Yes, this goes all the way back to the crazy sister in "The Big Sleep". In the most famous case in the real world the Unabomber's brother turned him in.

I think that the scenario is much more realistic in the "Birds of Prey" comic where the seemingly non-functional autistic kid who's obsessed with his handheld game console is actually the world's most fearsome hacker; controlling large hunks of cyberspace through said console. His parents aren't terribly tech-savy (not to mention that the interface metaphor going from "Donkey Kong" to invading Oracle's systems is pretty complex ;-) so they just don't notice.