<p>To the OP-</p>
<p>My only advice is that you move out of your house ASAP. It won’t get better.</p>
<p>I have the same issue.</p>
<p>My parents nag at me, and go through my stuff.</p>
<p>I just decided that the bother of it all will go away once I go to college (14 months away…counting down like a mad women).</p>
<p>In your case just go with it, I understand your parents because mine are the same way, when you finally get to leave home then the pain will be over, and you will not have to fear about being rude or whatever. </p>
<p>and chnage passwords, locks, screenames every few months. And block ur parents from ur FB wall, twitter, myspace etc. It will save you :D</p>
<p>Your mom is an INSANE " " (sorry if it offends you, but I can’t even begin to imagine how I’d react if my mom did this to me).</p>
<p>It’s really unfortunate that you have to deal with all this and lose out on an important part of your life solely because of financial reasons. See if you can apply for financial aid - a lot of programs and scholarships will benefit those with low income.</p>
<p>Best of luck in the future!</p>
<p>Read up on the CLEP section of Collegeconfidential (on the Test Prep forum). Find out how many credits your CC will take, and then look for the closest/$ most reasonable state school by you that will accept those as well. Study your keester off, take those tests, and get out of your parent’s house as soon as you can. I wish you the best.</p>
<p>You kids with all of your high tech abilities are offering the type of advice that would cost a kid thousands of dollars and is really a long term solution. They are right in that as you go about your daily life, you should be looking for job and room opportunities so that you are able to move out and be on your own. All kids should be doing this in my opinion because certain activities and lifestyles of young adults just don’t mesh with the older generation’s lives and if you live in their house, eat their food and take their money, they want you to live by house rules, some of which may well be unreasonable. Their house, their rules.</p>
<p>In the meantime, use your brains. Take the time and trouble to password your computer and accounts and to log out. Also my kids have 3 Facebook accounts. If they are reading this, yes, guys, I know about your other accounts. One is family account on which they keep in touch with Aunt Betsy and Cousin Joe, and they graciously and generously invite mom, dad, little brother and members of the community to join. They post family mile stone pictures on there. Definitely G rated and everyone is ever so happy with them. Even little sister and little Cousin Emily and long lost family friends’s kids are welcome. The older ones also have a “business” face book where they interact with those in their industries. Only a few select personal friends and family members are invited to that one and most of the other contacts are for business reasons. For my son, the one pacing the NYC streets for acting and other audition work, this is essential. The other who is in financial industries is finding that he is spending more time on this one as the business is starting to cross personal lines. The third Facebook account is the one filled with raunch, curse words, invitations to God only knows what and stupid pictures. The privacy setting are set so that only specific friends get access to that one. I still think that anyone with half a brain should be careful about the content and edit accordingly and not post Weiner pictures of self on the account, but if you access the account only when you are sure work and family are not going to see the data and log out accordingly and erase your footprints to the account, you can live more peacefully. Still as other say, explain how Facebook works and that you cannot control all spam invites just as one gets unsolicited mail and phone calls. Tell them you will clean up your Facebook account and start over and offer to set up an account for them and invite them to it.</p>
<p>I agree with all who said the OP’s mom crossed a line and violated his/her privacy. However, I am confused by this comment by OP:</p>
<p>“things got financially and academically unsustainable so i was forced to move back home and go to a CC. I was horrified by this but there wasn’t much I could do to stop it.”</p>
<p>I can understand how a financial downturn for your parents might force you to come home and go to a CC, but what happened with the academics? Why couldn’t you stop it? Or was it all financial related? Or were they linked – were you at State U on a merit scholarship that was pulled when grades went south?</p>
<p>Maybe part of the dynamic at home has to do with both you and your parents feeling bad about this situation but nobody wants to talk about because each party doesn’t want to acknowledge their part in how this happened.</p>
<p>I’m sorry if this comes across as harsh and unfeeling but if your parents are normally trusting of you and loving, you might be underestimating the toll your move back home has caused for them (believe me – I know it’s no picnic for you either).</p>
<p>And yes-- change all passwords. They have no right to see your emails or online activity unless they have a valid reason to believe that you are in danger.</p>
<p>Good luck.</p>
<p>Class2015, very mature response. I might say as a parent, if my child had to transfer schools becuase of academic issues, I might have a come to Jesus meeting, and talk about how are we going to improve and suggest I be given access to school email (not facebook).</p>
<p>Although your mom should not have started a screaming match, I see her side of things clearly. </p>
<p>Did you fail out of your college? You didn’t say exactly what the academic part of your leaving the state U was. </p>
<p>Have you always been truthful with your parents? In other words, do they have a reason to want to see what’s on your e-mail to find out what’s really going on. A friend of mine had a troubled son. He told his parents that he was attending college and doing well in all his classes, but he was very vague and parents got suspicious. Parents find his password, log onto the college website only to find out that he had withdrawn from classes. God knows what he was doing all day, but if he had been forthright, parents would have had no reason to be suspicious.</p>
<p>Another story. A girl down the street overdosed on prescription drugs. She died. Apparently all her illicit drug activity was posted on her My Space account which the parents only found out about too late. The police came to the high school and advised parents to check on their kids internet activity. Yes, this was high school and the kids are minors. But it’s necessary to try and protect kids. The same could be said about protecting kids from internet predators. It’s hard for parents to stop monitoring their kids activities just because they’ve crossed a numerical line from 18 to 19. They are still parents and want to help and protect their kids. </p>
<p>Your mom is no doubt worried and confused about what happened to do to do poorly in academics at college. Have a heart to heart. Be truthful. Let her know you aren’t on drugs. Let her know what is really going on. In other words, have her trust you and she wouldn’t have any reason to try and go behind your back.</p>
<p>Consider this a very inexpensive lesson in computer/email security. I’m not defending what your mother did, but be glad it was your mother and not a hacker with pretty sinister motives who guessed your passwords, etc.</p>
<p>As far as living in the parents’ house… Do you help with the everyday household chores or treat your living there as if you are staying in a hotel with maids? Do you come late at night making rattling noises and waking everyone up?</p>
<p>I learned the hard way in reading my son’s texts, emails and facebook that I might learn things I really didn’t want to know because there is nothing I could do about it anyway. Not major bad things but teenage things that would make you worry. So I don’t check his stuff anymore. However, if facebook is up on my computer I might take a look - too hard to resist and IMHO, that stuff is pretty public anyway (whether you believe it or not).</p>
<p>I do believe that at a certain ages kids are entitled to their privacy EXCEPT when the kid is exhibiting signs of problems. Academic problems severe enough to warrant withdraw from school would fall into this realm because there is usually a reason - ie, too much partying, depression, etc. In that case, I would snoop to my heart’s content if I thought it would save my child’s life.</p>
<p>I suspect there is more the the reason the OP ended up back home. Let’s here the “academically unsustainable” story, and why mom does not trues the D.</p>
<p>OP – Are you getting treatment for your depression? You mention, almost in passing, that you are clinically depressed and cry all the time for no reason. To me, that is the big deal here. Feeling like that can affect everything in your life including grades and relationships. But depression is very treatable – even if it seems hopeless. Please come back and tell us if you are getting help for your depression. If you are not getting help, please talk with your family doctor or with a counselor as soon as you possibly can.</p>
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<p>You may want to check the school’s IT policies to see if sharing school IT passwords…even with family is allowed. Back when I attended college, school account passwords were for the registered student only and IT policies at some places were insistent on it because of perceptions of compromised security when passwords are shared with anyone other than the student accountholder him/herself. </p>
<p>Recalled knowing of students who were sanctioned by the school for sharing passwords…even with family. Then again, maybe colleges/universities are much more open-minded these days…</p>
<p>There is no website which allows people to share PW.</p>
<p>At our kiddos’ U, they can designate whomever they choose “guests” who have access to academic & financial records. The guests log in with their own password & the kid’s ID#. It works fine for us. Our kiddos have completed forms so we can have access to these as well as their medical records & that billing.</p>
<p>I believe many other Us have the ability for kids to authorize parents to see such info as they recognize the HUGE financial investment us parents are making.</p>
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<p>Access to academic and financial records are one thing as the student can…and if the parents are paying…should sign off forms allowing parental access to them. </p>
<p>Parental access to a student’s email/network accounts is another matter entirely. I may not have been clear, but this is where school IT policies may not always be so tolerant…especially when I was in college.</p>