Is it normal that i read my daughter's diary?

My mom read my diary when I was 7 and I hated her for it. Respect your children's privacy. Would you want her waltzing in your room and reading your diary, even if it was out in the open? NO.
Her reading my diary cost me a lot of memories because I refused to keep one after that.

Absolutely not. I dealt with this with my mother. It ruined us. Nothing I did warrented her snooping. Never violate her trust. Let her maybe do sex and drugs and alcohol, you probably did yourself.

Literally 4 users on this site actually have kids.

The rest are still trying to hide their diary in their apartment. In the basement. Of their parents house. They’re probably won’t even bother to hide it Bc they’ve been playing video games for 9 hours without enough Mountain Dew.

Keep track of your kids. Don’t over analyze. It’s a difficult age. Be open. Be honest. Cheers.

Maybe she left it out and open just so that you would read it. Maybe she just couldn't come to tell you about the kids picking on her. If you read it don't tell her you read it.

I wouldn't mention to her that you read it. But it was laying there open so it's hard to argue that it was snooping.

If you left a big dildo laying out on your bed & your kid found it is the kid guilty of snooping? No. If you don't want others to see it, don't leave it out.

I would not like the idea of my wife reading through my kid's diary. You should ask your daughter if everythings ok not read her diary. Ask her about hows school going, are people being nice, do you like your teachers.

That's why I never trust writing anything. Never happened, but I never wrote a diary because I knew if someone wants they can read it. My mother always wondered why I told her that I write diary but she always found it empty. Hahahaha I was so intelligent (I still am)

In any case I'm glad that some good came out of the situation.

If it wasn't on the page it still might have been in her head, and you wouldn't go peeking at someone's secret throughts, even to keep them safe, so...

I never understood this idea that kids need their privacy if she was older, 15, 16, 17 years old you probably shouldnt be reading her diary. But she is 10. As a parent you need to know what your kid is doing and what is going on with them. At the same time you dont want to be a helicopter parent because that can just push them away. There will be things that happen that they will not tell you about simply because they don't know how or they are embarrassed to say anything. Read the diary. She is 10. Still a kid. I wouldnt make it a habit to read it everyday, but once in a while go for it just dont share those private things with other people. At the same time I guess you could always just talk to them too and try to figure it out.

That is just my 2 cent on the matter though. Everyone will have their own opinions, best thing to do is what you feel is right for you and your family.

I would scan the pages and post on your Facebook so more people can help her.

Same here.

I find this a difficult one (BTW, I'm the father of a girl who recently hit her teens).

As far as I know, our daughter doesn't keep a diary, but she might. For years now, her bedroom has been her territory. The door stays closed at all times (mainly to keep the cats out) and my wife and I only go in there when we really need to for some practical reason. It's a huge mess, but it's her mess, and as long as she sticks to the rule that she never takes food in there and her phone is left outside the bedroom when she goes to bed, we'll let her cultivate her own personal version of chaos. There could conceivably be a diary buried under the apparently random jumble of clothes and other stuff that I occasionally glimpse, but who knows?

I like to believe that the style of communication between us and her is open and honest enough that she'd tell us if something was bothering her. Her mother and I certainly pick up very quickly when something is "off" with her, and a little gentle questioning will pretty quickly lead to things being discussed. But then she's always been the sort of kid who wears her heart on her sleeve, so we're more fortunate than the parents of kids who tend to keep things bottled up.

And because I'm aware of that, I'm not going to condemn you for what you did.

It seems to me that what this incident could suggest is that you might need to put a little more effort into consciously and deliberately connecting with her on a one-to-one basis. It sounds like it only took a little persuasion to get her to admit what was bothering her, so it's not like she flat-out didn't want to talk about it. Maybe she felt that it wasn't really that important and that the casual, "How was your day at school, honey?" question that parents habitually ask wasn't actually an invitation to unload about what was _really_ going on with the kids she has to deal with every day.

It's important that kids feel that they're part of a loving, stable family group, but kids also value one-on-one time with both of their parents where you don't have an agenda, but just spend time chatting about whatever pops up. I wonder if you might have found out about this problem without snooping if there were regularly times like that when all your attention was on her, and her sister and father weren't around to stick their oars in to the flow of the conversation.

Unless there is some major incident where your daughter is missing or seriously injured and cannot talk; and the diary might provide a clue... you should not read their diaries unless they first ask you to - or you ask them and tell them why you want to look at it - and they agree (with no pressure applied).

Actually, in the first case its best if you ask someone else to read them and tell you if they found anything that might indicate what happened. That person has to be someone who will not tell you anything else about what is in the diary. That maintains a parent-child trust; and the child will respect you for not invading their privacy any more than needed in the situation.

Its often best to tell them that you are concerned about them and why before you ask. You should also offer to let them read your diary from your youth (or even current) in exchange.

Young people that age are developing and the concept of Privacy is very important to them. If they find out they will feel very violated by you and you will have lost a good portion of their trust. Now in an emergency where they are missing they would likely understand why and agree that in certain emergencies that you had the right to look for clues. But, outside of that - its a major invasion of privacy.

Sounds to me its a slight invasion of privacy.