Do you ever check your teenager's messages?

[Bluefish]

The difference for me is being open about it with the cyp and sneaking behind their back. It's the sneaking that doesn't sit well with me.

Although having worked with CAMHS for years cyp find all sorts of inventive ways to hide things.

[Wazza68]

As others have said, it was a condition of DD having a smart phone that we'd randomly check and she's fine with it. We always tell her we're checking. Would never do it sneakily though. Also DW and DD are friends on FB, which was DDs choice

[Mental Minnie]

Originally Posted by Mallky555

What I can say is for us at home dd behaviour hadn't changed with us she's always been very quiet. However after all this happened her best friends mum did tell us that her behaviour with her friends had changed she had gone very secretive etc
The worst feeling for me is hat nobody knew where she had gone and he what if she hadn't got home scenarios are what's keeping me awake at night.
She thought she was in love with him it was only days later she realised what had happened.

See more...

I am so glad your daughter is safe and sorry that you are dealing with this and the aftermath of o truly horrific incident, which as you say could have had a very different ending. It does put the whole privacy debate into perspective. None of us think anything like this could ever happen to our children but we also know there are some truly evil, manipulative people out there just waiting to pounce on young vulnerable children.
Ultimately as has already been said our children's safety and well being is paramount and we as parents are just trying to do that the best way we can.
Hope your daughter is doing ok and is thankful she has parents that are looking out for her.x

[katiec68]

Originally Posted by Mallky555

i typed a hole post up about something that happened to my dd last month and thought I had posted it but appeared I hadn't 🙈
We're now into damage limitation here due to an online problem where dd ended up meeting up with a man she met in the internet 😢 I'm sure you can imagine what happened but it could have been 1000 times worse.
She got on a train to bloody Yorkshire to meet someone she had only ever chatted with online 🙈😢
Needless to say the police are involved and the meetings we've had with social workers police etc our world blew up that night. The police have her phone for evidence etc but I can say now I will be checking her phone and other devices she's been told no passwords etc and we are trying to deal with this horrendous event.
Keep your kids safe I'm now living with immense guilt that I couldn't keep my baby girl safe 😪😪😪

See more...

Im soo sorry to hear this. Please dont feel guilty.

Please take all the help that is offered (if you need any support I can offer you ideas of places to get this) but please be reassured that it isnt your fault and there was probably very little you could have done. As I said in my post these people are very manipulative - thats why we work in pairs (ive been doing this role for 9 years and still wouldnt visit on myown! ).

We all know that as kids we made bad decisions - its just that when we were kids there was no internet - but I think its soo much tougher for kids these days - there is soo much pressure from all around, then add in a manipulate adult then it gets messy.

Please be reassured that he will feel the full force of the law, not just now but if convicted he will go on the Sex Offenders Register and continue to be monitored for a long time.

Youve done the right thing in letting her keep her mobile - generally its a childs whole world! - but no passwords is such a good idea, although I suspect your daughter will now know what to look for.

Stay strong.

Katie

[Mallky555]

Dd was lucky in the fact that he was who he said he was he was 20 dd is 15 it could have been much worse, which really doesn't bare thinking about. However the text messages and the way he spoke to her were so manipulative that the reality is she never made a decision in any of this he was there manipulating her all the time he even sent a text saying he could go to prison!
Well mate if I have my way you will be doing 😤
she's getting the help she needs from professionals and I hope we can all move on from this in time but it's going to be a long process unfortunately 😢

[shirley]

Many years ago, I did read DD's phone and am so glad I did, whilst I thought her and a friend were have a sleep over, they were actually in another town, then walking home and getting lifts from some unknown men. As soon as I found out I spoke with her and explained the huge danger they were putting themselves in. She luckily did see sense and stopped going so far away from home (she was 13/14). Same thing with DS2, he went through the phase of out with people we didn't know and coming back drunk, also on his phone was messages about how he was gay etc. I was so worried he would do something really stupid, my DD and I spoke with him, it was a very emotional talk and he realised that the path he was heading down wasn't the right one. Again luckily for us, he ended his drinking bouts and and now he is of age has his official nights outs in clubs and not back streets in town. Don't thin I would want to see his messages now x

[shirley]

Mallky555, so glad your DD is safe and hope you are all getting through this awful event. Thoughts are with you and your family xx

[Worgie]

I was always of the opinion that our DS's phone was his private domain until we got a phone call from his school to say his phone & every other boy's phone in his year had been confiscated at school as one older lad had sent every single boy a very graphic hard core porn video the night before which they had all been watching at break time. He was 12! I was shocked by what I saw when we collected the phone from school and I don't regard myself as a prude by any means.
From then on I made it clear that whilst we pay the phone bill we had every right to see what was on his phone. We paid the bill so he could be contacted and contact us not for any other reason. Although he was not happy about it he did accept it and about once a month I would ask him to see his phone. I think it is also a way of making them monitor what they write about as well as keeping them safe. Our son was not happy about it but did accept it. Unbeknown to him I also did the odd check without him knowing. In addition he was only allowed FB etc if we had a full list of his passwords and he had us both as friends. They may not like it but as far as I am concerned we are his parents first and his friends second. He is now 19 and acknowledges that in hindsight it was the right thing to do.

[Tink75]

My eldest is 12 and has had a smart phone from about 10 (to be fair at that point it was more for contact when walking to school, it's only really this year where it's become more). It's made clear from the outset that it is checked now and again and thankfully she shares Whatsapp messages etc with me anyway as we're reasonably open about things. I honestly think you can't afford not to do this these days - it's part of being a parent imo. I'm shocked at how many of her peer's parents don't take any notice. It's not a case of trust it's a case of protection while they are still young and vulnerable.

I would imagine I'll be checking my DD's phone/accounts until she's 16 but she will be aware of this. As someone else said, you then may not see the full extent of what they're saying etc - I believe if it makes them think twice, then that's a good thing. Knowing parents may see something might make them consider whether something is appropriate a bit more. Yes, I suppose they can still do things outside of phones/accounts but at least it helps with the cyber world!

Our children are potentially exposed to far too much, too young and this has a lot to do with that. My DD, while she respects my decision, is upset I won't let her on Musically and Snapchat at 12. Many of her friends are, but some aren't. These things often seem quite innocent but when you delve a bit deeper, they aren't always sadly 😢. Problem is some parents just look at the age rating and presume it's ok because it's a 12+. I was horrified by what I read about Musically. At some point of course, we do need to say yes, but not right now. The only 'social media' she really has is Whatsapp and that's caused issues within her class and group at times, so lord knows how you cope with several different ones!

It's a minefield all this!

[NewtoOrlando]

My 11 year old has a phone and yes I do read her message, I also read her messages on her iPad as I do with my 9 year old. They are both well aware I do it and they have always been told that I will keep an eye on their devices. I work within paediatric nursing and my husband is a police officer, we both have enough safeguarding training & heard enough horror stories about grooming to be very aware of what goes on. A few summers ago my 9 year old, would have been 7 and he was playing a game called roblox on his iPad, where another player had messaged him telling him to message another player & ask her out on a date, which my ds did, so I reported it & removed the game from his iPad. He added it again, and I removed it again. My 2 are well aware of the dangers but they are still children and will be for a long time yet, if checking their devices means keeping them safe, I will do so till they are old enough. Luckily my 11 year old is a sensible girl (at the minute!) and she doesn't really use her phone other than to play games, but she's going up to secondary school in sept so that's when I will be monitoring even more.