Just found out my 11 YO is texting with a person she met on a dating website

[AgentZigzag]

I want to start out by saying I take full responsibility for not checking her phone and seeing this earlier, I thought we had a sensible and responsible daughter and I've allowed myself to be misled by that thought.

She left her hotmail account open on my computer about a two hours ago, and I had a nose through her in and out box and found a change of password email from this teenage dating website. (it's always been made very clear to her that I could and would look through her electronic communications and history, although this was said a while ago)

I went to the site and found she had a fucking profile on there! And messages to and from other 'people'.

But there's one specific profile who she's contacted more, he's given her his phone number, and I presume she's given him hers, because we've just looked on her phone and they've been fucking texting each other!

In her email account she's sent him photos, of some drawings etc, but things that are obviously from a child.

He's sent her a photo of himself (which she thought she'd deleted, but I managed to get it back).

On the texts, and there are a fuck of a lot of them -

-She's told him she's 13

-Lots of talking about wanking and masturbating (even after she's told him she's 13) - which she asked me about yesterday because she didn't know what it meant, and you can see from the texts she's got no idea WTF he's talking about.

-She's tried ringing him tonight she's text up to 10 to 1 at night, and from 7 in the morning.

-She's been texting him all day today - when we've been there with her!

-He's actually messaging her NOW!

I'm holding DH back from texting him to say something, because I need some advice. DH is talking about the police (if there are any of the MN bobbies I know use MN, is this that serious do you think? Is it exaggerating thinking this is a 'man' grooming what he knows to be an underage child?)

I really do feel ashamed we haven't protected her from this. We're so aware of shit like this, we honestly are, and when they're 9/10/11 YO everything seems so open and you've told them the rules and think they understand.

We got the phone for her on a contract two weeks ago because her old one broke in the summer holidays and we wanted her to be able have an OK one for secondary school (which she's just started doing the 35 minute walk to and from every day).

I'm angry for letting myself trust her and her breaking it, and for not checking her phone sooner. I don't know where to go from here. Obviously she's not got the phone and I'm looking through her email accounts (she's got two, but I can't get into one).

And what should we do about this 'bloke/man/teenager' who's texting her stuff now? Ignore him, block him?

FFS, I'm just reeling, please tell us what you think.

But surely it's still a rarity for 11 year olds? I've worked as a mentor in a very tough innercity London school and even there sex among 11 year olds wasn't an issue. What is your experience of 11 year olds having sex?

Handing her some condoms and saying 'be safe' probably wouldn't be an approach I'd take if I suspected she was.

And I don't suspect.

But then I'm hardly the one to take an accurate guess given tonight, doing that would feel too much like encouragement though.

I sort of agree with nanny
Everything these days is so sexualised and rubbed in kids faces, adverts ect. And they can so easily access things online even with parental controls, if they don't they sure will hear things in the playground from kids who do have access to these things unsupervised.

The amount you tell them and age appropriateness of it all will differ from parent and child to parent and child.

I was forced to tell my children things i wanted to leave until they were at the very least preteens or early teens, because of what happened to DD and DS1. It devastated me, but now, we are all very open about sex, not details, DD felt able to ask me about contraception, to pick her up some condoms when i was at the doctors, and when she was 15 and in FC and sleeping with her boyfriend which i was not happy about but still i was the one she asked for information on where to get family planning.

DS knows about periods, sexual diseases, contraception and how to use it PROPERLY, he has done from the age of about 11, sexual disease chat came later though, he was 12 when he asked me about it, and my ethos is, old enough to ask, old enough to know.

I feel i have prepared them sufficiently to practise safe sex and haven't demonised it in any way.
However i would never presume to expect another parent should do what i have.

I don't want to push my kids in the direction of having sex with everyone who will lay down with them, but i want them safe, and equipped with the knowledge they need and from me, not through t'internet or playground whispers. And i know they aren't afraid to ask me about anything, and get a straight and candid answer. They don't seem embarrassed at all thank god. Its one of the tightropes you have to walk as a parent, sadly.

Oh and the only instances of 11 year olds having sex that i know of, are kids whose parents give not a shit about there whereabouts or goings on, feel unloved and equate sex with love. And are very ill equipped with the above knowledge.

Agent, reading between the lines I wouldn't suspect for one minute that you need to be handing out condoms. I think your dd has gone down a scary path. I suspect she's got out of her depth and will be scared and probably mortified. She will be thankful for an adult to get her out of this mess. That's where you come in. I think you need to find out what she knows and thinks about this situation before you add anything. Try to keep an open mind and don't assume anything (easier said than done I know)

I hasten to add that i impress on DS1 that i would very much prefer it if he will wait until he is 16 and over before he has sex and to choose carefully who he decides to lose his virginity to, hopefully he is in a loving relationship, but thats out of my control, i can only be his guide on that, sadly.

I also tell him i'll throttle him if he makes me a nanny before i'm 40

x posted with thornrose and i agree with every bit of her post too :)

Things - I take your point. I think that the 11 year olds that are having sex are still far from "the norm". Thank god!

I seriously think the best thing you can do is contact the police at the the end if the day it's the only way you are truly going to find out if this is some silly little boy having a laugh or heaven forbid it is a nasty vile man trying to groom your daughter. Personally I would have to call the police what's the worst that can happen if you do ? They speak to your daughter about the dangers of the Internet and she hopefully doesn't do it again and if it is another teenager they get a bollocking from the police. The dangers if you don't are far worse if it someone grooming and you haven't reported it then next time someone else's daughter may not be so lucky. Unfortunately my family has been through this ( not one on my DC'S) and that family member was not one of the lucky ones. Hope everything works out well for you all xx

You do need to contact the Police about this. My friends 11 year old did something very similar, it went on for a few months. Turns out the Police are set up for this. They tracked him and paid him a visit. He was posing as a teen boy. He was a man in his mid 20's no record, the police scared the crap out of him. Can't remember if he got arrested for sending picks of his bits. Friends Dd had to go through some counseling sessions as it really shook her up, she was so convinced he was just a teen. She is now 13 and is monitored online and hasn't joined anything online since.

Another vote for the police.

Agent it is not your fault and your daughter is entirely innocent. Yes she has been on a website, but everything else is someone manipulating her.

I think the thing these days is that it is normal to chat to strangers online. That's what we are doing here. Thats what teens do. We and they don't see it as 'stranger danger'.

You need to talk to her, she needs to know how people can be manipulated.

Whether this is a 14 year old, a woman, a man, a 60 year old doesn't matter. This behaviour is at the least innapropriate.

And it's not just your daughter. Someone doing this is not just chatting to one person, there will be others.

Nanny she is a child it's illegal. Noway should a parent be encouraging it. I most certainly would not

The same thing happened to me at 12, i knew the person in RL but the majority of our relationship was through email/text.
It was a person in a position of trust, not a teacher but someone on par. This may be the case of your DD?

Only now as a mother i can appericiate how upsetting this would be for a mother!

I agree livid

Bloody hell Nanny you're mad!!! Leave out condoms for an 11 year old. You're not meant to encourage them.

Agent, I hope you get it all sorted out and your DD is ok.

OP are you going to call the police & CEOPS

Highly irresponsible to give a preteen ( not even a teen) who is 5 years below the legal limit a packet of condoms and tell them to get on with it. There are far better ways of getting the message across

A parent at that age should be encouraging the child to wait, sex is for adults and happens in loving ADULT relationships

OP, I'm so sorry to hear you're going through this. 11 is way too young for a child to be visiting any of the sites you mentioned. The internet really can be a poisoned challice, certainly where children are concerned.

Just a quick question you may wish to ask your DD, something that's concerning me. Why did she email a photo of herself when she was 5 or 6 years old? Was she asked to? It seems a little odd to me that she'd want to send a photo of her much younger self when her conversations and online behaviour, clearly, reflect that of an older person.

My very best wishes to your family. I'll be sticking with this thread - keep talking.

This thread is a massive wake up call to me and the fact that my 13yo DD is not checked up on by me apart from asking my DB to look over her FB from time to time

I am waiting for madamepoirot (?) to come back today with links and advice and will be speaking to my DD later about all this

Thankyou for this thread and DO NOT blame yourself for this its bloody impossible trying to keep on top of everything

'I'm surprised at how many posters don't think this is my fault, I don't mean this in a 'woe is me' way, but I am ultimately responsible for her as a young child, and I'm very aware of internet security and don't like the net and RL ever coming together'

Because a similar situation could happen to any of us at any time, because your default setting is to trust your children, because you did what you thought best.
And because now you know what is going on, you are trying to resolve it in the best way possible, with your prime thought being for your daughter's welfare, safety and happiness.
That all comes across as good parenting to me.

omg, but don't feel bad, I remember being 16 and using chat rooms and all sort of stuff got emailed to me :(

Definitely contact the police, don't contact the man (which it definitely is), let him think everything is ok. Maybe even see if you can trick him into giving his address and name? eg, can we meet somewhere...and get the police to go!

The police will be able to trace him from the emails and texts, and by speaking to your DD.

There's no point in saying a child of a certain age is "too young" to look at various sites - if they're curious, they'll look and they're not going to think "Oops I'm too young I'd better go and play on CBeebies instead."

I do think a lot of adults forget how it is to be 11 years of age - it's a horrible awkward time where outwardly you're a child but inwardly hormones are starting to surge and you're becoming aware of this whole other world you've been "protected" from for the first part of your life. If we were all honest, and could remember clearly, the vast majority of us would admit that at 11 we would have started sneakily taking a peek at sites that were off limits but that contained snippets of information that we were curious about. Hiding information, making out a child is too "young" or "innocent" is ridiculous - that's not going to stop them, it just makes them more secretive and ashamed. It puts them in a place where they do things like this - try to get information from older people who will share the information they want, but with ulterior motives that they're not aware of.

I'm not saying children should be bombarded with information but to me looking up things about masturbation at age 11 seems very very normal. I'm pretty sure I was masturbating at that age (or by 12 at any rate) and I know that my mother's prudish attitude meant that I did engage in some risky behaviour that would have been unnecessary if topics like this hadn't been so taboo.

Children don't need to shielded from sex, or sexual ideas. Sex in itself is not wrong or dirty or bad. What they do need is to be informed, and taught about people who will use them to get thrills. For them to understand that they need understand what those thrills actually are, no sugar coating, no pussyfooting. Children are curious about sex but where their naivite comes into play is in their dealings with other people. At that age they still don't understand how people can take advantage of others, they don't understand the power plays, the manipulation and the deceit that can go on. Banning them from thinking about or wondering about sex is just pointless. What they need is guidance on how to get the information they want safely and on how to protect themselves from people who will use their natural mix of curiosity and naivite against them.

Whatever you do Agent, I would urge you not to make your daughter feel ashamed of what she's done. She clearly doesn't realise the danger, and in her mind was doing something exciting and fun. Yes, she went behind your back, but she did that for a reason and rather than coming down on her like a ton of bricks you need to find out what that reason was so you can help her rather than pushing her away.

agent have read about half the thread, and am repeating what most have said,

1. it is not your fault. someone who grooms a young child is very clever at deceiving and teaching others to do the same, the grooming appears to the child entirely innocent, they take advantage of the youth, inexperience, and naivity of a child. It is not your dd's fault, she has no idea that this could be a dangerous person, she is developing her identity, testing boundaries, and most of the time, this would be boundaries that would involve you having words and that is all. before internet and mobile phones, she may have been 'caught' snogging a boy. It is a big thing at her age of becoming a young women (starting the process of, not being one) for a boy of the opposite sex to be attracted to her. And to her, this is the level she is at. She would not know that a 'young boy' could be a man pretending, she would not even think about it.

1. You MUST tell the police. IF this is a boy, then parents will be informed and a chat about appropriateness will be had, and the fact he says stuff like 'i fancied you when you were 13, now I know you are 11...' indicates he thinks 13 is young and 11 even more so, and thus at the very least he is older than 14. I am concerned that as he had knowledge of words such as masterbation (maybe wanking as it is colloquial and children like using 'cook and naughty' words but masterbation is a technical word) he is much older. If he is an adult and has been found to be grooming, he is likely to have been doing it to other children, may have got further in the grooming that with your DD. It is a criminal offence and he WILL be prosecuted if he is an adult. He is likely to be put on the Sex Offenders Register even for only one (caught) offence, as this behaviour indicates a serious risk of harm to children.

1. back to 1. rather than feel guilty, feel pleased that you at least got hold of her accounts before something more serious has happened, you feel you did not check quick enough, but you DID check and now you know you are acting on it. And this is now a time to support DDs learning about those words she is now confused about, and also about keeping herself safe.

1. Might be worth talking to a professional such as child-line (can an adult call them?) about what has happened and how you can teach her about the risks without making her scared to form relationships again in the future. You want her to be frightened off of this type of behaviour again, but you don't want her innocence and trust in boys who are age appropriate to be damaged, there will be groups who can support you in doing this.

Good luck zigzag

An aside (an appropriate one) - I would urge ALL parents to check history for a chat site aimed at 14 year olds called www.omegle.org.uk and variants thereof (it's worldwide and has different addresses for diff countries but ALWAYS omegle).

This site is, as I said, aimed at 14 year olds for "chat". But the second they click on video it links them to (usually) adults who, in all cases I've come across through work) expose themselves and can see the child's reaction.

Currently these sites cannot be blocked for content and do not flag on parental controls because the sites themselves have no adult content or buzzwords.