Teenagers and House Alarms
 

Friend has 16 yo daughter. They have an unmonitored house alarm basically so they can "lock" her in at night. Yesterday they tried to set the alarm, but the code had changed, so they re-changed the code and set the alarm. Daughter walked down stairs, looked at her phone and disarmed the alarm. Parents changed code again, daughter looked at her phone and disarmed alarm. Proud daughter proclaims "aren't you glad I'm smart enough to figure this out and you're not?"

So, right now it's a pissing match. They are thinking of getting new alarm system and going monitored now. BUT they would like to know what they hell she's doing to get the code (maybe it's just a master code??) so that this doesn't happen after dropping big coin on a new system for her to do it again.

Thoughts? What the heck is she doing to the alarm?

They're trying to lock their kid in?

:lol:

I have NO idea what she's doing but if she can figure it out so can they.

Could they just take away her phone? :scratch:

Does this brand of alarm have a "master code" that unlocks all systems like a "master key" will open up all locks of the same brand?

I would call the Fire Dept for assistance if I was them...

dialing 911 of course.:?:

Sounds like a great idea. :lol:

Can't they just call the maufacturer and find out what she's doing...shouldn't be too difficult to find an answer ?

I suggested that. They're more of an Azoomm parenting style--creative punishment. I think they're just waiting for that moment to come along when they find the perfect punishment. LOL I think the phone thing is too easy because when she gets it back she'll just do it again.

Ours does, but they have a different brand of keypad. I'm assuming it does. I told her to find the instruction book for it... or call the builder people who installed it.

yea, good luck w/ that huh? LOL actually, she's a good kid, just ornery.

It's most likely a master code that you get from the operational manual online.

The operational manual should also state a way to disable it or change it.

This company offers a system that can be activated/deactivated from a cell phone...

http://www.youtube.com/user/cpisecur.../3/lV1MZW2qYc8

Could it be some sort of phone app? I'm sure she wouldn't have paid for it, kid just got her own job a couple of weeks ago and Mom diveys out paycheck.

so since your giving out details now, what to stop a thief from knowing this "app" or procedure and changing the code on all the house's w/ cel service?

so maybe we need to consider a Land line system vs cel. or at the min. take off the sign out ft telling who we use

or maybe call the alarm co. and ask them.

READ Ed. Literacy works.

It's UNMONITORED. Meaning, they don't have a monitoring service. MEANING they aren't using the system we are.

Got it? Good. :)

(man, I missed yelling at you online. I think I should post more often.)

And, from what I've read online, you can only change the codes when the system is unarmed. Meaning, someone can break in but if it's alarming you can't change the code.

does/did their alarm have a cel. type service before?

monitored or not has very little or nothing to do w/ what i'm askin.

my guess... the system somehow sends a text message to a certain phone number when the code is changed. :idk:

my alarm system is a black lab.
the alert is the sound of a .40 firing.

:lol: Agreed!! :lol It's entertaining too!!

no. they haven't ever done that.

Did Z just bitch slap Ed in public?

a house alarm is a closed loop system, no external communication till you hook up a service, if they've never had a cel service, that box in their closet has no outside cell connection.

now it may have something for a land line like a dialer, but again her cell can't communicate to it.

Why yes, yes she did.

sounding more like kate, huh? see how well that worked out.

maybe she's somehow programmed it to call her cell phone when they change the code... if it can call a monitoring company it can call a cell phone...

take her phone away. done deal.

she should have bitch slapped him more often then he would have been scared to leave.

our cell phone co, came out and installed a cel device. alarm boxes don't come w/ them.

no, but even a normal landline system can call whatever number the service company programs into it. if she figured out how to program her cell number as that number then maybe she gets messages when the codes are changed.

That usually requires the system to be activated with the alarm company to send out those messages.

just because they're mad their ghey little alarm didn't keep her in..?

Talk about retarded parents..........Try getting some parenting skills, and actually raising your daughter, instead of using brute force to make her do what you want.

The over-sheltering of American kids continues......

"OH NOES, CAN'T LET HER OUT, SHE MIGHT GET IN TROUBLE"

Sounds like how you might treat a 12 y/o, not 16

lol, at all the single people w/ "great" parenting advice.............esp 'slice :snort:

They are VERY good parents. They also drug test her. Keeps them honest. For example, if you know your mom will do random drug/cig tests, it's easy to "just say no" since you can say "my mom piss tests me, sorry, i'll pass". just like "my mom sets the alarm at night, can't sneak out I'll get busted, sorry, I'll pass".

if at 16, they have to LOCK their daughter IN the house to keep her "safe" (for their value of safe) then parenting skills are kicking in a little late. So treating her like a 12 year old is exactly what's called for. You're right - they need to address what the issue is. What is she doing when she leaves the house that's so bad. Punish for that. Or let her do it and suffer the consequences. Except when they directly affect you. If, at 16, she brings drungs into her parent's house, it's the parents that are directly affected. If she's just breaking curfew and hanging out with people the parents don't approve of...it's annoying and frustrating but the consequences will come out sooner or later. Locking her in the house - and keeping her there - is the problem they're asking a solution for. TAKE. HER. PHONE. At 16, it's not hers anyway - I don't care who's paying for it. Live under my roof, everything you have belongs to me, you can use it as long as you follow my rules. Don't follow my rules, I'll yank all of it.

Why are they locking her in the house? For her to keep curfew?

Problem is she doesn't have an iphone. Do Iphone apps work on other types of phones? I don't know these things. I'm app retarded.

I'm assuming so she doesn't sneak out at night.

so let her toggle the alarm - then print out the report the next morning on the toggling and let her know that turning the alarm off is the same as leaving the house - since the parents won't know if she actually left the house or just turned the alarm on/off. Then punish her for breaking curfew.

how do you print out a report of that?

i think that's where creative punishment could come in to play... ;)

nope, both white. if they were asian they'd be afraid of potential beatings w/ things like hotwheel tracks.

Since "my" parenting style was brought into this... I'll have to say it never occurred to me to alarm lock the kids into the house. Random drug tests weren't ever on my list either. :idk:

What would I do? I would let it go. Lock the doors and windows like you normally would to keep the ugly OUT. It's a question of WHY she's sneaking out. What are her plans, exactly? When she does sneak out - just do what my mother did and take a nap in the middle of her bed waiting for her to return.

There is something to be said for the "blame" to be passed on to the parents when demands are set on a child. Peer pressure can either be lifted or they will just learn another way to get around it. Personally, I'm more for raising children that make a better choice rather than try and get around the rules.

Could always lock her back out when she sneaks out. Looks like she's trying to have her cake and eat it too.... [have her own schedule with a nice place to sleep]. If she can't get back into her nice warm and safe world, tough love might make her want to not leave it unexpectedly.

she figured out the alarm - I would give her 24 hours to figure out how to print out the report (most alarms do that as a basic function - but they could call the mfr. for sure)

If parents distrust their kids so much that they drug test them, there are other issues to be resolved.

i like those ideas. i'll pass them along LOL

i'm definitely keeping you on speed dial when we need creative ideas LOL

Like you & your friends didn't at that age.

And even if you got into trouble from it, you LEARNED from it....

I hope they're doing it because she recently fucked up and this is the punishment......If on the other hand they've ALWAYS been doing it, that's extremely weak parenting skillz IMO.

since when do you trust a teenager? omg. i look back and KNOW the reason why i was knocked up at 17 was BECAUSE my parents trusted me. LOL stupid move on their part.

Damn, I guess "good" is up for interpretation. :skep:

Personally, I'd be pretty (privately) proud of my kid if they figured out how to do this little trick. But then again, I was happy when just locking doors wasn't enough to keep our toddler corralled where we wanted him. Didn't take him long to figure out how that lock worked. :)

I have an 11 1/2 year old because of it. Hard lesson to learn, and I'm STILL not "caught up" from that stupidity--meaning, should be done w/ school, should be further in my career, but not because I was busy playing teen mommy.

Wouldn't it be better to avoid that situation if you could w/ a little ole house alarm?

If I was the daughter, I would change the code and lock my parents in.:wtfru:

To me, if she really wants to have sex, how is an alarm going to stop it? She'll just do it in the bleachers, or right after school at her b/f house or his car.

How good of a job did your parents do talking to you about the consequences of pregnancy, and how sex shouldn't be rushed, and how if you do have it you need to use protection?

Making things a "mystery" makes kids want it even more, IMO

sounds like a pretty pathetic game that the kid is winning. The parents thought they would be smart by alarming the house to keep her in and she found a way to make the system tell her when the code is changed and to what.

you can't "control" a teen. you raise them right as little kids and hope they stay on path if they don't you punish them but not play stupid games like this.

Since no one said it yet I say just call the fire dept, they seem to be the problem solvers down there with home security :lol:

Tom

Part of the "problem" with parenting now is the buggin' teenagers have so much access to information. Couple that with the chronic knowing that they KNOW what is best for themselves. It's an awesome mix.

Have they tried this old fashioned idea of talking to her?

I don't know if they have talked to her re the alarm thing. I think right now they are wigged out because she is getting the upper hand LOL I think they want to KNOW how to do it just so she doesn't think she's smarter than them.

But I do know they often have those sit downs with her. They are pretty realistic parents (she was a teen mom too).

my parents didn't do anything. they let the school do it. and that was very minimal in the middle of the bible belt.

the problem is they TRUSTED me to know to do the right thing when I was 17. Since I was an honor student, they TRUSTED i would be able to make a smart decision. 17 y.o.s do not KNOW a smart decision if it smacked them upside the head.

Looking back, I don't know how I survived thru the teen years... LOL

BUT, back on track. I really want to know what the hell this kid is doing to the alarm system. :?:

My parents just taught me well enough that I knew I didn't want to have a kid. I snuck out 1 time during high school. Didn't get caught but it wasn't really worth the risk.

[QUOTE=anthonyk;299399]Damn, I guess "good" is up for interpretation. :skep:

I agree, one of my best friends lived with me for several years during college, we lived in Dallas, his parents lived south of Houston. They would drive up at random (about 5 hours) at least twice a week to drug test him. Funny part is they had no idea I lived there (even though it was my apartment). When they showed up at 7 AM we would just quietly sneak around the house hiding all the contraband then I would chill in the back room. Now for the kicker, he was a pot dealer... together we probably smoked around 1.5 OZ a day but 'magically' that drug test came up clean every couple days.

He is an only child so his parents have always been WAY over protective, helicopter parents if you will. Sure we did our amount of dumb shit but we always had a line we knew not to cross. One day we both got arrested for a BS trespassing charge when we were at a party, (they arrested all 60 people there) His parents flipped, pulled him out of school packed up all his stuff, bailed him out of jail and took him back home (in that order). His parents blamed me for everything that he ever did wrong when in most cases I was the voice of reason and logic so I never heard from him as they monitored his cell phone and installed key loggers on his computer to keep tabs on him. They also pulled this same BS with the alarm to keep him in at night.

About a year went by and I ran into a mutual friend we had. Turns out now he has a pretty healthy meth habit. This is sad because when he was living in Dallas we NEVER touched that shit. We had a close friend that brought it into our house once and we banned him from ever coming over again. Once again we had a line you didn't cross. But thanks to his 'great parents' that were more worried with controlling him rather than teaching him he was driven to hard drugs. IN MY OPINION parents should be more worried about teaching there kids common sense and a few limits so they are able to make good decisions on there own rather than just controlling them so they don't make bad ones. A parent will never be with there kid 24/7 no matter how hard they try. When that kid is away from them they lack the ability to make a good decision on there own which leads down a very bad road in life.

Now, about the alarm. I would guess she could be using a master code as suggested above which I doubt since she has to keep looking at her cell phone and doesn't have it memorized by now even though she has probably used it several times. If it was me I would have installed a cellular device (which you can pick up dirt cheap and aren't all that complicated to install) in the alarm system so it would send confirmations to my phone. I don't know this girl but if she is dumb enough to openly show her parents she can beat there system she probably isn't smart enough to do this so maybe she had a friend come and do it. It could also be something supremely stupid like a 'forgotten password' feature. Since it's not monitored the owner isn't required to call the service to change it so it would have to be able to be changed in the house. If so she is probably looking on her phone to get whatever the information required is. Just a guess.

You guys forget that luck plays a large part in the teen years.
I did my share of drunken fucking bank then. I'm not a dad because I lucked out. Same can be said for lots of us.

I agree, but luck goes a lot farther when you have the common sense to know where you can push it and when to say no.

[QUOTE=Ineffable;299432] link? what are they called?

Here is an example Link but you can pick these up second hand at virtually any kind of swap meet or used electronics store. You don't have to hook them up to a monitoring service either. Then can send alerts via texts, email, phone call etc. Friend of mine had one installed at his grow cabin in the woods, only person it signaled was him.

P.S. If they have broadband centrally wired in the house then it probably runs by the alarm system which makes using one of these SUPER easy because it just plugs in to an ethernet port.

Here's where I don't agree with her getting it sent to her by text.... have you hung out with a teenager recently? I have two. They text. It's what they DO. They text unless the phone is put somewhere else. It think it's just hyper-sensitive parents with their tin-foil hats on that notice she looks at her phone. How about take her phone, change the code and watch her phone to see what it does?

Since when did parents get so afraid of what their children think that they won't take one simple thing away? Actually, it isn't even away - it's knowing what's on her phone and what it's doing. I think they are giving her entirely too much credit to have something that dialed in....

Helicopter - nice term :dthumb:

Parents trying to out-do their children at modern technology = fail

Sometimes the simplest methods are the best.

Was out w/ them to eat the other day and her phone died. Thought she was going to go into convulsions from not texting (withdrawl/detox/whatever). I think you're onto something there.

More and more I think of it she's GOT to know the master code. Now I need to figure out if you can CHANGE the master code.

You make a good point on the texting. My question is why does she still even have a cell phone?

if she's not using the cell phone to hack the system, the cell phone isn't the problem... she pays for the cellphone. they are looking for the CAUSE of it first before making a creative punishment, altho I will pass on Azoomm's ideas which I think may be used. LOL

Mfg of the alarm system? Why don't they just RTFM?

:lol: at Texting - my most recent example. Jordan, ready to go on a ride... didn't even take her gloves off.
http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b5...a/DSC_0022.jpg

Wait, did you say a sixteen year-old white girl?

Tell her parents to let her out of the house.

She owes me money for the jar of pee she bought.

JC

I can agree with the luck part of teen years. Tell them to buy a big box of condoms and tell her if she has a kid she is on her own at that point.

The problem isnt with her getting out, the problem is with them trying to cage her in like an animal.

Your friends fail as parents.

8 pages on a topic that seems pretty easy to solve and has already been answered probably more than once. :lol:

Take her phone/change the code to the alarm and watch for incoming message and or call the freakin' alarm manufacturer and get the answer to how this happens as far as it calling/texting her phone.

If they don't have a set of instructions that came with the system I bet they can get a copy...maybe even online.

Probably what the kid did.

Why not really mess with her and make an old fashioned alarm after she goes to bed, I'm thinking cans hanging from a string, or bells on the door type of loud low tech alarm that blares sound when it is seperated from the door.

My personal favorite is to tape a toothpick to the door and doorframe. If it is opened it gets broken.

insert Irish Sunglasses joke here

Without knowing who made the system, yes you generally can change the master code. Their problem is going to be if their daughter has half a brain in her head she has already done that so getting the master from the manufacturer, builder, or whoever will not do anything since it has probably already been changed by her.

Sounds like it's time for a new alarm if that's the case.

Or a lock on the daughters door. Win!

...or a chasity belt. :lol:

One would assume that a teenager like this has already had that lock picked.

I think they should fuse a tracking device to her skin that also releases animal tranquilizers once she crosses a certain threshold...like the front door. She'll be passed out by the time she hits the driveway and they could have a pager that wakes them up to go retrieve her.

Or they could stop being pathetic pussies.

:rofl: True !!

call the cops and tell them she broke into the house that would teach her a lesson.

I think she was smart enough to figure out how to disarm it but not smart enough to remember the code. I think she is looking at the phone to get the code she saved in the phone. If not she is just reading a test while being a brat.

I say change the code. Let her break into the alarm and get out. While she is out just change the locks on the door. See if her cell is smart enough to get her back in the house.

I agree with teaching a child to make the right decisions. But I also believe that it will not work with 100% of kids. Some things are learned but some you are born with.

They need to have a long talk with her stupid ass. She reminds me of my ex cousin. She was giving a lot of help and chances and ended up knocked up.

I moved out at 16.

If she thinks she can come and go as she pleases then start charging her rent.

James

Or! Learn to be parents and stop expecting electronic devices to do their job! FTW!


I LOL at the 'Put locks on her windows and doors comments' :lol: Ya, explain to the police that your child burned to death, because you locked her in her room and couldn't get her out on time! :wtfru:

Wonderful parenting advice here.

Im glad none of you seem to have children like TMall and I. Im going where I want, I'll be back be when I feel like it! Lock the doors, I can get in the window!

make sure you call 911 :lol:

or roofies.

That's hilarious man, I almost put GHB but decided to go with tranq's.