You are not finding anything in the backpack because he is on to you. He's 15 for crying out loud, you don't need to know every miniscule thing he's doing. Going through the backpack of an elementary student looking for forgotten papers is one thing, with a teen it's something entirely different and - HELLO, GET A CLUE - it involves and he needs your trust. Once he realizes you have been snooping, sneaking, and spying, how much trust do you think you are going to have. HINT: ZERO!! You have to START BACKING OFF NOW. He's becoming an adult - if you will only get out of his way. Ever hear of communicating? That's much more effective. That and letting him know you will always be there for him. I had a snooping, sneaking parent that couldn't communicate with me either. Do you want to know what resulted? Hatred, zero trust & even more "clamming up". You are snooping because you don't trust. Why?

MYOB

Wow. Calm down. Every mother of a teen boy I talk to says the same thing: It's hard to get any information out of them. Can't blame us for wanting to know what's going on in their lives.

But your points are well taken. There's a fine line between hovering too much and not enough.

From about 12 years old I knew my parents were snooping and I went out of my way to make sure that nothing I did that was questionable ever got back to them. I posted fake info to my facebook/myspace because I had family on there. I even had a 2nd myspace they had no clue on. I started doing this BECAUSE my parents invaded my privacy. If they had not, I would nto have hidden so much.. Each time something did make it back to them I adjusted my methods because it was easy to figure out who or where they were getting their info.

If every time you snoop you're finding "lame" information, then maybe it's safe to back off of your teenager. I really don't think, at 15, unless you suspect something, that it's appropriate to go through their stuff. Even though I wasn't doing anything wrong, if I had found out that my mother was spying on me as a teenager, A. it probably would have hurt our relationship forever, and B. I might have actually DONE something since I was already being suspected.

I agree with the other posters, you really need to back off. Plus, isn't your son old enough to know you write a blog for the newspaper, and read it? If I was your son and read all of this, I'd be pretty pissed. Give the kid some credit and trust that if he gets into something serious, he'll come to you with it.

Speaking as a 17 year old male who went through the majority of what was said, I can honestly say its extremely annoying. I feel pretty safe to speak for all teenagers that we don't want our parents as our facebook friends, nor do we want parents going through our personal lives to fulfill some obsessive need to know everything about us. You want to get visits from him after college? Then here's a suggestion: back off. Get a life, find something else to do other than to snoop on your son, find a job, make some additional money to help pay for your children's college, do something. Get off your son's back and let him have his privacy; if he needs you, he'll come to you. If he doesn't, and you're constantly hovering in his affairs, then he'll find someone else to need and he'll hate all contact with you.

I cannot stress just how important privacy is to ANY human being.

Privacy, what privacy! You have none until you are out of my house. Computer, facebook, cell phones HA! My kid is getting none of that. The youth of today are clueless and deserve nothing. I will have keyloggers on all computers. Try me and we will move to the woods and homeschool will be in effect. Dopey kids today, don't know geography, love Obama, no frickin clue of what is going on. Attached to their phones like aliens. All you teens care about is getting pregnant and posting to facebook, twitter etc. You kids are lucky that you have soft parents who work to hard providing you with cell phones etc. That is their mistake, they take their eyes off you and some creep will take you away. Of course you teens can take care of yourselves, right? Plenty of time for privacy when you have made it to 21 without killing yourself or becoming pregnant. Be kids and let your parents watch after you, that is our job. We get 20 years of your life and you get the other 60 years. You better pray we did our job correctly so you can have that 60 years without becoming a corpse.

I think this article should be read by all the parents who are tense for their kids.

I happy to know that it can Absolutely spy on my kids. It's for their own safety. Children have no expectation of privacy as far as the internet is concerned. Thank you so much for sharing such an important information.

Wow, JJ, your kids are never gonna visit you after college becasue you are going to have a sour relationship with them...after they turn 18, they will be gone and you will be alone.

It is really important to check the activities of the kids and get involved with it.

Teens have a social expectation of privacy from their parents, but no legal or moral right to it. We are responsible for their behavior and safety until they are fully mature, but we have increasingly limited physical and logistical control, so we must be wiser and more loving than they know how to be. We risk alienation, but if they do become estranged as we try to protect them from the dangers of modern 'civilization', we can hope that they will have a long & healthy life in which to return, after they mature enough to understand. Parenthood is not for sloths or wimps. It is part of our immortality that we work for.

Keeping up with what your kids are doing is not snooping, it's called BEING A PARENT!!! Your teenage kid is not old enough to make smart decisions about life, so its the parents job to monitor the child. Obviously the child is not going to appreciate it at the time, because they can't see anything that's not in front of them. But when they grow up well-rounded and future-driven, and not pregnant and in legal trouble, they will understand. As a 26-year old, I am young enough to remember how mad I was at my parents for being too strict, and old enough now to appreciate how they helped me become the man I am today.

My son is Alive because I snooped - and found out about his drug use. I was suspicious, but it turns out there's not always a lot of personality change until they've been using for awhile. So - be a parent. It's not your job to be their friends, they usually have lots of those. Be a parent, even when it's not easy.
(btw, weed is no longer "just" weed - it's usually laced - with meth, cocaine, heroin, etc. - a little marketing ploy. So if you find it, don't be complacent about that either.)

My son is Alive because I snooped - and found out about his drug use. I was suspicious, but it turns out there's not always a lot of personality change until they've been using for awhile. So - be a parent. It's not your job to be their friends, they usually have lots of those. Be a parent, even when it's not easy.
(btw, weed is no longer "just" weed - it's usually laced - with meth, cocaine, heroin, etc. - a little marketing ploy. So if you find it, don't be complacent about that either.)

I've got a daughter and she tells everything about her when we have a talk. It is true that sometimes there is an inner feeling that i feel that she had something that haven't told to me. I trust my daughter coz she tells me everything. But there are times that I want to know what she is doing. I keep on tracking her to know something then I discover that her peers were engaged in using alcohol and smoking cigars. I'm shocked on what I've seen and when she got back home we've got a talk and ask what was her day and she answered that her day was fine. Then I told her about what I've seen. I actually told her that I've pass by and saw her on her friends house drinking alcohol and smoking then she cried.

I told her if you want to gain my trust back know things that goes on my rule and don't bend the rules I've setup for her.

I agree with the monitoring crowd... As an ex teenager and current father of a 17 years old girl I have to say I'd be a fool to believe that my girl would tell me EVERYTHING. It's not that I don't believe her in general, or that I think that she is a bad girl: she's not. It's her friends, pier pressure and the not fully formed sense of good judgment that pushes me to keep an eye on things. A lot of times she is simply too embarrassed to approach certain subjects with us (heck, i know I would of never brought up girl issues with my mom or dad or told them about a friend trying drugs for the fear of not being able to see them any more). I address the privacy issue by being upfront with her about the fact that I have tools to know what she is doing and I will use them if I suspect something is wrong. I don't tell her what these tools are however and when I do use them I make sure that I present my knowledge in a way that conceals the source.

My arsenal consists of computer monitoring software (I'm a computer guy) and phone monitoring. The computer monitor keeps track of all websites, chats, screen shots and computer programs that she runs on her computer while the phone monitor keeps track of text messages and her GPS location. The programs are invisible. I don't check every log and don't obsess over the information, so far I never checked her gps location for example except once to see if the system worked, but knowing that if I need to for any reason I can gives me comfort. Every now and then I take a look to see what she is up to and what her friends are up to. 99% of the times the logs are about typical teen topics including friends, school, boys etc... I quickly browse over them and try to stay out of their personal things (i really don't care to know how hot Scott is) at times they speak about drugs and comment on bad thins that other kids are doing or discuss going to parties or places they should not be going to. A couple of times I caught friends (mostly boys, but some of the girls to) trying to convince her that smoking weed or cigarettes was OK or trying to convince her that certain sexual activities are OK. In most cases my daughter responded well and made me proud, but others her defenses where not so good especially when a boy she liked or her best friend approached those issues. On those occasions I simply bring up the general subject as a conversation topic without reference to her conversations with friends and offer my side of the story and monitor the conversations to make sure my point was made.

I think all of this is part of parenting in the modern world. I try to stay away from the details and simply use my tools to assist and guide my girl making sure she avoids the big mistakes and pitfalls that are out there... These tools need to be used wisely however as I do believe that overbearing parents that forget that teens will need to experiment and push boundaries in order to grow up could end up hurting their kids more than helping them. Our role is to guide them not create a prison around them.

My two cents...