Locked Bedroom Doors

[Anonymous]

We got rid of the locks on the kids' bedroom doors because it was part of their fighting ritual (do something annoying to your sibling, retreat to bedroom and lock door, sibling tries to tear knob off door, taunt the sibling from behind the locked door, sibling starts kicking the locked door, etc.) It's dumb but has helped reduce the fighting.

We have a "knock first" policy that everyone seems to be able to obey. The locks will go back after they get through this stage.

[Anonymous]

I could care less about locked doors. What is the big deal?

[Anonymous]

A lot of doors that lock like that can be unlocked from teh other side witha butter knife. Not a big deal. Just don't make a big deal of it. Most people wouldn't think to lock doors.

[Anonymous]

My 13yr old locks her door all the time. She has 2 siblings ages 7 and 5. I don't blame her. We have a key that opens them and a credit card can be used. What emergency would come up that you couldn't just unlock or bang the door down.

Some people just have way too much of a coddled world. A lock door is just some privacy. Nothing more, nothing less.

[Anonymous]

I don't have a problem with locked doors unless there is suspicion of any kind of self-harm. This includes cutting, drug use, and the use of a cellphone/laptop webcam to 'sext' via Skype, etc. (In the latter case if the child is under 18 years of age, this constitutes production and distribution of illegal porn.)

So the policy in my house is no laptop/cellphone behind closed doors. But doors can otherwise be closed and locked. We also have our router configured to disable internet access to her phone and laptop during certain days/hours.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't have a problem with locked doors unless there is suspicion of any kind of self-harm. This includes cutting, drug use, and the use of a cellphone/laptop webcam to 'sext' via Skype, etc. (In the latter case if the child is under 18 years of age, this constitutes production and distribution of illegal porn.)

So the policy in my house is no laptop/cellphone behind closed doors. But doors can otherwise be closed and locked. We also have our router configured to disable internet access to her phone and laptop during certain days/hours.

My daughter isn't even allowed to have her phone in her room after 8pm. It gets turned off and charged starting at 9pm. We have a family desktop and laptop. So I guess for us locked doors are no big deal but even if they weren't locked - do you just walk right in on them? That would be weird.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What emergency would come up that you couldn't just unlock or bang the door down.

Some people just have way too much of a coddled world. A lock door is just some privacy. Nothing more, nothing less.

Bingo. I laughed at the PPs who won't let their kids lock their doors because they're such heavy sleepers they won't hear a smoke alarm. Think about that- their teen child is unable to get out of a burning building and rather than focus on teaching a true life-or-death skill, they say the door has to be unlocked. If your kid is truly that deep of a sleeper, then push the smoke detector button a couple times at 2am on a Saturday. I guarantee everyone will be out of bed in under 30 seconds.

Besides- what if the parent is incapacitated or gone for the night? Teach a little self preservation.

[Anonymous]

I find this thread very eye opening. It never occurred to me not to allow my kids to lock their own bedroom doors for privacy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What emergency would come up that you couldn't just unlock or bang the door down.

Some people just have way too much of a coddled world. A lock door is just some privacy. Nothing more, nothing less.

Bingo. I laughed at the PPs who won't let their kids lock their doors because they're such heavy sleepers they won't hear a smoke alarm. Think about that- their teen child is unable to get out of a burning building and rather than focus on teaching a true life-or-death skill, they say the door has to be unlocked. If your kid is truly that deep of a sleeper, then push the smoke detector button a couple times at 2am on a Saturday. I guarantee everyone will be out of bed in under 30 seconds.

Besides- what if the parent is incapacitated or gone for the night? Teach a little self preservation.

Self-preservation, common sense, street smarts???? Not in this world. Parents will always be there. Soon dorms will have 2 extra beds for the moms. Those college kids need structure!!

[Anonymous]

Here's another perspective. My family is blended. We live in a smallish older house that didn't have locks on interior doors. A few years ago when we broached the topic of blending with our then-12 year old, he asked for a lock on his bedroom door. It wasn't that he was afraid anything weird would happen, he was just at an age where he wanted more privacy, and the merging of families happened to coincide with this. We agreed and installed one. It brought him peace of mind, and I think I can count on one hand how many times he's actually locked the door.

[Anonymous]

We keep pins to all of the lockable doors on top of the doorframe on the non-lock side, so if we ever needed to get in for an emergency, we can just grab the pin and pop it. We otherwise don't make a big deal about locks because I can see why someone might want it for extra privacy while changing or something, but having the pins there (and having used them when we suspected the child had the door locked because they were doing something they weren't supposed to -- no, not masturbating) have cut down on the locking for the sake of locking or feeling like locking gives them the extra security to do something they're not allowed to do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I find this thread very eye opening. It never occurred to me not to allow my kids to lock their own bedroom doors for privacy.

But how will you know they're not doing something wrong in there?!?!?!





j/k

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What emergency would come up that you couldn't just unlock or bang the door down.

Some people just have way too much of a coddled world. A lock door is just some privacy. Nothing more, nothing less.

Bingo. I laughed at the PPs who won't let their kids lock their doors because they're such heavy sleepers they won't hear a smoke alarm. Think about that- their teen child is unable to get out of a burning building and rather than focus on teaching a true life-or-death skill, they say the door has to be unlocked. If your kid is truly that deep of a sleeper, then push the smoke detector button a couple times at 2am on a Saturday. I guarantee everyone will be out of bed in under 30 seconds.

Besides- what if the parent is incapacitated or gone for the night? Teach a little self preservation.

+1

[Anonymous]

We have locks on bedroom doors. I have two girls now age 16 and 18. When the doors were locked they were smoking cigarettes, pot and cutting themselves. We do not allow male friends upstairs where the bedrooms are located. They are doing much better now, but I don't think not having locks would have made a difference. Now their doors are hardly ever locked. We do knock before we enter.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What emergency would come up that you couldn't just unlock or bang the door down.

Some people just have way too much of a coddled world. A lock door is just some privacy. Nothing more, nothing less.

Bingo. I laughed at the PPs who won't let their kids lock their doors because they're such heavy sleepers they won't hear a smoke alarm. Think about that- their teen child is unable to get out of a burning building and rather than focus on teaching a true life-or-death skill, they say the door has to be unlocked. If your kid is truly that deep of a sleeper, then push the smoke detector button a couple times at 2am on a Saturday. I guarantee everyone will be out of bed in under 30 seconds.

Besides- what if the parent is incapacitated or gone for the night? Teach a little self preservation.

I'm the parent who posted about sleeping, and I'm really curious how you teach waking up as a skill. Trust me, I'd love to know.

I'm a really bad cook, so I've set off the smoke detector, which is directly outside DC's door, while making breakfast more times than I care to admit. He's never stirred. He's also slept through his alarm and missed things that he definitely wanted to do, more than once. Do I worry? Of course I do. But it's hard to teach someone what to do when they're asleep, so if you know how then please tell me. In the meantime, given that I don't want to have to break down the door on school mornings and our locks don't have holes for pins, I'll keep telling to leave his door unlocked at night.