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Original poster

To take Dd 11 to meet online friend?

86 replies

MummyCool19 · 23/05/2019 21:19

Dd has met a girl on TikTok around 4 months ago. Iv been following their friendship since day 1. She FaceTimes her in the living room etc and Iv heard their conversations. The girl lives in Birmingham and it’s aboht 20 min train ride away. Dd has been begging to meet her so im thinking about taking her. Obviously I will stay with her 100% of the time, but am I crazy for doing yhis😩

OP posts:
nwybhs · 23/05/2019 23:57

Was chat rooms in 1993 a thing?! No such thing as the internet as far as I recall lol.

So me one upthread said they used them back then when they were 11.

nwybhs · 23/05/2019 23:57

*someone

BoomBoomsCousin · 23/05/2019 23:58

OP is already letting her DD use an app that has an age restriction of 13.

The 13 age restriction on many internet services is because of commercialization and data privacy laws in the US, not stranger danger. The app's age restriction has nothing to do with whether it's a good idea to meet up or not.

OP teaching your daughter how to approach meeting strangers is a great life skill. If she has a way to do these things safely and knows you won't stand in her way she's far more likely to continue to do so safely as she gets older. If you just tell her it's too dangerous then she probably won't go for a couple of years, but when she's 14/15 she may well lie to you about it and sneak off, putting her self in very vulnerable situations.

LimeKiwi · 23/05/2019 23:59

I can remember using chat rooms at uni 94-95

But you were not 11

Exactly!!!!! If you were using chat rooms in 1995 you had to be college or uni age. Not primary school

MiddleClassProblem · 23/05/2019 23:59

I mean... the World Wide Web was invented in 89. It’s just one of those things that on 93 some had access to but by 96 most had access too (home, school, library etc) and thus we no longer needed encarta

nwybhs · 24/05/2019 00:05

The 13 age restriction on many internet services is because of commercialization and data privacy laws in the US, not stranger danger. The app's age restriction has nothing to do with whether it's a good idea to meet up or not.

I never said it had any bearing on stranger danger. I said she is minimising risk by actively showing her DD that it's ok to ignore such ratings.

Graphista · 24/05/2019 00:10

What on earth?! Is this for real?!

Not only have you clearly not taught her how to stay safe online you've actively encouraged poor and quite possibly unsafe development of a friendship with someone you don't know from Adam!

Wtf!!!!

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-30786021

Have you done ANYTHING to check this person is who they claim? That they're not being used to draw in your child? That they're not linked to anyone dodgy?

Shockingly dangerous parenting.

I actually hope this isn't real.

BoomBoomsCousin · 24/05/2019 00:12

"Exactly!!!!! If you were using chat rooms in 1995 you had to be college or uni age. Not primary school"

Usenet and dial up bulletin boards were around in the 70s. All you needed was a dial up modem for your parent's BBC micro and parents who didn't look at the phone bill too closely. Or, in my case, a friend with a modem and a BBC computer and parents who didn't look at the phone bill too closely. If you were geeky and had the resources back then you could certainly get online.

BoomBoomsCousin · 24/05/2019 00:13

Sorry, failed to quote LimeKiwi properly.

BoomBoomsCousin · 24/05/2019 00:16

I never said it had any bearing on stranger danger. I said she is minimising risk by actively showing her DD that it's ok to ignore such ratings.

If she did it by saying "Oh just ignore the ratings they never mean anything" then possibly. If she said "You have to check with me so I can ensure your data is safe and it's suitable" then she hasn't minimized the risk at all, she's demonstrating how to assess appropriately and not mindlessly follow direction.

LimeKiwi · 24/05/2019 00:17

@BoomBoomsCousin my point is though that it definitely wasn't the norm and people absolutely didn't have it in their homes in the 70s and 80s!
If they did it was an extremely small minority and definitely not mainstream

Skittlesandbeer · 24/05/2019 00:18

Depends on the maturity of the child (yours) in my opinion.

Some 11yos would certainly take this experience and make dangerous assumptions: that minimum age limits don’t apply to them online, that all internet contacts are positive, that meeting online contacts alone is the same as meeting them with a parent. That’s some pretty bad precedents, right there.

On the other hand, I know some 11yos with very screwed on heads. Who could easily take in the difference in this situation compared to dangerous ones. Kids who could carry this off, as a one-off, and in fact emerge more conscious of cyber safety than their peers. As a parent I’d be weighing up the benefits of having my DD spend lots of time online with this one mate, rather than wandering more aimlessly around the internet. It’s a full-time bloody job policing the games (which add chat rooms without warning Angry, etc). This relationship might actually prevent other online situations developing. But it’d be a carefully made decision, based on knowing my child very well.

BoomBoomsCousin · 24/05/2019 00:23

LimeKiwi it doesn't have to have been mainstream for a few people to have had it though, does it? One person said they'd found a friend this way and lots of people jumped on board telling her she couldn't possibly have. But she most certainly could. I used bulletin boards in the UK as a kid in the mid 80s. There were other kids on there on the right boards, Quite a lot from the US. It's not at all beyond the realms of possible just because it wasn't mainstream.

nwybhs · 24/05/2019 00:28

I was just really surprised because I was 15 in 1993 and thought I knew it all Blush

SandyY2K · 24/05/2019 00:30

Pp are saying the other girl is a stranger...yes she is...but if her mum supervises the trip, it will soon be obvious if there's a problem.

They've been facetiming...very different to online chat where it could be an old man pretending to be kid.

I would like the friendship to be longer than a few months before meeting up though.

On the 13 age restriction.. what makes me laugh to those making a big deal about it... is the number parents that happily allow/encourage under age drinking...under age smoking... under age sex... and you make a fuss about this. ..Really?

The OP has monitored the friendship from day 1. She's allowed this safely under supervision and it's rather unfair to make out she has been irresponsible here.

nwybhs · 24/05/2019 00:32

On the 13 age restriction.. what makes me laugh to those making a big deal about it... is the number parents that happily allow/encourage under age drinking...under age smoking... under age sex... and you make a fuss about this. ..Really?

I never facilitated any of my now adult DC to do any of those things. I was quite pro active in teaching them to respect that ratings and restrictions were in place for a reason.

Quite odd if you to think people don't allow under 13s to use 13+ apps but allow them to drink, smoke and have sex though - what even makes you think that would be the case?

m0therofdragons · 24/05/2019 00:43

Nope, nope, nope. Why are you allowing your 11yo to do this?! Google Tiktok danger and you'll see the articles from this year come up (see screen grab). Blush

To take Dd 11 to meet online friend?
ReindeerTails · 24/05/2019 00:46

My DD is 12 and personally I wouldn't do it.

Snakelight · 24/05/2019 02:24

I'd talk with the other child's parent (probably sensible if they attended) and have the meet up in a public place. With basic precautions there's no real risk.

speakout · 24/05/2019 06:09

On the 13 age restriction.. what makes me laugh to those making a big deal about it... is the number parents that happily allow/encourage under age drinking...under age smoking... under age sex... and you make a fuss about this. ..Really?

Who the hell happily ancourages under age drinking/smoking /sex?

No parent I have known.

kmc1111 · 24/05/2019 06:34

My step-son was chatting in various forums beginning in 92-93. He would have been 9-10 then. I remember he was particularly fond of a palaeontology board where he was chatting largely with what turned out to be many very highly regarded palaeontologists. We got many invites to attend lectures and have private tours of exhibits and he later got a few internships out of those connections.

It was a cool time for the internet if you had any sort of niche interest, as you could almost guarantee the chat boards for that interest would be loaded of real experts who were delighted to talk to enthusiasts.

He also made a ton of friends his age, and when he was older and starting to travel he had a friend to stay with practically everywhere he wanted to go (many stayed with us too).

I think the early 90’s was a pretty polarised time as far as the internet. There were a lot of fairly regular people who’d been using it in some capacity for years at that point, and then there were plenty of others who’d never even touched a computer yet. I’d say maybe a quarter of my step-sons irl friends back then used the internet like him. By 95-96 it would have been more like half.

Pinkyyy · 24/05/2019 06:37

You need to speak with the girl's parents first.

Rubberduckies · 24/05/2019 06:44

I think it's a good idea to model how to safely meet people you've met online. So many people are idiots as adults because they just don't think.

Lots of people online date now and it will be important for your daughter to know how to be safe.

Make sure to explain the steps you are going through together and why. Letting someone else know where you're going, meeting in a public place etc etc

SparklyLeprechaun · 24/05/2019 06:58

I wouldn't, it's not a good lesson to teach her. Also, if you do decide to take her, at least make sure you protect yourself by contacting the other parents first, otherwise you'll be the weirdo who meets children found online.

EverybodysTalkingAtMe · 24/05/2019 07:04

My DS met a friend online at the age of 14 and played multi player games with him consistently for years.

At the age of 18 DS passed his driving test and almost the first thing he did was drive to meet his friend at the friend's home in the Netherlands.

They had a lovely time and are still firm friends now - they are both 22.