11yr old and texting

[plum100]

Hi all, unsure what to do about this , hoping for some good advice.

11 yr old dd had phone for xmas. I do check her phone regularly with her , we go over internet safety etc but i dont reAd her messages , as she would be most upset by this as she tjinks she should hVe some privacy, so i just check that the people she is messaging are known to me.
Anyhow, i secretley know her password and do check her messages without her knowledge.
So tonight i have checked and there are dozens and dozens of messages betweeg her and her 'boyfriend' and her and another boy at school. Her boyf and her have been friends for several years , but all the girjs in her yr seemed to suddnly pair off with all the boys and so shes with him.
Anyway the messages are mostly/ hi beauitful/ i love you/ morning. But from what j can see now this other boy is getting involved aaying he loves her / will she go out with him etc,etc/ and then the next minute shes dumping her boyf then falling out with the other boy etc.
There is nothing sinister in it, just young boy/ girls stuff but im just astounded by the amount of texts going on ! She seems to be texting them all the time . Shes 11 !!!!

I have already reslised now thAt mobile time needs to be severly limited, my error obviously for lettjng her have free reign.
The advice im after is do i go through her phond with her, read them with her and tell her this is inappropriate and then hve her being really upset - she wont see my POV and will just try And hide things from me. Also i dont know how to explain to her its inappropriate - but i just think at her age it is .Or do i just limit time so that she cant actually text them? And dont tell her so that i can continue to secretly monitor her phone?
Sorry this is so long , thank you for reading xxx

It's not the number of texts but the fact that she's got a boyfriend. She's 11!!

I'd start by encouraging her to stay more in touch with female friends, do activities with them and concentrate on school. Forget boyfriends.

Try talking to her about what boys that age are like, their main thoughts and that jumping from boy to boy could end up with her getting an awful reputation even if she hasn't done anything.

As for the phone, I presume it's on contract with unlimited texts. Perhaps remove it at 6pm and she gets it back in the morning. Tell her you will be checking usage and if the usage becomes an issue with other things taking a lesser priority due to being glued to her phone, it will be taken off her.

Thanks BB. That sounds sensible. The boyf thing is a bit tricky. Theyve been 'together for 7 mths' And just play football together at lunch, they dont see each other out school. But of course when she came home at ten abd said blank is my boyf u just kind of say, really how come? As you dont think its anything real.
She does all of her texting on whatsapp so i think i will remove thT app. She spends her weekends playing with her friends so im happy anout thT - i think its just too mych too young, and i know she will go mad later when we start talking.

I don't think it's that unusual to have a boyfriend at 11. I had one :s We never even kissed though. I'm not even sure we held hands as were too embarrassed. At that age a 'boyfriend' tends to be just via text. Unless he's older, I wouldn't be massively concerned. Maybe say she can't have the phone when she goes to bed?

Butterfly bit archaic there with the 'jumping from boy to boy will give you a bad reputation'. I would never say something like that to a little girl!

What are the other areas of her life like? Does she do well enough at school? Is she in other activities? If everything else balances out I wouldn't worry about it too much. I'd be quite proud of the fact that there's nothing too "grown up" in the texts.

Also agree the "jumping from boy to boy" advice was .

totally normal ime for yr6-7s. Heck it was normal when I was 11 (late 1970s). They aren't having relationships like adults do, they are practising at having relationships, trying to figure out the reasonable rules. They love to order the world by pairing themselves & their friends off; I think it's fantastic the way they start & end "relationships". It's brilliant practice for learning how to ask someone out without shame, how to be asked out without embarrassment, how to break up in civilised fashion, & never taking any one relationship too seriously.

If you were totally ignorant that she had crushes on boys & called any a boyf., that any of that was happening, then I would want to work on being a better listener & somebody she wants to confide in about her life, thoughts & emotional upheavals.

Hmm. In my opinion, apart from limiting her phone use which would be a good idea regardless, from what you've posted there doesn't seem to be anything too bad. I remember wanting a 'boyfriend' at that age (never got one though because non of the boys at school liked me haha) and I remember friends and girls in my year group having 'boyfriends' but as far as I know it never went further than hand holding, awkward hugging at the end of the school day and for some, kissing (more like a peck and NEVER in front of anyone). Boyfriend-Girlfriend relationships at that age are nothing like adult relationships, it's all very innocent and awkward and more often than not they're more like friends than actual bf/gf. It's all part of growing up and learning how relationships work. Seven months at 11 is very impressive though.

I think in Dd's social circle during yr7 there would be scandal if any boyf-girlf pair did more than hand-hold. Mere rumours that 2 people have actually kissed would be huge talking point. Some of the boyf-girlf pairs barely ever even talk face to face!