why would a 17 year old girl be interested in a not very mature 13 year old boy?

[basildonbond]

that's it really ... I've found out that ds1 is exchanging dozens of mildly flirtatious texts and facebook messages with a 17 year old girl - not sure if he's actually ever met her

most of these exchanges are instigated by the girl

Now, looking back to when I was 17 I cannot imagine even being aware of 13 year old boys, they were sooooo immature they were of no interest whatsover

ds1 has not yet gone through puberty - on his way, but voice not broken, no growth spurt, no facial hair etc etc so no-one would mistake him for being anything other than a 13 year old ...

am puzzled ....

[pagwatch]

Are you sure she is a17 year old girl and not a 43 year old plumber?

How does he know who she is off line?

[seeker]

How is he communicating with anyone he doesn't know in real life?

[mercibien]

She may be pretending to be 17 and is in fact more his age range?
IRC you have to register as over 12 to get a facebook account, but that doesn't mean you have to tell the truth iyswim

[MirandaGoshawk]

Maybe she's lonely & is flattered by the flirtatious messages.

Does she know he's 13?

Does he know you lurk? In which case you could ask him... If not, I would keep 'monitoring' the situation.

[sharon2609]

I would pretend to be him and send a couple of leading texts to this "17 year old". A bit sneaky but it might give you some more insight.

[Sanesometimes1]

would also be concerned about this - could be anyone ! would advise him to be very very cautious on this.

[Hulababy]

Does he know her? How does he know her? If he doesn't know her why is she on his facebook?

These are questions you need to find out the answers to me first IMO.

If he doesn't know her you need a frank discussion on internet security esp with regards to facebook, msn, etc.

He should ony be friends on fb with people he knows.

Show him how to set his privacy settings, and make sure you monitor what he is doing online.

Can't really advise further without knowing if he knows or or not.

But regardless, yes, it is odd tht a 17y girl woulf be befriending a 13yo in a flirtatious way and I think it needs to be treated carefully.

[sharon2609]

I would phone the number myself see who answers. If it's the girl have a chat with her about how it's not appropriate. If an adult answers..call the police

[crazypanda]

this sounds very dodgy to me.

[LadyGlencoraPalliser]

I expect maryz is right and she isn't really 17 at all - but you do need to check. Have you talked to him about her? What does he say? How does he know her?

[SrStanislaus]

Yes all of the 10/11 year olds I know have had a facebook account for a couple of years they are all '15' or older .

The girl is more than likely his age and he got to 'meet' her through a mutual friend.

[TallyB]

The girl probably is the same age as your DS, but has made herself appear older to get around the FB rules.

Saying that - we had a similar problem when my DS was also 13, but with a 16yo girl from his school whose age we knew for certain. She followed him around at break time, also phoned and called round to the house numerous times asking to see/speak to him, and telling me at great length how wonderful he was. Of course, I also think my DS is wonderful, but I did find it odd, and a little bit creepy that a girl of that age would be interested in a boy whose main interests were still football, PC games and his bicycle. When I was 16, I considered 13 yo boys to be little more than children and definitely not of interest.

Sorry to hijack the thread - really the best thing to do if contact her yourself and find out how old she really is. If she is much older, explain to your son that's it not really appropriate to have that sort of contact with someone who is practically an adult. It might also be an idea to report her to FB; they probably won't do anything but at least there will be a record of her behaviour if she does the same thing in the future.

[basildonbond]

the only reason I know about it is that he was having a marathon texting session one night and I eventually had to take his phone away

her facebook profile says she's 17 - his very clearly says he's 13

he's got more than 800 'friends' so it's a bit difficult to keep track. He and his friends have a 'rule' that they only accept friend requests from people with more than a certain number of mutual friends. We've had the whole internet safety talk more than once but it appears to have fallen on deaf ears.

I asked him how he'd met her - was she a friend of a friend, or through sport or something (he goes to a boys school, she allegedly goes to a girls school) and he went absolutely ballistic - threw his phone into the garden, screamed at me about invasion of privacy - but still didn't tell me if he knew her in real life or not, and if so, how.

I've asked the mother of one of his friends who's also on this girl's friends' list if she knows anything about her - and will continue to monitor the conversation.

God, it's a fine line to tread between snooping and wanting to keep them safe isn't it?

[nickschick]

You might think your ds isnt 'worldly' .....perhaps he is more so than you think??

[OesMorDdreng]

I'm a 17 year old girl. I can't imagine myself or any of my friends ever having an interest in any of them. There's too much of a maturity difference. I would be extremely, extremely surprised if this girl is actually 17.

800 friends also seems a bit suspicious. I know the media is always going on about how teenagers have LOADS of friends on Facebook, but in reality very few of my friends have more than 400.

I think you should phone her yourself and snoop around on her facebook. Maybe not the most moral idea, but this whole thing seems dubious to me.

[Sanesometimes1]

Having a child of 13 gives you the right to snoop !

[Guacamole]

I would be extremely concerned about a 13 year old with 800 facebook friends. It sounds like he is accepting friend requests from people he doesn't know!

[basildonbond]

panic over - she's actually a 13 year old girl who's a friend of one his school friends - still haven't got to the bottom of how he met her but at least she isn't a 50 year old bloke!

you're right about needing to cull his 'friends'

tbh I have no idea who he's talking to on fb as it's all done through chat and he's v secretive about it - how do you keep tabs on that?

[sharon2609]

Face book is an absolute mine field. I hate it! There is so much bullying that goes on on there. I have a rule that I have my daughters password and i regularly check the conversations. Anything that I think is unaccepatable and I ban her from it. I have also alerted other parents about what their children are saying in there. Most of them are grateful and have said that they had no idea about what is being said.I think parents should be more aware of what their children are up to.

[MissSayuri]

Facebook rules - they are on my friends' list, I have the password, they don't have anyone added who they don't know.
I also limit how long my dd is allowed on the internet at night, but with iPods and phones all having wifi and 3g now, she uses it during the day at school more than I'm happy with, but you need to give and take.

[IloveJudgeJudy]

OP, I'm fairly easygoing with most stuff, but my v popular DS1 (16) doesn't have 800 friends on Facebook, neither do any of his older cousins or in fact anyone that I know, or know of, via my DC. I think that fact alone is very worrying.

If I were you I'd take a much closer look at what your DS is doing on his computer and mobile. I wouldn't let him go on the computer in his room and I certainly wouldn't let him take his mobile to bed with him. If he won't tell you his passwords so you can get on, I would delete him from the computer. We've just had to do this with our DD (14) as she was going on IMVU which is an horrendous site. She was also very secretive. We told her if she didn't tell us her password we would delete her from the family computer. She said she had to do HW for school on it, we said we would tell the school why we had deleted her. She still wouldn't back down. I don't know when she'll get back on it. She's so stubborn that it may take months.

[TheVisitor]

He does need more supervision. My eldest finally was allowed internet access in his room when he was 17 and savvy. Tell him you have his password or you have his computer.