Snooping on your kids…

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Your kids are too old for you to go in and clean their rooms like that. They are certainly too old for you to be rearranging pillowing and their blankets. You were wrong. Hard stop. You know that and crossed a line reading the journal.

This is different than spot checking the phone, internet use or cleaning the room when it got dirty out of control. If you suspect drugs, you toss it like a jail cell. But in your situation, you give your kid privacy.

No, you don’t say anything since you were in the wrong. Your kid is entitled to have feeling and you violated their privacy.

Yeah, OP wasn't tidying up their room. They were searching through the kid's stuff.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:And adding to my post above, what behavior are you addressing? She wrote swear words? What a great coping mechanism! She wrote down a rant instead of expressing it aloud! If only adults had that level of self control. The world would be a better place.

Yep, this is actually kind of great.

OP, we've all been there. We've all snooped.

As they get older, you'll need to set rules and boundaries with them. For example, when they get a phone, in the beginning, most parents require the kids to give them their passwords and they tell the kids that they will check their phone periodically.

But you can't do that forever. Ideally, you give them more latitude as they get older. IDK what the cutoff age is. It's probably different for every kid.

I would probably not tell your child that you snooped this time.

[Anonymous]

Oh, and for God's sake, open your mind to the possibility that some day, she may indeed be kissing girls.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:10 y/o DD gets good grades and is an all-around good kid for the most part. she's not a problem child. She is typical... sibling rivalry at times, frustrated being told no, hates that she doesn't always get her way, etc.

Now, this morning, I was doing their laundry. I went into the bedroom she shares with her 12 y/o sister and noticed her bed was a bit messy, so I went to make it a bit neater, since there seemed to be a lot of stuff under her covers. I discovered 3 pillows (I don't know why she needs so many... but whatever). - So I go to straighten them up and I discover a blanket folded up under the pillows. I pulled it out to put it back in the closet and her journal fell out of it. OK. So, I’m standing there with her journal in my hand. I opened it up. There weren't things in there that were too terrible, though she did go on a swearing rant about something that made her mad, but she knows better than to ever let me hear her swear.

But now I feel terribly guilty about my snooping. Would somebody out there please help me feel better about this? I do believe we need to keep an eye on our kids and who they are when they're not with us because like it or not, they only show us what they want us to see. Anyway, I didn't mean to do it. My mission in entering her room was innocent enough. So it's not like I went in to snoop.

So my question: Do you snoop on your kids? and then... what if I find something really disturbing in the coming years? I don’t want her to hide things from me, but if I found out she was kissing boys (or worse, other girls) or doing drugs, having sex, etc. I may have to come clean and tell her I know about it because I snooped just so I can address the behavior.

Let's talk about the bolded, OP. Why is it worse if she's kissing girls? Why is kissing boys or girls on par with doing drugs?

Thank you! An entire page of replies ignoring the homophobia.

+2

[Anonymous]

You are a snoop and a liar OP

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You are a snoop and a liar OP

In pretty sure op is a troll and author of multiple stupid threads

But just for the record unless your kid is engaging in dangerous behavior and it's a matter of life or death snooping is inappropriate.

Your kids need privacy away from you. You don't need access to their every thought. You don't need to manage or control everything. It's actually healthier long term for them to develop away from you. Yes they will make mistakes it's okay.