I am a mom of 4. But 3 are still teens. Hell yeah i would read it.  It is to dangeres in the world today. I trust my kids but not everyone else. An when the are teens they think that they know everything but that is not the case.

MISBLACK Jan. 10, 2009 at 12:36 PM

My daughter's only 4, but I still keep a journal. In HS, my relationship with my parents was shaky at best, and I would have FREAKED if I found out my Mom/parents had read my diary.
Even though they're just teenagers, they still need to know that some things are private. You have your secrets from them, why can't they have secrets from you?

mamahud Jan. 10, 2009 at 1:02 PM

i checked my dds text msg on her phone when she would leave it in the living room and go to the shower too and i knew she wasnt gonna catch me............you gotta keepup with what is going on in their lives.........but i never confronted her about anything that i found or read because i didnt want her to know that i was snooping......if something concerned me i would just find a way to bring up that topic in a conversation.........one thing i found that bothered me, but i had to keep my mouth shut because she was already over 18 and engaged was ugly pics that her and her fiance had sent to each other..........what if she lost her phone and others saw that...........but i had talked to her about it by bringing up someone else that it happend to without letting her know that i knew that she did it cuz we once found a phone of a stranger at a high school graduation with dirty pics on it and that girl had to come and get her phone from us...........can you imagine the embarrassment? LOL........btw, my dd did delete the pics after that conversation..................so it worked!

twarmymm Jan. 10, 2009 at 1:06 PM

if you dont want someone to snoop and find it you should be extra careful about putting it up and hiding the key and not leaving it laying out..........i had good hiding places for stuff that i didnt want anyone else to see when i was a kid..............if something is carelessly left out and it is in my house and my children are under age, i  have the right to snoop and say something to them if it is inappropriate.......they are my kids and who is the parent? the same thing with porn and teenage boys cuz we have been through that one too!

twarmymm Jan. 10, 2009 at 1:09 PM

I have looked at 15dd my-space and found some inappropriate talk to boys there.  I did not tell her.  I just brought up some conversations over the next week on the dangers of certain things.  I did it in front of all 3 of my girls and answered questions from the youngest 14dd while 15dd stayed pretty quiet.  But she did listen and I hope I made some impression.   

Kathleen70 Jan. 10, 2009 at 1:16 PM

I might if I was worried about her and she was displaying signs that worried me. Ideally, I would like to be able to give her her privacy because my mom never did and it caused me to distrust her. That is a tough question though because I would be tempted to see what she keeps from me. But if I did I would feel really bad later.

Galdarisimom Jan. 10, 2009 at 2:24 PM

ya i respect her privacy but im always snooping around she comes to me with eveything so i hope lol but you cant ever be to carefull with your girls

FIVEHAPPYHEARTS Jan. 10, 2009 at 2:26 PM

good job kathleen, you sound just like me, it does work, mine is 21 now, expecting her first, and it is a girl, and they really do listen to you............and now her payback is that she is going to have that little girl and in 15 years i will be listening to her gripe about the same things and i will just sit back and grin...............so when you say "your day is coming" it is true! i was so lucky that myspace wasnt around back then, but if it had been i would have made her give me her password; when she used to chat on aol aim, our pc was in the foyer and sometimes i would come and just sit beside her, so she never knew when i was gonna walk by and see what she was typing, but our pc was too weak to deal with pics and stuff, so that wasnt a problem! we did have a webcam cuz my son was in iraq at the time, but she was not allowed to use it when on the pc.................

twarmymm Jan. 10, 2009 at 2:34 PM

and i would log in as her sometimes and have conversations with the ppl that she talked to..........sometimes i would tell them that i was her mom and sometimes i would pretend to be her and see if they talked ugly........she was pretty good about getting rid of the dirtbags when they popped up and tried to talk to her...............and i checked the history file often to see what my kids might be doing when i wasnt around and our dial up internet had a password that they did not know b4 you could even get into it, so i had to be home to log them in. i put the password on it when we found out that my oldest son, had gotten into some porn from some other country when he came home early from school one day..........we found this out by getting a telephone bill charging us long distance.......but that is a whole new long story!          LOL

twarmymm Jan. 10, 2009 at 2:34 PM

I believe a diary is off limits to everyone but the owner. Having said that, I also believe all other forms are okay to look at. Texting, email, blogs, etc. If you are writing something for just yourself, it should stay that way. If you are writing something for someone else to see, mom or dad should be able to see it too.

Amber115 Jan. 10, 2009 at 2:38 PM