by Char McClary

Created on: March 25, 2007   Last Updated: April 25, 2007

There is such a fine line between trusting your child and protecting them from outside influences and their own immaturity in decision making. On the left you have obsessive over-protectiveness; on the right, neglect. Finding a middle ground where your child is not only given the sense of being trusted, but is still protected can be a trial and error experience as well as exhausting.

You have a certain group of people who believe firmly that searching a child's room, insisting on knowing all of his or her friends, knowing exactly where the child is at all times will somehow warp them and damage their fragile self esteems and egos.

Then there are the polar opposites who just as firmly believe that children can't be trusted as far as you could throw them; nothing but the firmest reign will keep them from utterly destroying their lives before they reach the golden age of 18.

Somewhere hovering in the middle is a gray area where trust and protection are equally mixed using the child's own level of responsibility, maturity and track record as a guide. This is where most of us want to be, where most of us SHOULD be.

And now the question is this: is it morally right to search a child's room?

Absolutely.

In this day and age children are faced with a million times more negative outside influences than in previous decades. Harsher drugs are more accessible. Sexual activity is more accepted by peers (and adults). Things that would have horrified a teenager in the 50's are taken in stride by today's youth.

To put it bluntly, there are far more things to experiment with these days than there were before, and there is far more acceptance surrounding experimentation with these things.

Children are also incapable of making completely rational decisions as teenagers. That's why they have parents to reel them in when their limit pushing and boundary testing threatens to cross the line.

Searching a child's room doesn't mean that you don't trust them; it means that you remember what being a teenager was like and you are also aware of the new and more potentially damaging activities and influences out there. Your teenager might be more angry at you than ever by you "invading their privacy", but just like a toddler doesn't like to be told no, underneath the anger and frustration is relief that they have you to depend on to keep them in line as they journey through the turbulant years that are the teens.

They may "hate" you today, but they will thank you tomorrow.

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