How to perform a room search

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Send his ass to boot camp.

What makes you think that he is old enough for the military or that the military wants his disrespectful attitude?

That said, Military academies are really good for some kids and are worth considering by some families.

Outward Bound and other wilderness experiences can also be really good for some kids. They build self-reliance and self-confidence. They get them away from the pressures of teendom.

Volunteering in the community is also good for kids, but probably only if done willingly and not forcibly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Thanks. This is helpful. I am not looking for anything in particular, but we have been having attitude issues and I want to make it very clear to my teen that if he chooses to act in a particular way, his rights to privacy and trust are demolished. It is less about actually finding things, and more asserting inserting our authority as parents that unfortunately, has gone by the wayside in the past few months.

I'm that poster back again - glad you found my post helpful. That being said, your reply raises a few questions in my mind as I would not generally advocate the approach I posted in anything less than a situation where you have an actual suspicion that the teen is on drugs, engaging in behavior that could hurt himself or others, or breaking the law. I'm not really one to try to micromanage others' parenting, so you can feel free to ignore the rest of my post if you like. But, would you be open to considering other approaches to dealing with the attitude problem that stop short of something this drastic?

Doing something like this might honestly ruin your teen's trust in you and hamper your loving relationship for years or possibly forever. In a drugs/alcohol/crime type situation, I would say the parental duty to protect the child makes it worth the risk, but I hesitate to make the same assessment for something you describe as attitude issues and loss of appropriate respect for parental authority.

To be clear, I consider myself a very strict parent so a bad attitude, lack of respect for authority, and insubordination would never fly in my house and I'm absolutely not advocating you let that slide. If you decide the room search route is right for your family, that is entirely your business and I completely respect that as your choice, but I just wanted to mention a few possible alternatives because I hope to help you avoid any possible regrets if the method I suggested turns out to be too harsh for the situation.

Have you sat your teen down and had a very serious talk laying down the law - sort of an "I've been seeing X Y and Z disrespectful behaviors, and that doesn't work in this family; let me reiterate our expectations" type chat? How was that received? Does grounding work? For pervasive attitude and defiance, we would probably go with room restriction where the kid is either at school/doing homework, eating a family meal or doing a family activity, doing (extra) chores, or in her very boring room which had been emptied of all electronics.

Is your child involved in a sport, an extra-curricular activity, or a faith community? If this bad attitude has been cropping up outside the home (or even if it hasn't) could a respected adult mentor from an activity like that have a chat with him to serve as sort of a wake up call? Would you consider having him get involved in community service/volunteering? Perhaps something like that would serve as its own kind of wake up call to knock the attitude off towards the people who've made his life of relative comfort possible.

This is such a helpful and awesome post. OP, listen to this poster. He or she sounds like a kick-ass parent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Two teenagers. Never searched their rooms. Both in college now.

Not mine either. But I feel for the parents who would need to. I wonder if an off duty police officer or addiction counselor could be hired to do this.

You must be a parent of toddlers.

Important Info: The cops are not your friends. If they find a crumb of weed your child's entire future can be destroyed. Ruined. No driver's license, no student loans, expelled from school, kicked out of whatever.

Further, inviting strangers into your home to do the parenting is going to have very negative results. The OP wants to establish (or re-inforce) parental authority. Calling in the narcs is counter-productive to that goal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Send his ass to boot camp.

What makes you think that he is old enough for the military or that the military wants his disrespectful attitude?

That said, Military academies are really good for some kids and are worth considering by some families.

Outward Bound and other wilderness experiences can also be really good for some kids. They build self-reliance and self-confidence. They get them away from the pressures of teendom.

Volunteering in the community is also good for kids, but probably only if done willingly and not forcibly.

Be very careful. Those boot camp and outward bound businesses are rife with corruption and shattered trust. I looked into this deeply and discovered it was a horrible exploitation of families in crisis. Horrible.

[Anonymous]

When I was a teen, I had a bad attitude. I did not do my homework and I was angry. I was not on drugs...no weapons...just depressed.

My parents searched my room. The only thing they found was porn. That actually was a relief for my mom, as she had previously wondered if I was gay...(not that she would have a problem, but she wanted grand kids).

A good service might be a drug sniffing dog...if the dog sniffs and gets interested, then there is a problem.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A cautionary tale... Years ago I searched my 17yo DDs room for what I suspected was pot. I didn't find any. DD was furious with me.
The next night after coming home from work I went into my room and was mortified to find my sex toys and porn VHS tapes had been dumped on my pillow.
I never searched her room again.

Wow. What a horrible child. The level of entitlement involved in that is staggering to me. I would have a really hard time having her in my home after she turned 18 if she did that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A cautionary tale... Years ago I searched my 17yo DDs room for what I suspected was pot. I didn't find any. DD was furious with me.
The next night after coming home from work I went into my room and was mortified to find my sex toys and porn VHS tapes had been dumped on my pillow.
I never searched her room again.

Wow. What a horrible child. The level of entitlement involved in that is staggering to me. I would have a really hard time having her in my home after she turned 18 if she did that.

X10000. Boy, I would cut off every single thing I pay for that is not shelter and food. No phone, no internet, no cash. What a brat! Sorry PP, but you just set the tone for your relationship for years to come.

[Anonymous]

How To Raise Kids You Want to Keep, on Amazon.com

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Okay, how else to we make it crystal clear to our son that WE are the parents and he is the child? He apparently cannot remember that fact.

Jesus, you just randomly picked "room search' to assert that fact? How strange.

Seriously. You want to demonstrate that you are the adult by essentially having a temper tantrum?

[Anonymous]

OP's post struck a chord with me because it reminds me of how my mother acted when I was a teen. The result was the more she pushed, the more I pushed back, until I realized my parents might not pay for college. So I towed the line my last two years of high school. I went to college out of state and found summer jobs near school -- "sorry, can only come home for a short visit, I have to keep working on my resume." The first 10 years after college I would visit my parents for 5-6 days a year. In the last 10 years, I have not visited once and have spoken to my mother no more than 1 hour a year. In the end, she damaged our relationship to the point that I didn't want a relationship with her.

There are some things your do that you can't take back.

[Anonymous]

You still don't want to have a relationship with your parents? Did they abuse you? Hit you? Deny you food? Deny you love? No, they invaded your privacy because they CARED about you.

Parents aren't perfect. Your mom must have been very worried about you. If they didn't love you they wouldn't have cared WHAT you did.

And what did you do? You manipulated them into paying for your college and then dumped them. Wow.

Give her a break. Give her a call. Go see her. Forgive them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Send his ass to boot camp.

What makes you think that he is old enough for the military or that the military wants his disrespectful attitude?

That said, Military academies are really good for some kids and are worth considering by some families.

Outward Bound and other wilderness experiences can also be really good for some kids. They build self-reliance and self-confidence. They get them away from the pressures of teendom.

Volunteering in the community is also good for kids, but probably only if done willingly and not forcibly.

Be very careful. Those boot camp and outward bound businesses are rife with corruption and shattered trust. I looked into this deeply and discovered it was a horrible exploitation of families in crisis. Horrible.

Link, please?

[Anonymous]

Outward Bound itself is legitimate. But you need to be very, very careful about so called wilderness programs and the vast majority of residential treatment centers. Here;s an article from PBS:

http://www.pbs.org/thisemotionallife/blogs/abuses-programs-struggling-teens-legacy-scandal

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP's post struck a chord with me because it reminds me of how my mother acted when I was a teen. The result was the more she pushed, the more I pushed back, until I realized my parents might not pay for college. So I towed the line my last two years of high school. I went to college out of state and found summer jobs near school -- "sorry, can only come home for a short visit, I have to keep working on my resume." The first 10 years after college I would visit my parents for 5-6 days a year. In the last 10 years, I have not visited once and have spoken to my mother no more than 1 hour a year. In the end, she damaged our relationship to the point that I didn't want a relationship with her.

There are some things your do that you can't take back.

Sounds like there is a lot more going on here than you've told us.

In particular, if your mom isn't making any effort herself to renew contact with you, it's pretty clear you own some of the responsibility for the rift.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You still don't want to have a relationship with your parents? Did they abuse you? Hit you? Deny you food? Deny you love? No, they invaded your privacy because they CARED about you.

Parents aren't perfect. Your mom must have been very worried about you. If they didn't love you they wouldn't have cared WHAT you did.

And what did you do? You manipulated them into paying for your college and then dumped them. Wow.

Give her a break. Give her a call. Go see her. Forgive them.

PP didn't even mention a room search, although perhaps that happened. All she says is that she wasn't "towing the line" before the last two years of high school. Then she realized she had to "tow the line" the last two years of high school if she wanted to get her parents to give her many thousands of dollars.

Not sure what "tow the line" means but presumably it means no drugs, alcohol, and basic family rules like doing chores and being respectful. Only if there was something else going on (like you said, beatings, extreme coldness) would I have any sympathy at all for that PP.