Do you ever check your teenager's messages?

[Guest]

Originally Posted by 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.

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My dd6 asked my dh to download Roblox for her yesterday but luckily I overheard and put a stop to it before dh did it.
The stories I've heard about that game make me shudder

[alp1972]

Yes we check her phone she is 15 and she is aware that the condition of her having the phone is it will be randomly checked .Also the school checked all the years phones last week as one boy had sent his girlfriend shall we say a picture of himself with nothing on she had then sent it to others . The phones were checked and letters sent home , obviously the children in question are being dealt with and the schools police officer is involved .

[katy341]

She's a child... absolutely I would have done what u did! My daughter is 11 and I do...but... I don't tell her...I don't see the point... if they know u do it they may start deleting etc and then how can u keep them safe?! A 13yrold is still a child and we as parents are here to protect them z

[vickiell]

My dd is 13, she does not have Facebook but has Instagram. We check her phone every night and she knows that we do. She is also not allowed her phone upstairs, I don't mind her texting her friends but I will not allow her to spend all of her time on her phone.
I don't see any problem with checking their phones at that age.

[Mallky555]

Sorry I would just like to say that this all started via online gaming on the Xbox despite being told and reassured she was only playing with people she knew 🙈 However she only started playing in this group after splitting with her boyfriend and being booted out of the group games 😢
He then found her on snap chat etc and the rest is history as they say

[Annie17]

my daughter is almost 11 and recently got her first phone, she is on it constantly and to answer your question, yes.

Every single night, the reason being is that i know what i was like as a young girl and i was bullied and was very stroppy but didnt say a word to my family, my daughter has had a little trouble at school and i want to make sure that everything is ok with her, as she wouldnt tell me if there was.

she has no idea i look at her phone as i dont want her deleting messages!

some may find this an invasion of privacy, i see it as a parent trying to keep there child safe!

[Nic18076]

I keep a weather eye on my DS text messages. He is 17, and he knows that I do this. I am divorced from his dad, and his dad doesn't communicate directly with me if he can avoid it but texts DS - who tends to ignore the messages.
I need to check for any arrangements they have made - e.g parties on that side of the family, swapped weekends, need to get certain clothes for a particular visit. I also need to make sure he has answered his dad on various questions etc.

I don't read his other messages in detail and I ignore any language etc. in them. I also ignore if he has messaged his friends about me. I believe that DS needs to vent, just like we all do, and I know I moaned about my parents incredibly unreasonable behaviour . (We didn't have mobiles or the internet though so I just had to make do with venting in an actual conversation.)

I put DS phone on charge every night before I go up to bed. We have a rule that he doesn't take his phone into his bedroom at night, or else he would be disturbed by all the various pings and swooshes of various message methods. As I put it on charge I close down all his open apps, and messenger is always open. I don't read the messages here - but I do briefly glance at who he is messaging to make sure it's nobody weird if you see what I mean.

A few years ago I noticed a text wondering about the "point of life". DS was chatting to a girl he knows about feeling very low and lacking confidence and feeling depressed. I followed this chain of messages because I needed to know he was safe. His friend gave him the necessary support and attention and together they worked things through. I let DS know that I was always there if he needed to talk, but I never referred to his conversations. His friend has no idea why I am always particularly nice to her when I see her - but she supported my DS when he really needed it, and he didn't feel he could come to me.

I think we all need to tread a very fine line between keeping our kids safe, and giving them their privacy and we need to make sure that they have a method of getting help if they don't want to come to us - because them getting the help they need and keeping safe is more important than our own egos or our own feelings regarding bad language etc.

[JLH]

It's all very well checking but children can delete things they don't want any parent to see . My son was accused by a boy's parents in his year of sending nasty messages , it turns out the boy that accused him had deleted all the things he had sent (he knew his parents checked ) .This boy had started it and then manipulated the situation to make it appear that my son was in the wrong .I got proof from other children involved in it all and took it to the school.

[daytonababe]

When mine first got phones /fb etc then I had the password and codes to everything and the agreement was I could check when ever I wanted and I did so .

Now my eldest is 18 I wouldn't dream of checking her stuff .. i stopped when she was around 15 ish same with my son . But I thought I had reason to past that then I would have done .

Younger kids / young teens then yes absolutely check .

[daytonababe]

I know a young girl who was sending nude pics and explicit videos at the age of 12 -13.

I found out about it and asked her as she won't lie to me and she admitted it . Half the school and some older lads had seen the pics etc as she was openly sending them around . The school were informed and it was eventually stopped but those pics will still be out there and haunt her for years

Her parents never checked her phone even after she was caught doing it he first time , they believed her when she said she only did it once ..