Don’t Be a Boundary Breaker: Why Respecting Your Teen’s Privacy is Important

Not respecting your teen’s boundaries might send them the wrong message about the importance of consent.

–VALERIE CANINO

I hear a lot of parents complain about their teen’s growing need for boundaries, especially in the form of privacy. The increasing demand for boundaries that a teen expresses is healthy! It shows that they are growing. So when I get asked why a teen insists on parents knocking at their bedroom door before entering, I usually tell them Angela’s story.

Angela and Her Mom

Angela loves spending time in her room. She likes the quiet that gives her the space to regroup before she has to go back out into the world, face another day of school, deal with her parents, the social pressure, and much more. But sometimes she feels invaded in her space, especially when her mom flings the door open without warning. Every time time this happens, she no longer feels like she has a safe place to just be, decompress, and dream with her music. 

After what seems to be the 50th time of her mom just opening the door to her room without a knock or any kind of warning, Angela asks her mom, “Can you knock before you come in and then wait for me to say okay before you enter? I would appreciate it please.”

Coming in before she announced herself was okay when she was a little girl but now as a teenager turning 15 she wanted her privacy. Even though her mom seemed a little reluctant at first she agreed and told Angela she would knock, then wait to come in. Angela felt relieved that her mom was listening to her feelings and respecting her boundaries.

But that day came and went, and the next day, her mom did a quick knock then opened the door without waiting for permission to enter. Angela reminded her mom of their agreement. But Angela’s mother got angry and her response was, “This is my house! I pay the bills! I don’t care that you want me to knock! Whatever!”

Boundary Breakers are a Breach of Consent

This is what I call a “boundary breaker,” which is a breach of consent. Consent is an ever-important topic in our world today, and research shows we are failing to really help our children grasp the concept of consent on a multi-level platform—at school, at home, in their social interactions, relationships, and on an emotional level.

While a major shift needs to happen in the educational system of our schools, everything starts at home. So we need to view teaching consent to our children as an important “life skill not a sex skill.”


This starts with modeling “consent” in our own families. We are our children’s first teachers. They watch us, listen to us, and look up to us. Too often in our society, the parent-child relationship has been set up like a hierarchy, and we unconsciously use it as justification to cross our children’s boundaries of how they want to be treated, giving them the message that trampling over how they want to be treated is okay. 

This opens the door to the falsehood that our children need to respect our feelings more than we respect their own. If this is the message they are receiving, then does this teach them that how they want to be treated comes last?

Or even more worrisome, does it unknowingly give them the message that, if someone gets angry at them or is more powerful than them, they have to let down the boundaries that protect their physical self, safety, health, and well-being?

Making a Choice to Parent Mindfully

Unfortunately, as parents, like Angela’s mom, we aren't aware of how dishonoring a simple request to knock and give permission to come in plays out in our children’s psyche. Too often without realizing it, our own triggers of growing up not feeling respected by the adults around us show up to parent our children.

Unknowingly, in these moments, we are trying to heal the parts of ourselves that felt disrespected too. For just a moment we have a chance to stop and place ourselves in their shoes. We can choose to do things differently, remembering that, as parents, we are our children’s first touch point out into the world. 

So making sure our actions align with letting them know how they feel matters and how they want to be treated matters is key to not only helping them set up healthy boundaries in all areas of their life but also setting the tone for future generations to come.