to be angry with DD (12) re secret social media account?

[Mirabel105]

DD like most girls her age lives for social media. I allowed her to have Instagram and Snapchat accounts on the basis that they were kept as private accounts and that I would follow her (but wouldn't embarrass her by commenting on pictures).

So she has her Insta and occasionally I look at her ipad and look at her Snapchat.

This week I've found out, entirely by chance, that she also has a second Instagram account. I couldn't follow her on it, as she'd blocked me. So I asked another friend to look and found out this second account is public and has about 400 followers, at least a couple of whom look to be older men whose interests are teenage girls (e.g. their pages are exclusively pictures of young-looking girls in bikinis).

Usually when I try to discuss the dangers of the internet I get (from both my kids) "I'm not STUPID, Mum!" and/or they say I am "overreacting". I want to teach her a lesson this time by demonstrating to her the reasons why I bang on about keeping accounts private and not engaging online with people she doesn't know IRL (as she'd say).

It's not just the worry of who is following her account, it's the very deliberate and considered LYING that makes me angry. AIBU?

Myself i have over 200+ "friends" on FB, and have to cull them from time to time. I have no idea who those people are, many of them in foreign countries. Befriended from a page of popular film fans, political cause, or some humour, then end up with receiving outrageous content i don't want to associate with. Nthing illegal, but just disturbing at times.
There was a film called "Trust" a few years ago. Watch that together.

should express your disappointment in her lack of maturity

I think it's rather unfair to expect any maturity in a 12-year-old when it comes to possible internet grooming....

All I can suggest is to keep the lines of communication with her open and do not be afraid of talking about everything.

If you are friends with any of her friends' parents, I would not hesitate to contact them either (without alarm!) about it. Strength in numbers and all that....

We REALLY need to educate our sons and daughters collectively about this pernicious shit.

Update: last night I got her ipad for the first time (she had just returned from being at her Dad's for a while). Had a look at it after she went to bed and it is worse than I thought. She's been DMing loads with a boy she has never (to my knowledge) met - he seems to be the "boyfriend" (they are 12 remember) of a girl she knows. In these chats (which started in the past couple of weeks, when she's been away at her Dad's), he introduced her to "t or d" (truth or dare) which goes something like this "DM Ellie and tell her that James thinks she's stupid. Don't say it's a dare till tomorrow. Send screenshotzzzz".

Except DD has taken to this far more than the boy who started it off with her and keeps proposing really mean "dares" to him. As in, mean to the recipient of the "dare" message. At points he asks if they can stop now and she says no! One of these "dares" went badly wrong when the recipient realised it was a dare and (perfectly reasonably) said to DD "OMG DD I can't believe you did that, It was not cool or funny, I thought I could trust you." And DD responds along the lines of "It was a dare, I tried to say sorry [she didn't at all)." Other girl "You didn't say sorry". DD "Ur problem not mine".

I am horrified. Sounds ridiculous to say in light of the above but DD is usually (mostly) a nice kid whose friends' parents always tell me how sweet she is and what a good friend to their daughters. She has had to leave her school at the end of last term (she didn't want to) and this "dare" stuff is all directed at her former schoolfriends. I wonder if she is subconsciously deliberately distancing herself with this appalling behaviour.

Worst of all is I can't bring up this "dare" stuff with her without letting on that I've read all her messages. Which will only encourage her to find even better ways of hiding them in future.

I don't know what to do.

I know there were children in yr4 last year that had instagram - no way! As PP have said, there's an age limit for a reason so the child is able to handle what comes up on there.

You've got to bring it up with her. Have you got any other Apple gadgets?

I would be seriously devious here. Screenshot, paste into word, print it all off and then say to your DD 'what have you done to my apple account, have you changed the settings, I tried to print the bill and I've got all your messages spooling off the printer!!' Then you can talk about the content and her behaviour and bring on the digital grounding and scare tactics.

PS I have a lovely 11 year old, with lovely friends. Yet they are growing up and they do all take it in turns to be utter twats. Its what kids are, immature... So I am sure you will help her mend her ways, don't be too downhearted.

My little cousin actually did this too. It's actually pretty common. I was 19 at the time and being a bit young and dumb decided to teach her a lesson. I added her, uploaded pictures of a boy about her age, good looking and started to flirt. Then after a few days I started talking about age being just a number and she wouldn't mind if I was a little older than my profile said. She said she wouldn't. I then told her I was 47. She stopped chatting and said she had to go and the account disappeared 2 days later. As far as I know she never did it again. If she had actually agreed to meet me I would have killed her but luckily she proved she had more sense. I'm not advocating actually doing it, god knows the trouble it could have gotten me into but it did scare her straight. So perhaps add her under another account, chat to her a little and then confront her and point out that if she didn't know it was you, how does she know who all these other people are?

I know things are not amicable with your ex, but can you contact him to tell him what's been going on "under his watch"? Flag to him that DD has secret IG account, is messaging boys daring them to do things, friending adults with a unnatural interest in teens and generally acting irresponsibly online. I would spell out to him that she is a hair breath from being groomed by perverts and/or sexting with boys, and that this can't be allowed to continue for her own safety. She needs to keep to the private profile and people she knows, or she won't be on there at all.

I think it's important you are on the same page with consequences.

And I think a week off internet is good first punishment for the deceit, more and she'll over-react and rebel. Tell her if you find another account under ANY social media platform, she'll be off until she can pay for the device and her own wifi plan (ie. 16).

Ok firstly you print everything off, the messages, the photos, everything you can find on there that you don't find suitable for her.

Then you delete all her social media accounts.

Then you sit down with her and show her a) what you have found and b) that what she is doing is verging on criminal behaviour.

Tell her that you will allow ONE social media account to be opened up, on full privacy settings and if she breaks that trust again, then she will not be allowed back on at all. I'd also be inclined to take her round to the houses of the people she's pissed off or upset and make her apologise in person.

The problem is that there is absolutely nothing to stop her setting up accounts anywhere with internet access. You need lines of communication open and not her hiding things.

Her behaviour is awful. I'd be more horrified at the online bullying and showing off she is doing than anything else. I presume you didn't bring her up to behave like that.

Come down on her hard. Make her feel uncomfortable and DO make her apologise to these friends. Then start again. She needs to understand that she's 12 and vulnerable. But she also needs to realise that bullying people online is dreadful and she would hate to be the target of it I presume, which will happen if she doesn't stop being a little cow to other people.

I agree with keeping the lines of communication open.

I had similar with DS in y7. He asked could he have an Instagram account and I said no. He set one up anyway because all his friends had one. Then he ran into problems with some online bullying from some kids in his year group, it was low-level stuff but the problem was that because it was happening on an account which I had explicitly said no to he wasn't able to tell me what was going on. So he ended up having time off sick from school and then feeling he couldn't go back, but couldn't talk to me either.

We had the conversation about honesty and how if you're not honest you dig yourself deeper and deeper into things you potentially cannot deal with.

He knows that I can access his phone at any time given I'm the one paying the bill, and he knows that it's for his own safety.

There have been some minor incidents over the past year or so, and I take the approach that as he doesn't know when I might choose to look at his phone he always needs to be aware of what he's putting out there on social media.

Just seen your update and she would NOT be keeping that Ipad. Or those accounts. Or the WiFi password. OR a data allowance.

This is exactly the sort of thing I would have done at 12

Posted too soon. I think that at 12 children don't have the capacity to understand the dangers so no matter what you do she will think you are overreacting. I think maybe you need to confiscate her devices.

Oh you poor thing. I read your update about the dares, and I think this goes far beyond the use of social media question. I agree that taking away the ipad and banning her is not really a completely solution. As you've clearly already realised, her behaviour verges on bullying. She's not just pushing limits in terms of what she's allowed to do technologically, she's pushing some social limits too.

I'd want to get to the bottom of why she's enjoying these dares, which sound like they're pretty humiliating and hurtful for the victims. Perhaps because it's online, she's not seeing the need to be compassionate? Reminding her that there are real people with real feelings at the end of it is important. But there's a wider question about getting a kick out of pushing limits here (socially and technologically) that needs addressing.

I think a ban alone could well be counterproductive. She is clearly in the grip of social media, and she might just get better at hiding her accounts. Confronting the behaviours, on and offline, is really important.

I'd ban her from the Internet entirely for a period, due to her lying to me, not keeping to the rules, being a bully and bad friend and clear not having the maturity or being trustworthy enough for Internet access.

If she needed to go online for a legitimate reason (schoolwork) she would have to be supervised. And I would make it clear that if she tried to sneak around and get back on despite my ban then the consequences would get steadily worse.

You can't ban a 12 year old from the internet. She could access it absolutely anywhere.

What the op needs to do is keep communication open and keep monitoring her behaviour.

I do think all the accounts should be deleted and if and when the op thinks her dd will understand how badly she's behaved then she can open ONE account under the op's supervision.

I think if you print off those conversations and threaten to show them to other parents you'll find her reactions will tell you everything you need to know. If she doesn't care then you have major issues. If she's horrified by that then explain to her that actually those conversations are already out there, she can't control where they go or who sees them and they may well come back to bite her hard. She now has to live with the fact that other people can see how horrible she can be and she needs to learn that if she wants friends, proper friends, then she needs to be a decent human being.

You can make a bloody good effort though, by taking all her devices away, not letting her to unsupervised to places where she can access it, etc. She needs to know how serious the situation is and " well you can't ban a 12 year old" really does not send the right message. She's 12. She can send it be prevented from having the freedom to go online if she can't be trusted with it. At that age she's hardly going to be out and about unsupervised much is she?

Some useful thoughts here. In order of priority, my concerns are (1) the lying (2) the meanness/attention-seeking, and (3)the perils of engaging with people she doesn't know on social media. Think we will address it in that order with her.

I will definitely take her ipad and laptop away for a while (was thinking 2 weeks?). Unfortunately re her phone, she's starting a new school on Mon and I don't really want her to walk there and back without a phone so she'll have to keep that at least during school hours. But I agree with the posters who've said that banning isn't going to stop her doing this "dare" stuff. I can already hear what she'll say when I raise it with her: she'll say "everyone does it, you don't understand, it's just bants". Will havr to go through all her messages in front of her to ask her why if everyone does it, no one seems to have done it TO HER.

We are far to reliant on children having to have phones. Children have been walking to and from school for centuries without the need for mobile phones. A couple of weeks without one won't hurt her, and she can be on a strict curfew as well then. Been there, done that for other things.

Just want to weigh in as an avid user of social media. As a teenager (about 14-16) I engaged in some cyber bullying, this is something I've only come to recognize recently (about 10 years on, I'm mid 20's now). At the time all my friends were doing it and while I would never have dreamed of being anything other then kind and sticking up for people who were bullied IRL I didn't equate what I was doing online to bullying. If you say your daughter is normally really kind and loving towards people is there any way that she could be unaware of how her actions online are making the 'victims' feel?

I think the meanness is the bigger problem that needs addressing as in my experience if you delete her accounts/ban her technology she will find another way- Library/friends phones etc.

You need to bring it home to her that what she says or does to people online can hurt them as much as what she says or does online. I would at the time been absolutely horrified if I realized I had been bullying someone, and from your description it sounds like your daughter might be similar.

Eugh typo- what she says or does to people online can hurt them as much as what she says or does offline

Thanks Cloeycat. It is possible she doesn't equate the online nastiness to real life nastiness but I think the reaction of the friend who was obviously upset is more than enough for it to be brought home to her. She just chose to ignore it and then (rather upsettingly) managed to drag the conversation round to a "poor me" agenda by telling the other girl "I've had a shit day" and then the other girl just sort of let it drop.

Perhaps what I could do is say to her that I am going to close the secondary account (as I can report it to Instagram as under-13), and she is only allowed to maintain the private account, but on the basis that I will have the password and may look at it at any time. But then she might just continue this stuff but deleting messages as she goes along. I really don't know the best way to get her to just stop doing it.

The internet is a tool. A tool she either doesn't know how or wants to use safely. A tool that can harm her and she is using to harm other. Would the replies be the same if she was playing with knives,matches etc? Oh you cannot possibly ban matches,she will buy her own in a shop,borrow some for friend,just tell her it's not nice and let her burn one match a day.
Ofc you can cut her off from the internet,it would require determination and a lot of hassle,but it can be done.
The main issues here are the lying and what can become if it's not already,online bullying. Get her to apologise in person,tell her she broke you trust and as such she cannot be trusted so everything gets cut off,or only used supervised.
I don't get all this angst about how and what to tell her that you know. She fucked up,she's the child. It's irrelevant if everyone else is doing it or not..would you feel the same if it was sex,drugs,alcohol? By pussyfooting around her and finding excuses and minimising all you're saying(general you not necessarily you op) is reinforcing the idea that it's not that bad. Exactly what she's thinking already

Mirabel

I've just had a quick search because I'm at work and there doesn't seem to be many resources available that help a person recognize that what they are doing might be bullying but perhaps this might be interesting for her to read after you have had the conversation: www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/34015449/how-do-i-know-if-im-a-bully

If she is particularly sensitive and likely to stew and get upset by this it might be helpful to let her know that you being 'a bully' isn't a permanent thing and just because she has done mean things in the past doesn't mean she has to continue to do so in the future.

The reason I'm pushing for this to be the bigger issue you tackle is that these behaviors are known to get worse when between the ages of 14-16, at which time it will be a lot more difficult to keep her offline altogether. Tackle this now so it doesn't become a bigger problem for her and potential victims in the future.

DD like most girls her age lives for social media

MOST 12 year olds? Er, no. Most 12 year old girls I know are not allowed to have social media accounts, even the companies themselves tell you that 12 year olds aren't allowed accounts!

You can't ban a 12 year old from the internet. She could access it absolutely anywhere

Yes you can. Where is "anywhere"? Take the phone, take the ipad and don't let them go just anywhere. They are 12, they are children. Do your job.