I know I'm NBU actually but can I ask how you would deal with the following situation please.
Dd is 10 and has been using skype and msn to contact friends. I'm slightly uneasy about it, mainly because she seems to spend a lot of time on it but I've given in to that old plea 'but everyone's on it' (I know I know anyway)
I gave her strict instructions at the start NEVER to add anyone she doesn't know and I check her history often, and she has to use the laptop in the kitchen where I can see her. So far so good, no problems.
There have been one or 2 occasions where girls have been a bit bitchy to each other, and dd has got a bit upset, and this seems to happen at school as well as online but I've put it down to their age etc. I tend to assume that dd is innocent but it's possibly a bit of tit for tat etc so I've talked to her about being nice and not rising to the bait if someone's being nasty etc etc.
Yesterday I was out with ds, and dd went to her cousin's to play (same age same class) While I was out I got a text from the mum of one of their friends asking me to speak to my dd as she and dds cousin were upsetting her daughter and had deleted her from skype and msn. Her daughter was in tears apparently.
I rang dh and asked him to go and get dd and I went home to give her a telling off, thinking that dd and her cousin had been bullying this girl. However I got home to find dd also in tears. Seemingly the friend had sent them some online game that they started to do, but then it flashed up some picture of the girl out of the Exorcist, cue hysterics from both dd and her cousin followed by flashbacks, nightmares etc etc. And hence the reason they'd deleted her from msn etc.
My initial reaction is to ban the Internet completely, I feel like I've been completely naive and should never have let her on it at all but she is normally a very sensible girl. The problem is even if I ban it at home there will always be someone else who has it at home and they're at an age where they do go to each others houses to play now and I can't keep an eye on her every minute of the day. I want to be able to teach her about the dangers of the Internet while still allowing her to use it safely.
I actually can't ban it altogether because the school sets homework that has to be done online. How would you deal with this? Delete msn and skype till she's older? I don't mind her chatting to friends but I don't like the thought of them sending her things. I have told her never to open messages or attachments unless she knows exactly who they're from but this was a trick, pretending it was a game.
I feel very responsible for this and really don't know how to deal with it.