All the time. My mom never knocked. She went through my garbage, unfolding paper and gum wrappers and whatever else to be sure there were no hidden messages or notes or whatever the hell else she imagined.

Never

Mate you live in another culture. Here we would say leave if you have a problem with it, stay if the money is worth it.

Never, as long as the junk in my room wasn’t leaking into the hallway, my parents were happy. Definitely no snooping. I had software on my kids devices when they were younger, but it just put blocks on what they could access, the only thing I “monitored” to any extent was time spent using the device.

Never went through my stuff, but they also never learned to knock, like never ever ever, even after being asked a million times. Fapping was huge gamble.

Never. Once my mum went through my call history because we (me and a friend) were suspected of having pranked my neighbour. We had but we hid it well.

When I was a teen in the 1980s, my mother would snoop through my room and my things most days, then make up stories and get mad at me. Which is why I left home at 15.

Never to look for anything, they might come and talk or wake me up if needed. But they knocked or called before coming in. I never locked my room, so they could have if they wanted to, they simply didn’t want to. They also never checked my bags or pockets. One time my little brother snitched on me smoking, my dad made me grab the cigarettes and dispose of them. He didn’t look for them himself.

Is this normal? I’m biased. To me it is. I think privacy is an important part of forming your identity. Having a space where you can be yourself and express yourself, and keep your failed attempts at self-expression to yourself. Nobody needs to see your attempts of tying a tie that you discovered was the total opposite of cool and you died of shame getting laughed at at school. Your parents don’t need to know that shit. Their job is to love and support you, not get into the weeds of youth fashion.

And this is true of many things, but i can imagine that sometimes interventions are needed. When drugs or weapons are involved for example, parents should be parenting. As it’s very difficult as a teenager to understand when self expression crosses into self harm. And in that case supporting your children could mean infringement on their privacy in some occasions.

I guess in a way my parents trusted me and trusted their formative parenting years enough to give me the privacy i had. And it is very difficult for a child to bot blame themselves for a loss of privacy, even when it’s the parents not trusting their own parenting enough to trust their children with privacy.

They never went snooping, my mom occasionally would occasionally come into my room to put clothes away or pick stuff up off the floor or whatever but that was pretty much the extent of it.

She did occasionally do the fairly odd parents “I’m respecting your privacy by knocking but asserting my authority as your parent by coming in anyway” thing, where she’d knock but didn’t really wait for a reply before opening the door or just took any sort of “what?” reply she got as an invitation to continue in, but I think that was more of her being on autopilot than any real intention to barge in on me.

I was, by most measures, a pretty good kid and didn’t really have anything to hide anyway. I think my parents knew that so they never really bothered to snoop.

And on top of that, my grandmother was the queen of all snoop, and my mom hated that when she was growing up so she didn’t want to do that to her own kids.

My grandmother was always the type to just come over uninvited, let herself into the house, and just kind of do whatever the hell she wanted, look at whatever mail we had sitting out on the counter (didn’t open it, but if it was already open it I don’t think she was above reading it) move stuff around, etc.

I remember one time when I was still living at home I was the only one home, it was the middle of the day and I worked nights so I was asleep. She let herself in and was doing who knows what downstairs, and she accidentally bumped the power button on my Xbox, and couldn’t figure out how to turn it back off, so she came into my room and woke me up over it.

All the fucking time. I hated it, and I have issues with trust now as an adult because of it. I’m super protective of my space, in so much that it takes a while to even let a partner in to my bedroom. My parents were constantly going through my things, looking for anything they could punish me for. I was raised super religious and they had it in their head that all teenagers hide porn, booze, and weed. When they never found any, they just looked more. It was a fucking nightmare. I moved out of there as soon as I could, literally into a closet where I slept next to the water heater. Anything to get out of that house.

It is not normal, and you need to have boundaries. The whole “it’s my house and my rules” is bullshit. You are a human being and should be treated like one.

Very rarely, if ever.

The only time it is justifiable is if it’s either pre-agreed or if there is a threat to the child.

If there is reason to think they are being groomed, or used in some way, then yes. E.g. a room search after getting information that they are holding drugs for a dealer. They should be treated like a police search. Only done when there is real reason, rather than just fishing.

If it’s pre-agreed that a device isn’t private, then the rules change slightly. A younger child’s phone or computer should be subject to respectful monitoring. It should also be part of an open and equitable discussion on boundaries and rules. Even here, the goal should be to protect the child from dangers, not to snoop on what they are chatting with friends about beyond that.

Privacy, is an important thing for children. It needs to be provided with guard rails initially, but should be respected as best you can.

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Looking way back, not really. There may have been a few times. I know some siblings had their room searched due to reasonable suspicion of drugs, but that was never a concern with me.

When raising my kids, I don’t think I ever searched their room, except to find something of mine that they may have used. The relationships were open enough that my kids just told me if they did something like drink while still minors. I did watch for signs of drug use, but all use was very casual and minimal risk to their health.

Is this normal?

Depends on your history. A few children need this sort of scrutiny, most do not.

Barging into my room and shouting at me etc., pretty much every day.
Almost never through my stuff though, as far as I know. Except one time where I went away for a bit and had ecchi print-outs ‘hidden’ in a drawer that had a key. And wen I came back it was all laid out across my room to shame me without ever talking about it :)

This aspect is pitifully pathetic and cowardly parenting.