help!!13yr old daughter talking to strangers on internet

bonjovibel_729

thorsoak wrote: »

Do we know for certain that the "boy's parents" are the parents? Do we know for certain that she is facebooking a 12-year old boy? It would not surprise me to find out that boy/parents turn out to be a 25 year old spotty p**do posting from his scummy bedroom - or even worse - a 50 year old ditto

hiya i think they are his parents as when we were on holiday we saw his parents in passing and they look like their pictures on facebook thank god

bonjovibel_729

thehappybutterfly wrote: »

OP, you said that you used to have access to your daughter's FB account (ruddy FB - can't stand it!) - what were the conversations between your daughter and this boy like? Were they innocent enough or were you unhappy about where some of the chat was going?

tbh i know she knows how to delete the messages so anything untoward she wud have deleted before i saw it

thehappybutterfly

bonjovibel_729 wrote: »

tbh i know she knows how to delete the messages so anything untoward she wud have deleted before i saw it

what do your instincts tell you about their conversations? My 15yo daughter is paranoid about me seeing her FB convos but I genuinely think they're fairly innocuous. She's just not like that (I can see all the doubters shaking their heads knowingly!) - she's no angel but she is sensible.

Maybe some of the more techy people on this thread can answer if deleted messages can be read?

Brighton_belle

Refuse to get sucked into what daddy thinks. Act completely indifferent. Daddy doesn't live in your house.
Disable the internet if you haven't already.She has too much too young and has proved herself lacking the maturity to handle it.
No interenet till she has proved she understands internet safety, how to stick to ageement s she makes (i.e. onlyu allowed FB if you have password) and has apologised.
13 is way to young for talking completely unsupervised with boys online. 13 is also too young for alaptop.Computer use with your permission only and while you are in the room.

Valli

thorsoak wrote: »

Do we know for certain that the "boy's parents" are the parents? Do we know for certain that she is facebooking a 12-year old boy? It would not surprise me to find out that boy/parents turn out to be a 25 year old spotty p**do posting from his scummy bedroom - or even worse - a 50 year old ditto

how is 50 'even worse'? Are you seriously suggesting a 25 YO 'p***o' has a level of acceptability because he's closer in age to the victim?

OP there are cases where the parents of a child's friends have connived to involve other children, as well as their own, in 'inappropriate' behaviours.
Because, of course, if they are your friend's mum and dad they are not 'strangers'.

Itsgottabedone

Poor you, OP! A right little madam of a daughter and a feeble ex-husband to contend with. I agree with many of the suggestions above. If it was me, I would try a slightly different approach ...

1) Explain to her your concerns, and show her some of the suggested links about internet grooming, etc.
2) Tell her you're not taking this stance just to ruin her life, and if she's interested in communicating with this boy you would like to meet him and his parents in person to allay your fears.
3) If boy and parents accept your invitation, and you're fairly happy that everything's above board then permit communications WITHOUT webcam and WITH you having access to her FB account/IM messages, etc.

Heaven knows what to suggest if they accept your invitation to meet and you don't like the vibes, though!

Good luck with this horrible situation.

shelley_crow

Argh, what a situation.

I did training on this subject after I did my degree and it can end very badly. I must admit the first thing I though of was that it wasn't his parents she was speaking to. I completely agree that taking internet access away as a temporary measure is the only way. As another poster said, it may well be a 12 year old she is talking to, at the behest of older people. There was the case of a lad of who was being groomed over a webcam by someone of 18 as part of a p0rn ring. He only came clean to his parents when his younger brother happened to walk past the door while one of these session was underway and the dirty b4stards wanted to get him invoved too, if I can find a link to his story I will forward it to you. Very often these dodgy webcam episodes are recorded and forwarded on for child p0rn purposes, either as video/stills or both.

The threat she made about your husband is very unsettling, has she made any threats like this before? Is it possible her dad has a hand in this somewhere? It's an odd thing for a child to think of IMO.

It might be worth getting in contact with your local police station to see if they have anyone who could talk to her about internet safety. Obviously parents know nothing but it might hit home coming from someone official?

You ex's attitude is disgusting, he should be ashamed of himself.

ETA: I'm sure you can install keyloggers on computers, it will show you everything she has done and she won't know it's on there (assuming she gets her computer back!) Head over to the techie forum and they can tell you how to do it.

aliasojo

Valli wrote: »

how is 50 'even worse'? Are you seriously suggesting a 25 YO 'p***o' has a level of acceptability because he's closer in age to the victim?

Perhaps the reference to age was made because a 50 year old abuser may be more experienced and be more 'efficient' at the process?

Maybe a younger person might be more immature and be less aware of how inappropriate certain behaviours are whereas a 50 year old would be more than aware?

No idea, just a guess. :undecided

Penny-Pincher!!

DD was never allowed to talk to anyone on the internet unless she had psychically met them in real life.

Kids need boundaries and as decent parents we need to install them into their lives. Its not easy and can seem harsh at times, but we have to for their own protection.

Could you not set up a bogus FB account? Get in contact with her and pretend to be a young lad and see whether she accepts you as a friend. Have a conversation with her, then show her its you.....just to prove that she could be literally talking to anyone.

Blue_Elephant

Of course you're being unreasonable!! To a 13 year old girl who thinks that her mum's out of touch and doesn't know how the world works! She doesn't see that you're looking after her, just that you're trying to control her.

I saw my mother's attempts at protection, although looking back some of it was over protection, as nothing more than her trying to control me. I didn't get that she was just really scared of something terrible happening. I even tried to argue with her with figures, i.e. only 1 in however many million people get into "trouble". Mum's point was that she wasn't willing to risk that I would be that one in however many million. And this didn't even include internet, I grew up when internet was quite new, and lucky for me, even though I did "meet" weirdos on the internet in the chat rooms back then, my reaction was EWWWWWW and I logged off. I realise now that was pure luck more than anything else (and the internet was still fairly new to the weirdos too.)

I had her in tears a couple of times, but one thing she said that I paid no attention to at the time, but will live with me forever now, was "It's not you I don't trust". I still didn't get it. I cried and whinged (and didn't have a mobile phone anyway as folk didn't have them). I caught her a couple of times "listening in" on landline - landline calls to my friends. Again I saw this as control and manipulation. Now I see that perhaps slightly misguided, she was only trying to make sure I was talking to the people I said I was talking to.

Put you foot down. Yes it'll make you unpopular, but she will thank you in the end, I promise. It's even worse now than when I was a kid. It's hard to say to kids that you can't have this/that.the other as you don't need it, because it's normal to them! It's easy to see that it's not needed because we all grew up without them, but it'd be like saying to my generation as teens that you don't need a telly! I know that you don't, but my teenage self would have thought that was ridiculous!

And I agree with the commenter who said to make her watch last weeks casualty. It was chilling. And tell her what you're afraid of, you're not protecting her by keeping the nasty stuff from her. Tell her that rather than controlling her, you're making sure some choices are hers to make only when she wants to make them.

*hugs*

ETA sorry about the essay! :S