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Parentpedia
Need for Privacy
What Experts Say
Get a group of parents together and the questions inevitably come up: Do you search your child's drawers? Read his journal? Monitor his computer use?
Each of these situations is a judgment call, experts say, but one helpful yardstick is to consider whether the issue you're concerned about could impact your child's safety.
If you're just feeling generally curious about your child's thoughts and activities, then give him the same respect you'd like to receive yourself and leave well enough alone -- hopefully, in time, he'll open up to you on his own. If he catches you snooping, however, he'll likely see your invasion of his space as a breach of trust.
But if the reason you feel compelled to check up on your child is because you fear he is getting into trouble with sex, drinking or drugs, that's reason enough, experts say. Ask yourself, what are you looking for? Condoms? Drugs? If it's something like that, experts say you've got the license to snoop.
"In my experience, I've rarely heard of parents rifling through their child's room without good reason," says Madeline Levine, a child psychologist and author of "The Price of Privilege." "Your need to make sure your child is safe overrules your child's need for privacy. After all, if your child's not safe, then nothing else matters."
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