Urgent advice needed - caught 14yo daughter on Snapchat, mum isn’t around to help

You cannot shy away from difficult conversations just because you’re her dad. If you were a single father it would all be on you.

If you don’t tackle all of this thoroughly she could well end up having the same conversation with a male police officer on the wrong side of a revenge porn situation.

It is quite possible that her pics will either end up around the school or on a porn site. Is there any guarantee that she is actually talking to is a boy she knows?

All 14 year old girls need to understand both online safety and personal safety because the risk of sex offences both online and real life are high at this age (12-25). I’m surprised the school haven’t tackled this.

There are so many unknowns though,

We don’t know if the DF and the DM are together or if they usually agree on technology or which parent is usually in control of the parental controls.

Disagree. If I was going through a serious and traumatic bereavement I would not need to know this if a suitable adult was dealing with appropriately for a few days.

OP. I'd talk to her, keep her phone, monitor it when she gets it back. Talk to the lads parents and get them to check everything was definitely deleted.

Maybe speak to school? They will have dealt with this before and have processes in place - i would hope.

Not dealt with this personally so you may get better advice.

I'm sure there are plenty of examples online of photos being shared and going viral. It doesn't need to even be malicious, one of his friends could access his phone on a sleepover, for a joke etc and then suddenly her picture or messages are all round the school.

That's the embarrassment side, there is also the legal side if she is 14 she is putting him in a bad position and putting herself in a bad position of having inappropriate pictures of a minor.

Lastly I'd have a chat with her about emotional manipulation. If she volunteered for this, why, does feel like she 'needs to' or did she want to? Any form of 'if you really liked me' 'my last gf / everyone else does this' 'I just like you so much I'll be so sad if I don't see any pics when we're apart' is coercion and not healthy or fair. And photos seem safe but can lead to an expectation.l that she will immediately do the same thing in real life which might feel like a lot of pressure

What a simple but excellent way of putting it

That's exactly what you should tell your DD OP.

I’m sorry you are having to deal with this OP, but your daughter is very lucky that you are taking a considered & calm approach.
The NSPCC have some very useful advice and resources including how it might be possible to take down images.
This is a link for professionals but may be useful to you (& anyone else having to deal with this. It really is very common despite all the online safety advice young people are now given).
I hope your talk goes as well as it can OP

learning.nspcc.org.uk/research-resources/report-remove

Snapchat is a fucking nightmare. Apart from issues like this it is rife for bullying. Ex H is a teacher and in his opinion it’s the worst one there is. My kids do have it but the agreement is that as long as I’m paying the bills I can check their phones whenever I want.

Why continue a "friendship" with somebody who wants a minor to send them intimate photos?!

OP, remove the phone. There should be clear consequences. Explain calmly the dangers she's facing and as a pp mentioned that sending photos at this age her "friend" receives child pornography and he will get in trouble. Ask why she feels the need to be objectified. She's worth so much better.

When speaking to our then 13 year old, we said to only send photos you’d be happy seeing on the wall in your classroom as you walked in - as this is what could happen to any photo!

Totally unnecessary.

Unnecessary comment

Fgs oh look I’m a dad been left alone. Just deal with it.

Was just adding what @rwalker has said.

It’s a bit like work emails. Never put in an email anything you’d be embarrassed or in bother if your entire workplace saw it.

Never include in a message anything you’d be mortified if it was passed around the school, on a 10m billboard in another country or looked at by a paedophile. Because it might be. Same goes for sending catty messages about ‘friends’. How would you feel if the friend saw it. If the answer’s ‘terrible’, don’t send it.

Give her the phone back
tell her never to share or put online you wouldn’t want the world to see

ask her how would she feel if the conversations and pictures she engaged in were screenshot and shared with everyone . Because this is the danger of what could happen

kids are smart and smart phones are 10 a penny chances are she’d get hold of another one you’d know nothing about

ask her how comfortable she’d be with you and her mum reading everything she’d put . Because that’s the reality of the information being shared

look into some of the parental controls

No experience of daughters, but based on raising teen DS, I’d:

1. Ask if she’s been taught about online safety at school and what they said.
2. Yes
3. Ask why she thinks it’s not a good idea to share photos or sexy messages online. Always best to ask them, so they have to think about it and then you can say: ‘yeah, that’s right’ (a positive) rather than “teaching” (aka lecturing) them (negative, eyerolls). Obvs the answer here is it could be shared with her entire year at school or to creepy men online.

A 14yo, unless v childlike, is a young adult and should be expected to act as an adult and should be spoken to like an adult. Common mistake is to treat them like a child. So, when talking to her, channel the tone and approach of speaking to one of your friends. You’ll notice that’s what teachers, sports coaches do. Don’t talk down to them like a child.

Overall, don’t be too controlling with her phone. Use the Spidey approach: with great power comes great responsibility. Phones are v empowering so you have to use them responsibly.

Good luck!

Family link! Most teens i know now have phones completely locked down with these - total restrictions on the amount of time it will do anything other than call/text, all sm apps blocked, parents have full access.

The world out there is too fucking peverted and young boys are exposed to awful stuff far too soon, which impacts upon how they treat girls.

Some great advice from many PPs, especially @Jossse and @HampsterCheese90

being a teenager is hard, especially when you can combine hormones with technology

I dread to think what I'd be like if I were a young teen now. Something about the hormones and the body changes made me WANT to be seen - I'm not sure I would have understood what was so bad about people seeing images of me, because my juvenile brain craved attention (which I naively assumed would be admiration) and I'm not sure I'd have been all that bothered about where it came from. There was a desperate desire just to be "seen."

Maybe this sort of impulse can be channelled more healthily into the performing arts or something!

Good luck OP, you sound like a lovely dad.

I also think you should tell your wife what's happening. I would be angry at not being kept in the loop on something like this. Just a message asking how she is, saying what's happened at home in the blandest possible terms and your plan for addressing it. Reassure her you have it in hand, don't need anything from her and everyone is ok

Remove the phone for a good while. Wish my dh had done that with dd as we wouldn’t be in such a mess now with her.
lots of resources online to get help but do use it and find a family plan that you can control apps through

it’s important fo to know that although messages and photos disappear, Snapchat themselves scan for inappropriate content (e.g. sexualised or body part photos of under 18s even if these are selfies), and pass information directly to the police.

100%
👏

She 14, she will know all the scary implications. She will know of a girl at school who's been humiliated by a boy sharing her photos and/or messages, or just making up lies about her. She will have had countless lessons in PHSE around keeping safe online. None of what you tell her will be new information. Up to this point she probably won't have applied any of this to herself though. They were all hypotheticals. When you talk to her, you need to make it feel real. That it applies to her.

Don't be embarrassed. Be calm and factual. Don't make it about bad behaviour and punishment, when this is actually a wellbeing and safety issue. You want the best for her, you want her to be be safe. You're not a punitive dictator. Ask questions and listen. Try not to lecture, she knows most of the content of what you're going to say. Get her to think and come up with solutions re phone use/safety. Be on her side

It Is a shock but it happens. Sit with her and explain to her how dangerous it is to communicate online, her messages can be copied and shared.
What age is the person she was texting? How long does she know him? Is he local? I’d consider speaking to his parents too, if he is a local similar age child.
Her phone needs to be fully investigated, find out if she is regularly sending these messages.

Well done for staying calm on the outside. This happened to us when our youngest was just 13. I reacted really badly in middle of night, and we involved police and school safeguarding team( to make sure someone talked to the boys involved too) I Police did nothing as said it was just so common they could not investigate every time, but told us to let school deal with it. School said all the right things but main perpetrator went on to be head boy next year which did not make us happy!! She later confessed that it had not just been schoolboys but also random people contacting her, sending and asking for images( she had no idea who they were) She is now a young adult and had had recent counselling around the whole saga, including my over reaction and had only in last year or so started to open up to me again about her life. She also stopped using social media platforms from that day!

Just breathe deeply, calming ask her about who she is messaging and explain the dangers. That the messages can be saved and shared and be on line forever and that this could be old men pretending to be her friend. I would suggest you take advice from school. They will be very used to hearing this story but will be able to suggest plan of action. It also shows your daughter how seriously you are taking it.

As to whether you read it all, I don't know what to advise. It is very shocking to see images/videos of your own child in those scenarios and you cannot unsee it. I found it very very difficult but also wanted to try and find out what was going on. I did keep the phone with me for a few days and picked up some messages coming in, asking for more images. I replied( rightly or wrongly) stating that it was her mum and the matter was now with school and local police. Again, probably wrong but hope it gave them a fright.
I would do so much differently a second time and she has finally forgiven me but well done for avoiding making same mistakes. I can see now my baby was a victim and I treated her like a criminal, just because I was not only shocked, but disappointed she had not listened to our advice and school advice re not sharing images.