Teenagers and locked doors

AlexSchira

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Dec 7, 2005
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Like the topic may imply, should teenagers be allowed to have doors that lock from the inside?
No, I'm not some fourteen year old venting about life to strangers. I just had the fortune of having to listen to a teenager venting about life and how his parents suck...This is one of the few things I both like and hate about training a teenage boxer. Whenever conversation turns to teenage subjects, I either get nostalgia about hating my parents for no reason, or I feel just plain old when he asks what Voltron is. Well, just talked to him about an incident earlier this week, that drags in everything from the Zippo lighters to internet predators.
The teenager in question recently moved his room into an unfinished, wall-less basement. He has it better down there than I do in an apartment. Couch, futon, coffee table, pool table, entertainment system he worked up himself, dorm-style fridge, he even has a tool box with a few LED Mini-Mags in it.
Hey, you get trained by a flashaholic, you walk away with a few lights.
Sometime earlier in the week, he goes downstairs to his room to change his clothes for the night. Yes, a teenage male that changes his clothes in private, I was just as shocked. He said he was halfway done dressing, when one of his parents, step-father, walks down the steps with a power drill. The kid jumps beind the couch and tries to cover up...the guy walks right through his 'room'(no walls, but through his furniture) and plkugs in the drill without even caring to notice the kid isn't dressed and is quite obviously disturbed. By this point in the story, I'm laughing my head off because I'm an insensitve jerk. Then, vhe tells me that his step-dad then casually stopped by the couch the kid is covering himself with...asks him a random, casual question about Zippo Lighters, and proceeds to walk up the steps as if nothing happened. All the while, poor kid is caught without a stitch. My reaction?
The idiot didn't lock his door, making it okay to laugh at his misfortune. We were all in high school once, this is one heck of a bus-stop story.
...His parents don't let him have a lock on his door. Even when he was in a normal room of the house, he never had a lock. I thought he was exaggerating at first, but as it turns out, he's serious. He's a fifteen year old sophomore high school, top cadet last semester of JROTC, wants to pursue a career dealing with internet predators, no computer or intenet connection in the room...His folks never let him get a lock on his door. He's a normal kid, and this seems to be a pretty much normal family. He says things like this just happen, and this is so bizarre I'm not sure it's even legal, a day to think about it left me just a tad ticked at the idea of a MINOR being seen in this state casually.
On the other hand...Some parents may agree on this, some teenagers just aren't ready to have a computer in a private room with a lock on the door, for the sake of their safety and character. Some of you who have dealt with victims of addiction may also agree, drastic measures have to be taken for their own good. Some may even feel the same way about locking doors and teenagers as this kid's parents.
Personally...I think somewhere around the time of his award for citizenship, they could have at least got him a lock and said he earned it. This no lock in general policy makes me wonder what else goes on in that house.
Am I being ignorant by saying that these parents are cracked...?
 
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Illum

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Im a 19 year old who lives in a room happily with three walls of books, no TV and no internet access, I don't understand why teens would lock themselves up....its bad ventilation


Then again...Im of Chinese immigration so I won't know what American teens do...
 

Topper

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For me it is just a matter of respect. My son is 15 and when he was 10 or so he locked his door one night and I asked him not to lock it anymore he said ok but wanted to know why and I simply told him if there was a fire I didn't want to break his door down to get him he thought that was a good idea. When his door is closed I knock and wait for him to open it or untill he hollars come in. I respect him and "his" room and he respects my rules.
Topper :)
 

Jumpmaster

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Friggin' MORE COWBELL!!!
A friend of mine used to lock his door when he was in high school even after his parents asked him not to do so. And then his dad removed the door altogether.

Problem solved.

JM-99
 

NAW

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Messages
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My sister locks the door when she sleeps. Her dang alarm clock was sounding away and waking everybody up and she was still sleeping. The alarm clock was blowing away loudly for several minutes and she still slept through it. We were yelling for her to wake up and turn it off. We bang on the door and no luck. I ended up taking my surefire and going around the house and had to start shining from the outside. Needless to say the surefire did the trick.
 

Orbit

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Nope no need for locked doors.

too many problems associated and no real NEED
 

LowWorm

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All the interior door locks I've ever run across are amazingly easy to pick (I think I knew every Christmas present I was getting from age 7 on).

Even so, in an emergency, no one wants to be fumbling with a hairpin or whatnot. I figure when my kids get to be teenagers (operative word: get), whatever they need to do behind a locked door they can do in the bathroom.
 

James S

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you live with someone long enough and you're going to accidently walk in on them somewhere in an em-bare-***-ing situation :) Step dad was probably as embarrassed as he was and just tried to act casual. Could have been worse...

As to teenagers, yes, everybody deserves privacy. But thats privacy from accidents like that, and privacy to keep your sister out when she's bugging you or something. A passage lock they call them, they lock, but you can open them from the outside with a screwdriver or a coat hanger or something.

Nobody gets to lock up their rooms with a key to keep family out. If I want to get into my kids rooms, there had better not be a padlock on the door or I'm going to get the sawzall and go through the wall. That being said, if my kids want their privacy I will respect it up and to the point where I suspect there is something I should know about. Then I get to be the Dad and your privacy will get stomped on.
 

nemul

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i believe teens should not lock their door, but parents should also knock... you dont wanna walk in on "something"...
 

AlexSchira

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I can't help but to agree with most of these responses. I only suggested the lock because his parents aren't much for knocking, and because as his trainer I would recommend having a place to work out where your mom isn't going to run in looking for a mop. His folks don't seem to think of the basement as their son's room as much as...a basement with a teenager in it. I feel a place becomes 'personal' once you move your underwear drawer into it, as in the person needs the privacy to at the very least change their clothes. I've known this kid for years, he avoids public changing rooms like the plague and generally keeps himself covered 24/7. I'm guessing his own parents know this by now, and I can only pray they're not trying to 'put a stop to it' by letting these incidents reoccur.
I'm biased because I know the kid so well, but agreed, locks aren't essential.
 

greenLED

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AlexSchira said:
...I feel just plain old when he asks what Voltron is.
...:awman: There's something terribly wrong with that kid if he asks what Voltron is.

None of us locked our doors at home; neither did we close them. My son is allowed to close his door, but not to lock it.
 

HonorKnight

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I agree that an internet connection in private is bad for a child. Too much weird stuff on the internet to let them have unmonitored access.
I do think that they should have a lock on their door. The kind that opens with a screw driver. That is obviously a "privacy lock" that the parents can open anytime they feel there is a reason. Just like we have locks on the bathroom. Somethings are private. Walking in on someone of the same gender while they are changing clothes isn't sexual harassment. It is rude. But a consistent pattern of "peeping" could be sexual in nature. Maybe that's why the boy changes in private as much as possible and is uncomfortable with his step-father?
 

bwaites

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"Privacy" and modesty are two different things.

Modest is what this kid is, (or what it sounds like). His parents SHOULD respect that modesty and knock!

Privacy, on the other hand, should not, in my opinion, exist for a teenager.

Teenagers make immature decisions, it's what kids do and what keeps them from being adults.

When I was in Med School, we had a lecture by a nationally respected child Psychiatrist. He said, and I quote, (because I wrote it down it was so out of the norm for what most liberal child Psychs would say!)

"Children have NO right to privacy as defined by law for adults, at least not from their parents. They have not reached a point where you can expect mature decisions, nor where they should be burdened with that expectation. A parent can, should, and does have the right to enter and inspect a bedroom, drawer, pocket, clothes, ANYTHING that the child possesses. Any parent who abdicates that responsibility is not being a parent, but an accomplice to any act that child then performs that is inappropriate. Remember, it has only been in the last 50 years that children have even had their own rooms, and that in itself is an aberration if you look at the rest of the world."

This kid sounds like a good kid, and one who is appropriately modest. Having raised 4 teenagers, 2 sons, 2 daughters, ANY parent who doesn't allow them modesty is not doing their job either.

It's simple, show them respect, the same respect you expect, and KNOCK!

Bill
 

Lunal_Tic

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Never had a lock on my door in my parents house but always received a knock or a call out. Sometimes the warning and the door opening came very close together but I never really had to much trouble with it.

Oddly enough, the place I live now has no means to lock the bedroom doors at all. The doors slide and are too thin for a lock.

-LT
 

HonorKnight

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I agree that a child doesn't have the right to privacy for possessions. Technically, anything a minor "owns" is owned by the parent. A parent should be aware what is in their child's room. I was refering to "privacy of body". Hence the bathroom reference. With privacy of the body, other issues come into play. I'm not even talking about checking for needle marks. There is a line and watching sexually mature "children" in the nude is pushing it.

excerpt 2003 child abuse statisics:
The largest percentage of perpetrators (79.7%) were parents. The category of parents includes birth parents, adoptive parents, and stepparents. Other relatives accounted for an additional 6.4 percent. Unmarried partners of parents accounted for 4.0 percent of perpetrators.

During 2003, 60.9 percent of victims experienced neglect, 18.9 percent were physically abused, 9.9 percent were sexually abused, 4.9 percent were emotionally or psychologically maltreated, and 2.3 percent were medically neglected

 

Knight Lights

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chesterqw,

I live in the town made famous by a young man who walked into a school room with a rifle and killed a teacher and two classmates, 10 years and 6 months ago. Thanks to a brave fellow teacher, he was stopped before others were killed. (The teacher was honored on National TV last week, some of you may have seen it.)

A few facts:

He had a TV and VCR in his room.
He had a computer in his room.
He had a lock on the door to his room.
He had writings in his room talking about doing what he ended up doing.
No one looked in his room until AFTER he killed 3 people and wounded another.

So far as appropriate modesty and BODILY privacy, I would say HonorKnight has it right, and I would extend the line to even younger than sexually mature children. I didn't allow my kids to run around nude, even when they were toddlers, though I have friends who did and their kids seem pretty normal as well.

When a child starts to feel modest, it's time for parents and siblings to make sure they have that opportunity.

Bill
 

NAW

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Messages
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So then let me get this straight.

Teenager + locked doors = chance to do something wrong.

No offense but let them. I mean most of the murders, drug dealers,
terrorists, etc are adults am I not mistaken?

I think the kids should get a chance. Not just labeled immature without them having the chance to prove otherwise. There are many of kids out there and not all of them are bad. I think if you allow a teenager in a room with locked doors then put a bit of restrictions. No computer. Definetley no computer. A TV I think will be okay depending on the stations or channels. Maybe you can check the room out often just to make sure they are on track.

Heck, but this is just my opinion
 
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