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Reading a childs diary

Frosty

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Is it ever ok to read a child/your childs diary? If so, under what circumstances?

This gets into trust vs... well fear I suppose though it could be easily argued it goes into much more.

So what do you all think?
 

ThomasISFP

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I think parentss should avoid looking in there child's diary under most circumstances because it is a breech of privacy and trust. However in certain cases where the child may be wrting about drugs or suicide its a good idea for the parents to be on top of that and they may not know and would need to read the diary to become aware if they suspect smething.
 

cascadeco

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I don't think it's ok under any circumstances.

If the parents suspect something, they need to talk to their children / try to bond and develop a relationship with the child; not read the diary. Or, if really that bad, someone else outside of the parental figure (counselor? someone the child gives permission to? ) should be the one to look at the diary. Let's say they do read the diary and find something horrible - they presumably would want to do something about it, get the child into therapy or whatnot, or after the fact would *then* talk to the child, the child would wonder what's going on / why the parents know what they know, then not only does the child have the issues that were written in the diary, they also on top of that have new trust issues with the parents that will have huge repercussions on their trust in future supposedly loving relationships, or perhaps relationships with anyone. Why not put the child in therapy or talk from the get-go? Snooping in a diary is practically an unnecessary step if something 'bad' is in the diary, since therapy/etc will then happen anyway.
 

Fidelia

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I don't think parents should do it just for their own entertainment, but because they are responsible for the health and well being of their child, who is under their care, I would put it into the same category as looking at their social media or texts. If the relationship is a healthy one, usually a parent should have a pretty good idea of what is going on in their child's life. If looking at those things is the sole way they have a window into their child's life, they probably need to be shouldering responsibility to foster more connection to their child. Having said that, there are times when kids will hide things that they think will restrict their freedom or disappoint their parents, yet they don't have the experience or the foresight to be able to see how serious the situation is or know how to deal with it. Again, this is why relationship is really important and actively teaching kids how to talk about difficult things. Parents sometimes need to be prepared to be disliked if it is a matter of their child's safety, since no one else has the authority or information to make decisions that a parent should. They also need to proactively reassure the kid that there's nothing the child can talk about that would be relationship ending. I don't think it is entirely responsible for parents to just take what their kids say at face value without doing a little private detective work of their own. That doesn't have to mean going through their child's private thoughts all the time, but if there is reason to suspect something is up, much better a breech of privacy than a suicide, unaddressed eating disorder or fallout from a sexual assault or something else that is very serious and potentially life changing. Obviously, independence is a gradual handing off of decision making and responsibility and with it comes a greater degree of privacy. However, I see parents doing that at younger and younger ages, because it absolves them of responsibility, the kid prefers it, and it leaves the parent much freer to pursue their own interests and social life, rather than creating a world that includes their older children in it. There also is a tendency for parents to believe that there is something magic about turning a particular age, in terms of maturity springing into being, or that if the child has the trappings of adulthood (job, car, phone, own social circle) that it means that they no longer are needed in an active role. I think many parents over trust their children, or don't have the emotional energy to deal with it if the child is needy or angry with them, so they distance themselves. High school kids are navigating a lot of very new situations and are preparing for adulthood. Just as children who have just learned to ride a bike need more monitoring than a child on foot, so do older children that are navigating newfound independence and responsibility. The goal though should be not to keep people penned up and wield authority as a power trip, nor to cut them loose prematurely, but to give them the tools to launch into capable and productive adulthood. To do so, they need to be involved and aware of what their child is dealing with, but it should stem from a close relationship with them rather than just covert surveillance.
 

The Cat

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Everyone does what they think the best thing to do at the time is. In a perfect world parents dont snoop because their kids trust them enough to come to them with anything, and kids can count on their parents to take their stewardship seriously and back it with tangible love. But we dont live in a perfect world. Respect the privacy, someone could get hurt. Violate the trust, someone could get hurt. Right thing, wrong thing, short term, big picture, you take your chances just like everyone else.

To read, or not to read, that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
And by opposing end them?
 

Metis

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Well, sometimes the parent reading the kid's diary is the unstable one. Should a responsible parent with legitimate concerns and a paranoid parent be viewed equally? No. But who has to tell the difference? The parent him/herself, usually, as well as the kid.

I'd read my kid's diary under some circumstances. However, I encountered horrible repercussions as a result of a parent's reading of my private writing.

The fact that it was read wasn't even the problem, though. The person's intemperate reactions were the problem.

If the person had been what [MENTION=7111]fidelia[/MENTION] describes, "involved and aware" and "shouldering responsibility to foster more connection to their child", then even if the privacy violation had occurred anyway, the person's reaction would have been more measured and the results would have been totally different.
 

Fidelia

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Yes, of course - that is all assuming that the parent is being a responsible parent. Otherwise, well, I think the child would be wise to find other places to lodge their private thoughts. In many cases like that, the child is forced into more of a parental role than the parent actually occupies because the parent is unable or unwilling to be what the child needs. This is unfortunate for the child because it leaves them not only alone to navigate their own way as well as be responsible for siblings or for the reactions of those who should be caring for them. Unfortunately, the parent doesn't heal from their own baggage and mature into their role either.

Whether child or adult, I don't think you can count on the people you live with to never read something if they encounter it, even if they shouldn't. At best, you have to be careful about what you write, or else be prepared that whatever is written may be read. However, as a non-independent person, I also don't think that the child is necessarily owed privacy, even though they are owed consideration. Just as decisions about food, clothing, transportation and money aren't solely left in the hands of children, I don't think privacy is an inherent right, even though as they mature, it should be one of those things that is increased over time.
 

Polaris

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It can be a bad idea to read people's private writings, as I know from personal experience. A few years ago, my mother decided to look at some papers on which I had been writing notes for a novel, and on that basis she somehow arrived at the false conclusion that I wanted her dead, even though the notes had nothing to do with her or any other real person. This was, of course, very upsetting for both of us.

My broader point is that a diary can be very misleading. A person can be very misleading, too, but they can also explain themselves to you in a way that a book can't.
 

cascadeco

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It can be a bad idea to read people's private writings, as I know from personal experience. A few years ago, my mother decided to look at some papers on which I had been writing notes for a novel, and on that basis she somehow arrived at the false conclusion that I wanted her dead, even though the notes had nothing to do with her or any other real person. This was, of course, very upsetting for both of us.

My broader point is that a diary can be very misleading. A person can be very misleading, too, but they can also explain themselves to you in a way that a book can't.

This is a very good point you bring up. The likelihood the parents would misinterpret, read into things too much, or expand out of proportion is probably way higher than finding crystal-clear information. And still they'd be left with confronting their kid/having a talk, or becoming paranoid or worried over something they have no need to be worried about.
 

Galena

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How I imagine approaching it personally is giving the child their first diary as a gift when they are of the age to understand, and having it be a prompt to talk to them about their rights to autonomy and privacy. And then living out that lesson by not reading it. Knowing myself it would be hard to resist at times, but a promise is a promise - I agree that doing so could hurt their sense of trust long-term, and that risk is not acceptable to me.

When I was a child I sometimes read my siblings' diaries because I was afraid that with my panic attacks and stuff I was hurting them or their perception of me, and they weren't telling me so - not that having a reason makes it less bad! As an adult I properly feel the weight of what's at stake. Also, while I don't have a diary, I do always carry a notebook to make notes and outlines for my fiction writing, and would not want that read. I write strange stories, and I am not exaggerating in the slightest when I say I'd rather lose my phone or wallet than one of these notebooks.

I know for sure that my parents did not read my diary as a kid - if they had, they would have known when I told them as an adult that I liked girls as well as boys!
 

Virtual ghost

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Just if you read their diary that doesn't mean that the child should know about it. Or suffer from direct consequances of those texts, what makes it obvious that you read it.
 

Nomendei

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As a parent I would to know what happens in the head of my child and understand him better. Of course, I would never tell him. As a child I had a diary, but to avoid my parents of reading it I simply crypted the content. They won’t read it if they don’t understand it.
 

Lark

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I confess that I thought this thread was setting up discussion about Ann Frank.
 

Finite Fusion

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Only if the parent suspects the child is in an abusive situation or possible danger and the child refuses to communicate.

Tough judgment call for sure.
 
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