<p>Children should be allowed a modicum of privacy (more, if they have earned it), and there is no parental entitlement to breaching privacy, just because they hold the purse strings…unless…there is reason to suspect illegal or dangerous activity of some sort.</p>
<p>-Allmusic- ~</p>
<p>Yep!</p>
<p>Exactly, Allmusic. When I say that I don’t ask questions that it’s not my place to ask, I am referring to very personal and private matters. Only I know the values that I have (hopefully) raised my children with, and how strongly they themselves believe in these values. I would not shy away from asking questions related to drugs, shoplifting, cheating, if I ever felt the situation warranted it.</p>
<p>Snowball - I’m in the same boat with you! I find out stuff on the IM’s.</p>
<p>Recently my D left an IM saying something like</p>
<p>Tequila + jello shots + 2 kegs + 40 people in apt = jail</p>
<p>My sister was up late one night and took a peak at her daughter (my niece’s) online journal. Her journal linked to some friends’ journals. My sister was perusing them, and saw some pictures of a bunch of liquor bottles. Then she realized it was HER wallpaper from HER kitchen in the pictures! She didn’t want to blow her source, but she confronted my niece the next morning, who continued to insist that she hadn’t had anyone over the weekend my sister and her husband left her home because she had to work while they went to their lake house.</p>
<p>No. No lying. I have made it clear to my kids that very little of what they may do will surprise me. And for some reason, their behaviors, and hence their need to lie, I guess, have lagged any need they might have had to lie…</p>
<p>My son tells me sometimes more than I need to know…not about himself so much as what his classmates are up to. I think both of us are incredulous about how easily lying comes to some of them. S isn’t perfect, but when he screws up he usually feels pretty guilty which keeps him in line.</p>
<p>I think my parents trusted me fully, and they were right to. I don’t think I ever lied to them about anything I was up to in college. If anything, they wished (and still do) that I would more aggressively edit the truth I tell them. They feel I share a little too much sometimes.</p>
<p>Yes, D has lied to us, and it was devastating at first, especially since almost every time she lied it was about something trivial.</p>
<p>BUT, in her defense, she lies when she feels we are prying and/or trying to control her life. So, I don’t blame her. Lying, or in effect, keeping the truth from us, makes her feel empowered. Can we blame her?</p>
<p>You guys are so respectful of your childrens’ privacy. I’ll have to remember that. I don’t know how your parents were, but my mother used to ask me point blank anything she thought she should know. (and I was almost finished with college!) If she didn’t like the answer…FROST would practically come through the phone line!</p>
<p>Haha dke. I may be a bit like that.</p>
<p>I used to tell my parents all about my crazy friends too–assuming that they knew this was a way of slyly letting them know what I was up to. Didn’t work. They never connected the dots. They still keeled over when I moved in with DH.</p>
<p>When my kids don’t want me to know something, they just get evasive. For the most part, they’re pretty honest with me because neither of them lie well :)<br>
In any case, I trust them and know they’re really great people, whom I & others enjoy.</p>
<p>True joke told in our house:</p>
<p>“How can you tell when S is lying?”</p>
<p>“His lips move.”</p>
<p>Son’s default response is to tell us what he thinks we want to hear. He has cracked so many times that he gives up the truth much faster nowadays.</p>
<p>Much like today’s Zits… </p>
<p><a href=“http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/comics/Zits.dtl[/url]”>http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/comics/Zits.dtl</a></p>
<p>Yea, my S & D lie about as well as Jeremy of Zits. 
Hope they never get any better at it.</p>
<p>“As a college aged male, my parents have absolute trust in me.”</p>
<p>Then you should always think of that before you do something stupid, right?</p>
<p>" You may or may not have the same in your child. I’m curious if, the collective parents of this forum, feel that</p>
<p>a) they can trust their own college students"</p>
<p>Absolutely. I trust my kids, but I also hold them accountable for their choices. Daddy can’t make bail… sorry. </p>
<p>“b) are ok with the level of trust they have” </p>
<p>Yea, pretty much.</p>
<p>"People do some crazy things in college. "</p>
<p>I did far more crazy things in jh and Hs, college is where I mellowed out a bit. I did dumb things, stupid things, mean things, nasty things and outrageous things. My kids haven’t come close to doing what I did. Maybe it skips a generation.</p>
<p>I find it interesting that parents are rationalizing the lying of their children as “inevitable” or as somehow the result of the parents actions. That might explain it, but I do not see how that in any way makes it ok.</p>
<p>There are a handful of analogies for cases when just because a person’s actions are reasonable, in this case, lying because your parents are “prying,” and that course of action still being ok.</p>
<p>And Opie: how do you know your kids haven’t done crazier things than you? I wonder why my own parents would think on the subject, and if they are right or wrong…</p>
<p>THis is an interesting topic to me becuase my parents and I have definetly been on a rollarcoaster of trust throughout my teenage years. Things have finally settled down (I am 20) and we have pretty much come to the conclusion that lieing is okay when it could hurt one of the parties involved. </p>
<p>When I was a freshman, I lied to my parents about where I was going and who I was with. I knew that they would KILL me for the things I was doing with my boyfriend at the time. They decided to find out what was going on by invading my privacy and reading my journal. That broke our trust for a few years.
Then when I was 18, I found out my dad had been lying to me my entire life and actually had two previous marriages before the one with my mom.
Finally, I have learned that my parents DO NOT want to hear the whole truth about my mental illness. When I tell my mom that I want to die and I feel suicidal, she can’t handle it. Those truths are best kept secret, I guess. </p>
<p>In conclusion, I think there are good reasons for not always telling the truth and furthermore, parents need to also scrutinize how truthful they are to their children before accusing their kids of lying. </p>
<p>Just becuase they are adults doesn’t mean they are always right…</p>
<p>There is such a thing as “too much info,” even for parents & “truth” can be used as a weapon/bludgeon/sledgehammer. Parents are not perfect (unfortunately we are human with imperfections & weaknesses), tho most of us generally try our best to do what we think is right at the time.<br>
Most parents are not trained mental health professionals and do not really know what to do and how to help when there are mental health issues presented to them (even those who are trained are trained to work on people outside of their own families). Family/joint counseling might be an avenue to help you & your family figure out how to optimize your mental health, as well as that of your family.</p>
<p>It’s interesting. Just last night my youngest D spilled her guts on something we easily would have had no clue had happened. She has had her driver’s license for a short time. Last night we let her drive herself to her flute lesson. On the way home she was trying to change the station on the radio.
(she has been told not to listen to the radio in the car until she gets more experience)</p>
<p>Anyway, while changing the radio station she ran up on the curb, between a fire hydrant, a mailbox, and a tree. She didn’t go into anyone’s yard nor did she hit anything. </p>
<p>At any rate she said she had to tell us about it because the guilt would have killed her if she didn’t.</p>
<p>“Then when I was 18, I found out my dad had been lying to me my entire life and actually had two previous marriages before the one with my mom.”</p>
<p>No kidding. One of my dearest friends just found out that his father has had a secret second family for decades, complete with house, half-siblings my friend has never met, etc. I’m way more concerned about parents lying to kids.</p>