Not exactly a younger poster, but I do agree with clayton_e on this one. I am a psych major, and at this point I do know enough to realize that taking such drastic measures has a high potential for damaging the parent-child relationship. When the kids are adolescents, the parents should be using a mix of authoritative and permissive styles (let the teens make mistakes, but let them suffer the consequences of those mistakes). An hysterical, over-the-top reaction to real or imagined drug use, like hiring a drug-sniffing canine, is not at all going to be healthy for that relationship. Not only are the parents saying, “You’re not worth trusting”, they are also invading their offspring’s privacy (sorely needed during the teens).
Moreover, they are opening their child up to introduction into the penal system, which, let’s face it, really sucks in most cities and towns when it comes to dealing with juvies. Having a record is not a good thing. If they find drugs and don’t report it, they are big stinking hypocrites, and that’s not a good model for the kids. If they do report it, they will have effectively fucked up their child’s chances of getting financial aid for college, among other things.
Well if the kids are out of the house and on their own it’s none of the parents business.
Otherwise, if you’re under 18, no, you shouldn’t have an adult relationship with your parents. Your parents are there to make sure you don’t go too far during your teenage years. Lots of people had truly bad parents but the good ones have set a foundation that will keep you from going overboard (with drugs, experimental sex, et cetera) during your teenage years and good parents will regularly make sure you aren’t fucking up too bad.
The best parents in the world can’t keep kids from doing things they shouldn’t as teenagers. But good parents mix being a hardass with being decent, and I don’t think good parents should be “their kid’s best friends.” I think parents that try to hard to be their children’s friends don’t provide the structure and environment a teenager needs.
My parents were wrong about a lot of things when I was a teenager but they were right about a lot of others. I wish my parents had be more strict with me in a lot of areas, no one gained from years of me fucking up in school, drinking too much, having sex with loose women et cetera. And it’s all traced back to me going out of control in HS.
I don’t do any drugs, so the search wouldn’t worry me resultswise, however I’d be very offended my mother didn’t trust me enough just to ask, outright. She knows I drink and if I were taking any drugs, to a limit of how hard they were, I think I’d be willing to tell her.
"That would seriously be the end of my relationship with my parents until they were able to have a normal adult relationship with me. "
Well, normal adult relationships don’t usually entail one person housing another for free in their residence while footing all their bills plus putting out large amounts of cash for stuff like college and all.
Normal adults don’t tend to have the legal right to make medical decisions for other normal adults.
IF you’re under legal age and living in your parents home, any idea that you’re having a normal adult relationship is them is downright nuts. If you believe you’ve ended your relationship with your parents while still living on their dole you’re doubly nuts.
If, on the other hand, a kid’s parents bring in a drug sniffing dog out of the blue then they are kinda nuts, too. If they have good reason to believe said dog would find plenty to bark about in “the child’s room”, then all the “you’ve destroyed our trust” whining from the kid is just that much more bullshit.
Long Time First Time, well, I was over 18 (end of high school) when a situation arose between myself and my parents. While not drug related (although I had been a pot smoker at this time, which they knew and didn’t like, although from what I’ve picked up from bits of conversation my dad was a bigger drug user than me back when he was in college), they suddenly clamped down and tried to micromanage my life (I’d assume because I would not be under their control much longer). So when the situation got to a point where it could not be manageable they kicked me out. They expected me to come back and accept their micromanagement because they thought I did not have a place to live. I did, and cut them out of my life for about a year. It was a very long time until we had a normal relationship where they did not try to tell me how to run my life. Maybe a year and a half later my dad comes into my apartment and informs me that the house bong had tipped over. I told him it was a steamroller and he comments “Oh, we didn’t have those when I was in college.” In the relationship they had and wanted to have before I left (even though, again, the situation was not drug related) I would have been living at home through college with all recreational things such as pot strictly prohibited. Me cutting off my relationship with them ended up, in the end, made them realize that micromanagement, or management in any way of my life was not an option.
If something such as a drug dog were brought into the situation (again, if the situation were drug related) I don’t think they could ever regain my respect or trust. That would be it. It is just too harsh for something that is overall pretty much unharmful.
If, however, the adolecent is 15 or younger I would recommend strong discouragement if the parents felt that they had to step in. Don’t send in the dog, don’t give him a strip search, don’t get out the rubber gloves. You’re just gonna make that kid run like hell when he can, only looking back to give you the finger.
Oh, and by the way, my parents (even before the situation) did not plan to help pay for my college. So I had no obligation to them to allow them to tell me how to run my life.
Sounds like you were living independently and of majority age. So then you’re free to attempt to forge whatever relationship works between your relatives and yourself.
Getting back to the original premis of the thread, at that point looking for drugs by any means on your property is pretty whack.
I don’t do drugs, but the day my employer tries that shit on me is the day I quit. I don’t care if they aren’t going to find anything, I oppose such an intrusion on general principles.
At a pragmatic level, at a certain point pissing the kid off by bringing in a fucking drug-sniffing dog (Jesus, why not just install metal detectors in your mud room?) is going to make him/her more likely to do drugs, and more dangerous drugs, not less.
It has nothing to do with “an adult relationship;” it has to do with using disciplinary methods that aren’t completely counterproductive. If your home is a jail, they’ll try to escape.
