent. That’s why they are the kids and you are the parents. When they move out and get their own place, they can make their own rules.
If you don’t know what your kids are doing, you are not a good parent.

46

I never searched my kids’ room, giving them the right to privacy, until we found out our 15-yr-old had been experimenting with drugs. We did not find out by searchng her room. However, once we did find out, we told her that by using illegal drugs, she had given up all rights to privacy: we would search her room whenever we wanted to, read her email, take away all her instant messengers (she eventually got one back for good behavior) and track her internet use. We made it crystal clear that we were doing this because our love for her and concern for her health and well-being was much more important than her right to privacy. She understood.
She sees a counsellor once a week, privately, and we would never read her diary (unless tracking her internet usage gave us major, major cause for concern), so her thoughts can still be private. BTW, though we reserve the right to listen in on her phone calls, we mostly don’t, as long as we know who she’s talking to, and it’s someone we trust (she’s no longer allowed to associate with the kids she was using drugs with). Our 11-yr-old has seen all this, and hopefully is learning something valuable from it. My kids have the opportunity to have many friends, but they only get two parents, so we have to be more concerned with being parents than being friends.

47

After Columbine, several parents I know exclaimed “how could the parents not know? How could these kids hide guns and bombs and everything?”

And yet, a few of these parents also held the opinion that their child’s room was somehow sacrosanct.

Your children are not Saddam Hussein. They should not be dictating when, where, why, and how inspections should or should not occur.

It is actually possible to love, respect, and care for your children as human beings and young adults, AND search their rooms when called for. Everyone keeps telling me that I am too harsh in the “children punished as adults” type threads, telling me ad nauseum that “kids make mistakes, kids mess up”, etc, etc. Well…how do they learn they made mistakes, and that they’re messing up, if they know they can hide drugs, guns, bombs, hardcore porn, or whatever in their rooms, and you will never find out about it - because you “trust them”? :confused:

Some people on this Board need to start being just a little bit more consistent in their arguments.

48

There is no expectation of privacy in my house. Privacy is a privilege that is maintained by being earned.

Especially on the computer.

I use a monitoring software program (mine is “Bigbrotheriswatching”) and the kids know that it is there. We have rules and I expect that they will be followed. My 16 yo was downloading porn that made me disgusted. He was getting online in the middle of the night and then sleeping during classes. One log showed him trying to break into the program with my usual password and then downloading a program to spy on me spying on him when that didn’t work. If only he applied such persistence to his schoolwork! I’ll be unlikely to read his email unless I have good cause, or to search his drawers … but I would if I felt there was some reason to. (A younger child with lots of email or chat activity would be getting it read, looking out for predators.)

Y’know, in the projects, if your kid is caught dealing drugs then your whole family gets kicked out … presumed lack of adequate supervision.

Being aware of what my kids are doing and with whom is my job.

49

I’m just glad to hear the voices of other parents who think along the same lines I do.

There is a huge, huge difference between authoritarian and authoritative. And I think that when some people hear authoritative parents discuss their views, they automatically assume that we run our homes like some sort of boot camp. That’s not the case at all–it’s a matter of setting up expectations, and consistently enforcing the standards you maintain for your home and the behavior of those who reside in it.

As far as comments like this:

I’m not picking on balron, because this is a common sentiment. But basically, my response would be:

  1. If you aren’t a rent-paying adult, you are NOT MY PEER in this house. You don’t have the same rights or responsibilities.
    And as an addendum:
  2. If you really need to search my room, have at it. I have nothing to hide and nothing to be ashamed of. Anything you do find will be legal for an adult of my age and perfectly appropriate for an adult in a consenting sexual relationship.

The very fear of finding something sexy would be enough to put my son off, I believe. :wink:

Of course, I don’t get my back up about FBI searches or anything like that either…my life is pretty much an open book. A messy one, to be sure, but an open one.

(I think I might be missing the gene that makes people upset about invasions of privacy.)

50

I agree with this.

However, being between the ages of twelve and twenty-two does count as such.

I don’t need anyone’s permission as to what to do in any of the rooms in my house. Even the rooms where my children sleep.

Regards,
Shodan

51

Well, I believe that parents have the right to know when their kids are doing dangerous things, but teenagers have the right to privacy. They NEED it. They want to trust their parents, but if their parents snoop around, they’ll be angry and resentful. It’s one thing for the parents to be “nosy” and ask a lot of questions. I think it’s all right for parents to look around the room, but only at things that are in the open. No going through drawers or reading diaries. Definitely no reading diaries without permission - that’s violating personal boundaries. It’s all right to check internet history too, but no reading emails.

My friend’s mother is VERY nosy and suspects her daughter of doing lots of evil things my friend doesn’t do. Her mother constantly goes through her room, even checking the trash. She has no respect for privacy at all. Fortunately, this friend is in college now, and her parents can’t scour her dorm room. My friend absolutely despises her parents (they’re emotionally abusive and don’t respect her), and I don’t blame her.

As for me, my parents pretty much respected my privacy. They’d ask me somewhat personal questions now and then and glance around my room, but they left it at that. That made me happy.

I think parents should respect the privacy of their children, but they also have the right to know what goes on in their lives. However, if the parents seriously suspect something is wrong (the kid smells like pot or appears pregnant), they should talk with the kid first. If the kid doesn’t respond or seems suspicious, a full search might be necessary (minus diary reading). But only when safety is an issue.

52

I’d say an unofficial poll would show that most of those that are opposed to parents entering their children’s rooms are minors, or close to it. I’d bet there are few parents responding that their child’s right to privacy outweighs the parental rights.

IANA parent, but I’m an adult (41) and if I did have children, I’d assume that I’m free to go anywhere in my house. I don’t know if my parents ever searched my room - there was nothing for them to find if they did. But I wouldn’t’ve felt terribly put out if they had. BTW - I feel it’s alright for schools to search lockers, too.

StG

53

Tonight’s top story: New historical evidence reveals that most supporters of female suffrage may have been females.

It’s easy to ignore a possible injustice when you aren’t the victim. For the record, I’m not a minor, and I believe there are very few situations where searching is appropriate.

If a child becomes used to searches of his private space, what happens when he grows up and the government wants to search his property? Will he stick up for his 4th Amendment rights, and those of his fellow citizens, or will he say “they just want to make sure I’m not breaking the law, so what’s the harm?”

54

Since it was my post you quoted, I’ll respond.

I did say within reason, and while you could take this as I’ll let my kids suggest what they want and go along with everything so long as it’s not too outrageous or expensive or dangerous, I should add that I was coming from my I-live-in-a-rental frame of mind. Painting the walls and changing the flooring was, in my mind at least, out of the question. But furniture choices, bedspread color, curtains, posters… that’s all under my ‘within reason’ clause. My kids would have input on those matters, but not the final say.

55

Mr2001 - the difference is, all the adults responding were once kids, unlike the question of gender. Your memory of your adolescence doesn’t go away when you hit thirty, however you colour those experiences with the added knowledge you’ve gained the hard way.

StG

56

This thread does leave you torn doesn’t it?

My mother always searched my room and listened to my phone calls…Consequently, I smuggled love letters out of my room in my knee highs and disposed of them at school…And I only spoke with a friend once on the phone and never did again all of my teenage years…I never invited friends to my house or went anywhere with friends b/c it was such a hassle…

Though I never once drank or did drugs while in living at home…I was in my principal’s or guidance couselor’s office many times b/cmy mother was suspicous of “glassy eyes” or a bad mood…I was a straight A honor student who worked and never had a boyfriend…

On the other hand, as the mother of 12 and 8yr old boys, I would search their rooms in an instant if I had good, solid reason to believe they were about to harm themselves or others…I think parents have the responsibility to really know their children and to protect them…I think if you know your child, you know when it is appropriate to investigate…Randomly searching without cause shouldn’t be an issue…

and on the subject of kids cleaning their own rooms…I dated and lived with a guy 13yrs my senior for 3yrs…One of our biggest issues was that he still did everything for his 18 and 20yr old kids including all meals, laundry, room cleaning, etc…I think that was nonsense…
His 20yr old even got a 15yr old girl pregnant and there was no discussion of the fact that perhaps this wasn’t quite right…Though I totally was against it, the girl even lived with us for a bit till I absolutely couldn’t stand it anymore…I was investigated by social services b/c I “allowed” the girl to sleep with the 20yr old under my roof…The whole situation was disgusting

57

AudreyK yes, I was aware that you said within reason. Didn’t I include that in my quote? I had no intention of misrepresenting your post. Sorry if you feel I did.

I was commenting upon something similar to what you posted. I am often amazed when I go into peoples’ homes, and see that their kids have done things which effectively damage their rooms. Stickers on the doors/walls/ceilings, multiple wall hangings with tape or pins, dark/unconventional paint schemes.

IMO none of these are desirable when the time comes to show and try to sell your house. And I suspect that in many instances the kid will not be the one doing the sanding, spackling, priming and repainting necessary to repair the the room.

My home is a considerable portion of my net worth. My kids do not have a right to express their individuality in a manner that reduces the value of this asset.

58

Dinsdale, if my children were not involved in the sanding, spackling, and priming of their own walls I would probably feel the same way you do- However the house I was raised in routinely changed colors, and most of the time on a whim. We spent the time working on stuff together, and catching up over smelly paint cans. Our house was gorgeous, and when selling time came we had returned it to the gleaming blank slate that it had come to us as- we just had cooler pic’s of that house than anybody else!!!
Just to be clear, I’m not trying to encourage destruction of your house, I’m sure that you like it the way it is, but I’ve always found that stuff is made for using. If you can’t have fun with it, why have it? It’s like collecting cars that are too nice to drive, or furniture too nice to sit on- Wear the Gucci as often as possible, wear your diamonds to dinner, and let your living space reflect who you are, for gods sakes, you have to LIVE there.

59

Your memories may not go away, but they can certainly become distorted. As Leonard Shelby said, “Memory can change the shape of a room; it can change the color of a car.” It can make the pain of surgery seem like nothing. It can make intense feelings of anger, depression, embarrassment, and violation disappear in a puff of recollection: “My parents read my diary and I sure was upset for a few weeks, but I guess it built character.”

If you only remember the facts of an incident, and not the impact that it had on you, you might not think twice about inflicting the same forgotten misery on someone else.

Besides that, you must also consider that people are more likely to impose restrictions on groups that they are not part of: Suppose you show a group of 30-year-olds a sheet of statistics that show an unusually high number of crimes committed at night by teens age 14 to 18, then ask if they’re in favor of a new curfew law for teenagers.

The next day, show another group of 30-year-olds the exact same statistics, but with “14 to 18” changed to “34 to 38”, and ask if they’re in favor of a curfew law for thirtysomethings. Marvel in amazement as you don’t even get half as many yes votes as you did the day before.

For these reasons, and others, it’s not surprising that the people most affected by parental snooping are the most vocal detractors. That, in itself, offers no evidence that snooping is good or bad.