My dad did that too. He had this program installed where he could view my screen from his computer. It sucks having a computer guy for a dad sometimes.

It's not like that in the United States, but in Europe, looking through the mail or texts of and 12 year old (and up) is illegal. You are only allowed to do it with probable cause (You are acting strange, I heard your friend was doing drugs) and even then you are only allowed to do it IN FRONT OF YOUR KID. Offcourse many people break this rule, but it's not something that's accepted and teachers are required by law to inform the authoroties if a child complains about it to them. Not to mention, trust is way more valueble then being able to look through her mail. (Trust isn't broken if you only do it in front of your kid, sneaking around breaks the trust) Now that OP doesn't trust her mother, nothing of importance will show up anywhere her mother can look. So now that you actually have a reason to look through her phone, nothing will be there because OP knows her mother looks through her phone. Teenagers aren't idiots, like their privacy and have a brain, your parenting job just got double the effort for half the impact. She will also not go to her mother anymore if something bad happens and she doesn't know what to do unless it gets really serious. I mean, why would she? That's the person that looks through her phone without asking, why should she trust her WITH ANY INFORMATION? So now you have one of those typical teenagers that doesn't talk about anything and parents complain about without a clue why that teenager doesn't talk, really?

My mother once went through an MSN conversation (waaaay back) with a friend about my now ex-boyfriend who I was having issues with at the time. It was my fault for leaving the computer for a few minutes and thinking she wouldn't go through my conversations, but she did. Her response was to ban me from all social media for life unless I broke up with my boyfriend (because to her that's way easier than attempting to resolve stuff but whatever), ditched all mutual friends we had and made me give her all my passwords to my social media accounts and my phone so that she could check what I was doing, who I was talking to and what I was talking about. I was 15 at the time. I ended up losing my boyfriend, quite a few friends, and have yet to feel I can trust my mother again. I absolutely understand why parents are overprotective but violating their privacy is ultimately a violation of their trust, and actually counteracts what they were trying to achieve in the first place. In the end I found other means to keep talking to some of my friends without her knowing and have never once dared ask her for help when anything's been wrong. I've also got her blocked on all my new social media accounts because how can I trust that she won't somehow find other ways to snoop? She sometimes says she can't understand why I never share stuff with her. What a joke. Sorry for the long novel but yeah, no, it's one thing to be a good parent and check on your kid but it's another to breach their privacy (because ALL kids deserve their privacy) and their trust. I know if I was responsible for a child I would never dream of going through their texts, much less MAKE them give me their passwords.

I wouldn't have minded if she came up to me and asked, I mean I have nothing to hide. It was just really creepy waking up with her in my room next to my bed at 2 am. It hasn't been only one time either.

Most people on this program are kids...and most of those are anti-parental rights. I think we can take for granted they are a minor because they are still living with their parent. That said...they should know what their kids are up to on their phone and online. If the kid disappeared, they would blame the parent for not knowing what they were up to. Its just how it is here.

Bull hockey. She could have at least warned her that she might do that.

Not really. Okay maybe if she told her/him that "hey i might check your phone every once in a while". I know that i wouldn't have agreed on getting my phone if my parents said this to me because it would make me feel that they don't trust me at all and that their failed to teach me the right from the wrong.