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.

KatieScarlett - that is awful. How is DD now?

Blimey, teen dating sites for 11yos?
Mind boggles...

Just wanted to make a comment re supplying condoms for 11 year olds.

11 years olds don't 'have sex'. They are children and therefore cannot consent. An 11 year can be sexually abused by another 11 year old, but it's called abuse, not having sex, because that's what it is. It's up to the adults to protect these children from sexual abuse, not to provide condoms and condone it. That is a terrible and harmful message to give a child.

a friend of mines is just involved with the police and courts etc the same thing was done to her dd,shes 14 hes was 25

Good grief, this thread really is a wake-up call. I had no idea so many MNers would have stories of 'it happened to me' or 'it happened to my child'.

Hope you are OK today, Agent.

Best way of protecting your daughter is to not let her have access to smart phones or computer in her room.

Run google in safe mode. Keep computer in front room, visible at all times. Make sure her phone is not web enabled.

You wouldn't send your 11year old out to a night club -but that is effectively what is happening with non monitored Internet use.

As regards that dating site - is it regulated? What measures does if have in place to safeguard teens using it? As they are children? Seems well dodgy to me and I would have a chat to police on non emergency number.

Thank you for sharing your experience Agent. I can only imagine how horrifying it must have been to find out.

I thought I was pretty aware of these issues but didn't expect so many of your children (all posters) to to have been in a similar situation, despite having been educated on it. My DDs are thankfully not that old yet but I have definately been made more aware now to be even more vigilant and not to be suckered in by 'but they are sensible'.

Hope it all turns out well!

Something else this thread has just made me think of...

If any of us have kids with an Xbox/PS3 'Live' account, we should really be checking up on their contact lists and making sure they actually know everyone on it.

We told my DS he could only have an account as long as he only added friends from RL.

As much as it's a bit different in the sense that you can hear the person you're playing with, as someone said upthread boys in particular can have deep voices from a very early age...so an adult could potentially pose as a 13/14yr old.

Also if their mics stop working for any reason, they use the message/chat facility...so it's something worth thinking about.

Hope the chat is going ok this morning AZZ and that you managed to get a bit of sleep last night.

I am totally shocked at this. I thought it was going to be some schoolgirl/schoolboy type of thing. How awful. I can't see the 'boy' being only 11. I'd feel like calling the police but not sure if I would right away. I'd certainly do something. This could be a dangerous person to young people.

DD is fine.

Off to Uni next year.

She looks back on that time with bemusement and a lot of "wtf was I THINKING????"

A police friend had to go to a house in extremely posh part of town to tells parents their teenage daughter had been sending fairly graphic pictures to a man who turned out to be 45 and to be grooming several other children.
Friend had to find out if the girl had met him for sex. Parents were floored, shocked to the core and furious....

It happened to a friend of mine at school too, we used to mess around going on the chatrooms etc for a laugh, trolling and finding it hilarious and disgusting that all these men would happily wank on camera etc. We were about 14, 15 maybe?

What we didn't realise is that this one friend of ours didn't see it as just a laugh, she was genuinely curious about it and (I guess) she must have found the sex talk quite exciting. Her mum didn't care, gave her free rein and just used to tell her not to stay up too late. We used to go on sleepovers and tell her the "hilarious" things that these guys were saying and she'd laugh and say "You kids, we didn't have this in my day!" Anyway, she met a guy on there when she was 15 who told her he was 18, and they developed a really close friendship/relationship online. She started coming into school calling him her boyfriend etc, said they loved each other, he sent her all these gifts etc. After not that long, he came down to visit (!) and it turned out that he was 22 rather than 18, but what makes me feel sick now looking back is that they had sex the first time he came down, and she was fifteen.

She still has no idea that he did anything wrong. She has him as a friend on facebook! They went out for about three years, and then I don't know what happened as we lost touch, but I find it bizarre now looking back that her mum was just fine with it, and that nothing was ever done about it.

I guess it's different because I was kind of on the edge of this internet generation, we had only just got the internet when I was 11 and it was on dialup so we were strictly limited because of the cost. The only computer was in a family area and there wasn't internet access at schools, let alone mobile phones etc. By the time I was 13/14 it was starting to get more common and I remember things like going to a friend's house and searching for "severed hand" on ebay because it brought up grisly pictures and we were really that you could buy such things on the internet (!) but anyway, the point was that internet access was very restricted and supervised until I was 13 or 14 and I think by then aside from a few dodgy searches out of curiosity, in the main we weren't so naive to happily hand out contact details etc.

Perhaps re the phone, if you get anything more than a basic model next time, make sure you (or DH) also have a phone with the same operating system so that you become familiar with how it works and you know what it can do.

As an aside, why the fuck does a dating site for teenagers even exist?? Look what happened with Habbo Hotel, and the kind of misunderstandings and upset that happens with adult dating sites, when the participants are mature enough to know what they're getting into - surely this is just a totally inappropriate idea? They can go on dating sites when they're 18!

And yes, before anyone starts to think it could never happen to their DD...

Posh house - check
Parents with degrees galore - check
Happy Mum and Dad and little brother, surrounded by loving GP's, Aunts, Uncles, etc - check
Parents involved in youth coaching, CRB checked - check
DD in Scots equivilent of G&T - check
DD played clarinet, went to many after school lessons, played hockey for the district - check

It can happen to anyone's DD/DS.

I don't have any advice except please stop blaming yourself. You are obviously a very good mum and take lots of precautions - I doubt you could have done more and you have caught this before it got out of hand by the sounds of it

Hope it all gets sorted today and that you and your family are ok

It's all been said but I wanted to give you this How upsetting for all of you.

I see it all the time with younger friends, too. There's a 16 year old girl who works at the shop I do, a customer from the shop added her on facebook, telling her "I got your name from the receipt". She messaged a load of us about it making a :/ face.

Now, her name isn't very unusual, and only the first initial of surnames appears on the receipt so he must have done some serious stalking to be able to find her I told her to block him and she laughed and said "Nah, it's funny, I was talking to him last night! He's really weird." FFS! And then she nearly shit herself when someone who looked like him turned back up at the shop again!

The internet is fab and I have met loads of people from onlineland, but it's about exercising caution, knowing how to do it safely and being overly cynical. I would never give my mobile number out online.

Another RL similar story here:

Friend's DD met up with a 'boy' she had been chatting to online. She was abducted and raped. I've never met a girl so utterly traumatised.

Such was her immaturity and her newfound inability to trust, she went back on the same website and was found chatting to adult men. AWFUL

I've only skimmed the messages and will go back and read them later, but I'm so grateful for them, my blood's running cold at posters saying similar has happened to them/their children. We could have had a close shave.

Just been trying to set it up to go to the police, writing stuff down, what we've found on the net, what DD's said about this man.

And he is a man, he's told her he just turned 19, so I suspect he's probably older than that.

He knows her name from the emails she sent him with photos, (the photo of her when she was younger she gave him because he kept pressuring her for one of herself now and she did it to stop him asking, but he just kept asking - I can see where that was leading), he knows the name of where we live, that she's got a 2 YO sister. She says she's relieved we know because he was becoming 'obsessive' in texting her and she didn't know how to stop it.

The posters saying she's out of her depth are right, it sounds a bit stalkerish, or as though it could easily get to that point. Looking at the messages they've exchanged just yesterday, he's been the one initiating sexual conversations with her, like 'what do you think about when you're wanking' and 'have you started your hormones', she's done her best to deflect what he's asking, but it's pitiful to read. He keeps bringing it up and she's given embarrassed replies.

She'd told a friend at school who said 'eww that's disgusting, you shouldn't be doing that', I've always thought highly of this lass, and I was right to, she's a good friend to DD.

DD hasn't got a fb account (and I've asked her whether she's set one up behind our backs and she said no), she's not got a laptop in her room or anything, just uses my main computer and her dads laptop which we've checked and can't see anything untoward on them.

I'm going to ring the police now, see what they make of it.

Shivering and shuddering at what she's said.

it sounds like you're handling the conversations with her well - hope the police can deal with this quickly

He's 19?

Ring the police now and good luck. I am sure they will take this very seriously

So sorry you have gone through this but so glad you have caught it early

hugs to you all

He's told her he's 19?

I'm so sorry this has happened to you all but you sound like you're doing an excellent job in getting to the bottom of it.

Would it help if you typed out a dialogue of what you want to say to the Police when you ring them?

You know in case you get a bit tongue tied and your mind goes blank?

Good luck

Oh and if you have a FB account yourself, still please check the search function for your DD just in case.

Ugh he's said he's 19 :(

I'm so sorry OP. I think you might be right that he's older as well - 18/19 seems to be a common age for men in their 20s to pick because it doesn't sound "too old" (well, too bloody old for an 11 year old ) and yet 18/19 year olds can easily look older so it's easier for them to hide.

What a sick twisted character.

Something to talk about with her might be that she's allowed to be rude if somebody is making her feel uncomfortable and she absolutely should be even if she feels bad or feels that the person isn't meaning to make her uncomfortable. She can block or ignore somebody online or on the phone, she can walk away in real life or make an excuse and find a friend or an adult, and if she's really frightened or she can't get away then she can shout "GO AWAY" at somebody (I've seen people advocating practising this)

Please don't kick yourself Agent. I am sorry that it was as you feared, a man. A 19 year old (if that's his age) has no place befriending an 11 year old (or even a 13 year old as he first thought).

I'm glad this has come out at this stage rather than a few months down the line, glad for your DD, she's learned a very hard lesson, glad for her that she can begin to move on and for you... it is good to know surely that your dd has good friends too?

I guess you now have to clean the mess up and I don't envy the task at all. But good will come out of this scary situation.

You've done nothing wrong. Believe that. Neither has your dd in many ways, just got into a situation she couldn't possibly control and I highly doubt she will ever do it again.

i'll go against the grain and say yes i think it is your fault because you have handed her the tools to be able to do this, but havent sufficiently monitored what she is doing with said tools. this hasnt happened overnight. she is 11 years old ffs.

i would go down to the police station and ask for advice, calmly, not hysterically like some on here. Then I would make sure I locked down the internet at home like Fort Knox. A phone for an 11 year old does not need to have internet enabled.

Yes it is your fault but what you do about it now will point your daughter in either the right direction or the wrong one. As for condoms for an 11 year old, get a grip, how about condoms for an 7 year old in that case!

Anyone read about the 13 year old who has run off with a 30 year old yesterday. I dont expect her mother knew what she was up to either.