Ask Lemmy

Never

Never, as long as the junk in my room wasn't leaking into the hallway, my parents were happy. Definitely no snooping. I had software on my kids devices when they were younger, but it just put blocks on what they could access, the only thing I "monitored" to any extent was time spent using the device.

all the time. they would tell me they were gonna search my room as I left for school, then the entire day I'd be thinking about what they may find (usually nothing, but they always managed to make a big deal out of something). I'd come home, they'd make me do homework, eat dinner, etc, then they'd finally sit me down. one time my mother found a dried maple leaf for my 7th grade life science project and assumed it was weed lol. then I would get to go piece my room back together as stuff would kinda be strewn everywhere.

I did have some alcohol hidden every now and then in high school but with how often they searched my room I was able to put it in spots they'd never find.

Never. Once my mum went through my call history because we (me and a friend) were suspected of having pranked my neighbour. We had but we hid it well.

Entering my room: all the time.

Entering my closet: all the time. (My mom would do my laundry, even as I started getting older and asking her not to. 😂 That would involve sometimes opening drawers, and it wasn't very private, but it wasn't what I would consider a search.)

Searching my drawers: practically never, to my knowledge. (Usually only if they had an actual reason to. They weren't doing monthly random searches like a drill sergeant or anything like that.)

Backpack: Rarely. Only if I got in trouble at school when I was younger.

Electronics: never, to my knowledge. Having said that, today's younger parents are probably more aware of the internet and technology risks.

Yeah, they went into my room to look through stuff. My dad never let me have my own device, he had a keylogger and camera pointed at the desktop computer I was allowed to use. He had online blockers for porn and regularly looked through my phone and photos and I wasn't allowed to have my phone at night or my iPad. It's not normal and I've started working on it in therapy.

Currently living with my parents, they don't necessarily "search" my things. I'm pretty messy so their primary intent is just organize my stuff. They're not "going through my things"

Once a week or so. Granted this was after they caught me smoking the marijuana leaf… they would mainly be looking for “drugs”. Would not dive too deep though, didn’t like open up and read stuff etc. (This was during the 90s)

Not once ever.

Sometimes my mom would do a cleanup, but then she’d find whatever and it would be gone. So it was a thorough “cleaning.” Didn’t happen much.

This is dependent on if you're giving them a reason to. If you're 15 and are acting drunk or high or suspected of doing shit online or building bombs or stealing, etc expect less privacy.

If there's no reason to think anything like that, expect more privacy. Every kid\teenager thinks they should just have complete privacy. Most parents know that can be a terrible idea. Very few things in life are simply black or white. Most things are somewhere in a shade of grey.

Never to look for anything, they might come and talk or wake me up if needed. But they knocked or called before coming in. I never locked my room, so they could have if they wanted to, they simply didn't want to. They also never checked my bags or pockets. One time my little brother snitched on me smoking, my dad made me grab the cigarettes and dispose of them. He didn't look for them himself.

Is this normal? I'm biased. To me it is. I think privacy is an important part of forming your identity. Having a space where you can be yourself and express yourself, and keep your failed attempts at self-expression to yourself. Nobody needs to see your attempts of tying a tie that you discovered was the total opposite of cool and you died of shame getting laughed at at school. Your parents don't need to know that shit. Their job is to love and support you, not get into the weeds of youth fashion.

And this is true of many things, but i can imagine that sometimes interventions are needed. When drugs or weapons are involved for example, parents should be parenting. As it's very difficult as a teenager to understand when self expression crosses into self harm. And in that case supporting your children could mean infringement on their privacy in some occasions.

I guess in a way my parents trusted me and trusted their formative parenting years enough to give me the privacy i had. And it is very difficult for a child to bot blame themselves for a loss of privacy, even when it's the parents not trusting their own parenting enough to trust their children with privacy.

No, that is pretty abnormal in the US.

I have heard coworkers talking about how they searched their kids stuff after finding a vape in their backpack inadvertently or set up ridiculous controls to spy on what websites the kid went to.