When Parents Read a Teen's Diary Without Asking

I recently wrote a post on Instagram about navigating the line between privacy and secrecy in intimate relationships. I invited people to make the following distinction: privacy is intimacy-building, while secrecy is intimacy-eroding.

Privacy is about occupying a realm that is unobserved. Privacy reminds us of our sovereignty and separateness. Privacy is intimacy-promoting because our connection with ourselves lays the foundation for our connection with others. Solitude nourishes us so that we can nourish each other. Cultivating a private world (for example through journal writing, solo activities, and the realm of erotic fantasies) helps us be better intimate partners. In that way, privacy is consensual — partners agree that valuing some amount of separateness supports their togetherness.

Secrecy, on the other hand, is nonconsensual. Secrecy involves choices I make without your knowledge, choices that can create harm. Intimacy is built in the space between partners, but secrets keep us from being fully seen, known, and understood. The energy I am devoting to keeping my secret from you is energy I am not devoting to presence, empathy, and attunement. Intimacy cannot be built when there are parts of the self that are being intentionally hidden from view.

The Impact of Early Privacy Violations

I had anticipated that people would engage with me around the complexity of navigating the line between privacy and secrecy. And they did. What I had not anticipated is the number of people who would share that they struggle as adults in intimate relationships because a parent had read their diary without their consent when they were children. My heart hurt as I read comments like this:

• “My mom read my journal and wrote shaming comments in the margins.”
• “My siblings read my journal and showed it to my parents.”
• “My parent found my diary and threw it out.”

Each of these stories ended with a line like this: “That was decades ago and I never kept a diary again.”

As I sat with the lasting impact of an early privacy violation and how much self-understanding (and therefore intimacy) is lost when one feels unable to carve out a private space, I decided to follow up with a post encouraging parents to allow their children and teens to have a sacred private space to explore their thoughts and feelings without fear of reprisal.

This led a number of parents to share stories with me about discovering their teen’s suicidality, or substance abuse, or cutting behavior only because they chose to open and read their diary. It makes sense that when a parent is worried about their child’s health and physical safety, their instinct would be to look in the one place they think their child might be keeping information from them. But this action can lead to your child both distrusting you and being unwilling or unable to trust others in the future.

To Read or Not to Read

If you are considering reading your teen’s diary, your first step is to get clear on your motivation. In all likelihood, you are wanting to read it because you know your teen and something is feeling “off” to you. They are acting in a way that concerns and confuses you. Maybe you have tried to invite conversation and been blocked by your teen’s sulkiness or irritability. If so, you may feel backed into a corner. As you are figuring out whether to read or not read your teen’s diary, I invite you to keep the following in mind.

Differentiation can be normal and painful at the same time: Adolescence is a time when our children begin to differentiate themselves from us. They crave autonomy and independence… and privacy. Two things can be true at once: (1) their desire for privacy is developmentally normative, and (2) your discomfort with their need for privacy is normative. Each stage of a child’s development initiates a parent into a new set of feelings and challenges. Here are some questions to boost your relational self-awareness:

• What is it like for you as your teen claims space for themselves?
• What are you grieving in this new dynamic?
• What does it remind you of from your past?

The more you can curiously and compassionately explore what you are feeling in the face of your teen’s behavior, the more you can choose to respond rather than react.

The relationship dynamic warrants your attention: The more your teen acts outside the norm, the more you feel stressed and anxious. The more you feel stressed and anxious, the more your teen retreats and/or snaps at you. The cycle can take on a life of its own. Your heightened anxiety may be causing you to crave the control and certainty that you imagine will come from reading their journal. I invite you to consider other avenues for connection.

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• Talk together with a family therapist who can guide you toward a different kind of conversation.
• Change your part of “the dance.” Stop pursuing for a while. Focus on other ways you can connect — via a shared activity, for example.
• Resist the urge to react. If and when your teen opens up to you, respond first with empathy and validation rather than problem-solving.
• Take care of yourself. The more stressed and exhausted we feel, the more we “code” the world around us as dangerous and out of control (including the world of our relationship with our teen).

When you shift your focus from “What are you hiding?” to “How are we connecting?” you build a cushion of positivity that will make you feel more approachable to your teen.

The Technology Caveat

Although a diary and a phone are both spaces for heightened autonomy and creative outlets, the stakes are obviously much higher online than on paper. It makes sense that a parent would want to monitor internet usage and prevent their child from accessing inappropriate or dangerous material. Younger teens especially benefit from some amount of monitoring as they developmentally lack the ability to create safe boundaries and exercise discernment. Another argument might be made about the fact that parents are often paying for phone bills and may want to ensure that text messages are being sent in an appropriate manner. The technology middle ground is a password-protected diary, which warrants the wider latitude that comes with a paper diary versus the tighter monitoring that comes with social media.

Privacy Agreements

Because there was so much interest in this topic, I reached out to my fellow professors and clinicians at The Family Institute to get their take on when it might be appropriate to read through a child’s diary or phone. I hope these words might provide you with a “guidebook” of sorts:

• Create ground rules. Prevention is the best medicine. When your child buys a diary, talk together about the boundaries. For example, let them know that you will not read it unless you are worried about the risk of serious harm to themselves or someone else. This conveys to your teen that their journal is a private space and outlines a limited but very specific scenario in which you would cross that privacy boundary. Another agreement you could make is that you will never read it without asking them first.
• Talk to your teen about your worries. Open up to your teen about the stress and anxiety you are feeling in response to the changes you’re observing. You can be both worried and respectful of your teen’s autonomy. If your teen is experiencing something that would benefit from a loving and empathetic conversation, your willingness to lead with care will go a long way toward them opening up to you.
• Validate. Look for opportunities to send validating (“I get it”) and reassuring (“I love you no matter what”) messages to your child about the difficulties they are experiencing in day-to-day situations. These lay the groundwork for them opening up about the more extraordinary situations.

Research supports what so many of us already know: Writing in a journal helps us explore new thoughts and feelings, unload problems that have been weighing heavily on our minds, and ponder our fantasies and dreams. Journaling provides an intimate space for teens to openly express thoughts they might consider to be confusing, embarrassing, or even shameful. When an adolescent maintains the expectation that this outlet is for their eyes only, they may feel comfortable enough to share everything from personal details about their latest crush to frightening, controversial thoughts.

Breaching your teen’s trust by reading their diary can create a ripple effect that lasts well into their adult life. Accessing private thoughts or feelings at a time when your teen is so thrilled to have their own space can inadvertently send the message to your teen that privacy within a family or relationships does not exist. As your teen turns into an adult and begins exploring intimate relationships of their own, they take that message with them. So before you make the decision to read your teen’s diary, consider what the lasting consequences may be.

For this post, I received input from the following clinicians at The Family Institute at Northwestern University: Allen Sabey, Shari Rogers, Chrishane Cunningham, Aaron Cohn. Thank you also to my graduate assistants, Megan Gaumond and Samantha Hardy, for their help with this post.