11yo DD getting inappropriate messages from 12yo boy

[bonnie1981]

Need a bit of advice and no criticism please as I already feel like a really shit mum and wonder how I could have missed this.

DD is 11yo. We are in Scotland. She's in the first year of high school and is one of the youngest in her year but also one of the tallest and looks much older. This is a worry for me in terms of how she is percieved and her desire to 'keep up' with her older peers.

She says we are far too strict - we don't let her go to the houses of friends we do not know, we do not let her go into the city on the train with her friends unless an adult also there, we don't let her stay out past a certain time, we have a tracker on her phone, there are certain places she's not allowed to go and we've only recently allowed her to walk home from school.

She's doing well at school - getting good reports, getting results between 70-80% in tests, 100% for music. All homework submitted in time.

But I have felt that she's becoming more moody, more argumentative, blaming me for everything, saying she 'hates school' etc. I initially put it down to hormones, typical teenage behaviour etc. When she moaned I was too strict, I worried that maybe I was being overprotective.

It kind of came to a head last week. We had a big argument about her moodiness and snappiness. Also her eating habits - she's hardly eating anything and I was getting rather concerned. She was also mad because she wanted to go into the city (hour each way on the train) with some friend I'd never heard of before and DD has never been on a train herself before and hardly at all as we have cars. I asked DD if there was anything else going on and she lied and said no.

I asked a few times to let me see her phone and her messages because I was suspicious that maybe something else was going on. Maybe she was being bullied. Every time I asked, she would say "Oh my phone's dead" or she would say hang on, take her time which made me think, is she deleting messages. I even tried sneaking into her room whilst she was asleep to get it only to find it nowhere even though she nearly always had it on charge and in sight before.

Anyway tonight we had another argument. I said let me see your phone. Its dead etc etc. I said okay lets charge it right next to my chair. She then started to cry. Turns out she has a boyfriend! He told her not to tell her parents. Messages her saying not to hang out with x friend or y friend, do you want to skip class and even worse, he sends her sexually explicit messages! DD has not responded in a similar manner, other than a few love yous, miss you etc. She tells me she really likes him!

Obv I went ape shit. Telling DD she is 11 yo, she's not to see him or talk to him anymore, his messages are inappropriate, I will call his mum and the school if it continues, she is grounded for a month, only allowed phone whilst at school (in case of emergencies / sick etc), no more walking to or from school, homework to be done at dinner table not in her room etc.

I did get her to text the boy to get his home number before blocking him, meaning I'm able to call his mum if needs be. He did say before being blocked delete my home number so I think he's worried now.

AIBU to threaten to call his mum if he doesn't leave DD alone? Will I get into any trouble for maybe harassing him? My DH wants to call the police, but this boy is 12, is that too extreme?

I'm devastated. I did everything I could to keep DD safe got told I was overprotective, and yet this still happens. I'm worried there might be more going on that I don't know. I worry that I've let DD down. I worry what else may be to come if this is happening at just 11 yo. She comes from a good home. We've always been open and honest with her about safety, relationships, responsible behaviour etc. I never thought we'd be the kind of family that this happened to.

I'm worried that DD may get bullied now by this boy and/or his friends.

Has anyone been in a similar position and what else can I do?

I haven’t read any reply’s yet but op this:

‘ Obv I went ape shit. Telling DD she is 11 yo, she's not to see him or talk to him anymore, his messages are inappropriate, I will call his mum and the school if it continues, she is grounded for a month, only allowed phone whilst at school (in case of emergencies / sick etc), no more walking to or from school, homework to be done at dinner table not in her room etc.’

^ screamed NO at me hugely. She will never trust you or discuss things with you when you react like this.
Your reaction isn’t fair, at all. She hasn’t done anything wrong apart from gain interest in a different aspect of a relationship. Yes she’s 11, and the 12YOs behaviour is appalling, she’s not asking for the explicit nature at all.

You need to address the situation with the 12YO but don’t blame your DD for his actions.
You need to report his behaviour because when he can’t do it to your dd he’ll find another child to do it to, and who knows... go further.
Awful.

Also. Your punishment sounds incredibly controlling.
She can’t walk to and from school anymore? Because a boy has sent her inappropriate messages?

What?

All you’re doing is giving her ammo to learn how to be more secretive.

I don’t have kids, but I am a retired teacher. I think your daughter was put in a position by you and the boy that she isn’t emotionally developed enough to cope with. Punishment is not the answer here. She is being screwed from both ends here.

You need to sit down with her in a non threatening way, and talk this through. Discuss with her how disappointed you are with her lying to you, but explain you understand why. Agree a token punishment with her for the lying. Not a months grounding. The way she will see it is she is being punished for the boy sending her explicit messages.

I think you have to make a decision about whether crucifying her now to make you feel better is worth the long term consequences in terms of your relationship with her. It does no harm for an adult to admit they have handled something wrongly. Point out to her that she is new to the stresses of growing up, and you are new to the stresses of having a daughter who is growing up. You have both made a pigs ear of this. You need to thrash out a more effective strategy going forwards.

You will rue the day if you don’t in my opinion.

Years ago when online gaming was a thing a young lad reported inappropriate messages to his mum. It was discussed with him that because of the messages he wouldn’t be able to play the game anymore. However he was taken out by his mum for a treat and given cash by me for being adult enough to tell us about it. The key message was there are some dodgy people about, but it wasn’t his fault.

By the sounds of it, you are a good Mum. It's so bloody hard, I've got two girls and I'm bloody dreading the teen years. I think everything you allow her to do is absolutely appropriate for a girl of 11. Make sure you keep telling her that you trust her. I definitely agree you should talk to the school, the head, and the concerned form tutors. I agree with talking to his parents too. As for keeping them apart, that's going to be difficult as they go to the same school but if she's got some good friends at school bring them round to yours and encourage time together, speak openly about the situation so she's not embarrassed about it. This is absolutely a teachable moment. I can tell you though that if anyone called my daughter a slag it'd be the last thing they ever did, even if they were 12 - so I applaud your maturity and level headedness.

I was a world away from being a cool mum when my DC was growing up, but it seems to me there is potentially some massive overreacting going on here.

Do check the boy really is 12 by all means, but please calm down.

It’s always hard being the eldest child in a family and being the one to have to push the barriers as you get older. Please respect that fact that your daughter is getting older and don’t make her fight for every single concession. Your relationship will be all the better for it, and when you do say no it will have far more force.

Good luck.

You and your DH need to get a grip. Being 'worried sick' and 'devastated' is making this all about you. Your DD needs you to pull yourselves together and support her.
That includes seriously appraising whether the messages were explicit or just shocking to you because unexpected.

Your DD can blame you for what happened when she goes back to school. You should be her buffer. I always say to my DC if you want out of a situation or game that makes you uncomfortable suddenly remember I've told you to do something or text me and I'll call with a reason for you to leave. It gives them a safe way to extricate themselves from risky situations.

Also if you stick to what you’ve said below (I’ll C&P) you’ll be practicing some absolute awful parenting and will be really letting her down.

‘ Before I found out she was seeing this boy, I was suggesting to her that we practice train journeys. Her 12th birthday is in 2 weeks and I was even thinking that maybe I dropped her off at the big shopping mall (all indoors) with her friends and picked them up again (so there were all in the same building and thus less likely to get lost). I don't think I'm going to do any of this anymore. As I said, she's grounded for a month and I need to stick to that.’

This whole thread also shows why I am such a huge fan of deferral in Scotland.

In Scotland the school intake year runs from 1st March to 28th Feb. If the OP's daughter;s birthday isn't for a fortnight, she is a mid-Feb birthday and one of the youngest. She started primary at 4.5 and secondary at 11.5. OP and her DH had the option of deferral - keeping their DD in nursery for another year and sending her at 5.5 into primary and 12.5 into secondary. Parents of children born in January and February have this right automatically (others do too, but there's an issue around nursery place funding). OP for whatever reason chose not to do this. Had she deferred her child, she would still be at Primary school with lots of other children due to turn 12 between now and summer, excitedly looking forward to going to big school in August. Deferring is very, very common. At least 75% of all Jan/Feb born children who I know are deferred.

By choosing NOT to defer for whatever reason, OP has put her daughter into the situation of always being the youngest, with some of her classmates a year older than her, or more than a year if some were January born and deferred - they'll be 13 already.

Now that's not to excuse the inappropriate messages. Totally wrong at any age. But at almost 13 you'd hope that another year's maturity gives more tools to deal with this. At 11, she's reacting with less maturity and trying to hide things simply because she is so much younger than everyone else around her.

All too late to do anything about it for OP's daughter, but when the issue of deferral comes up parents really should be looking beyond the "oh she's SO ready for school" and further into the future to exactly this sort of scenario.

You say you’ve grounded her for lying, with how strict you are , are you not surprised that she’s won’t open up to you? I’m not surprised she won’t speak to you when she gets grounded for this.

Having teenagers is scary, giving them independence is scary but to prepare them for adult hood we need to give them independence.f she doesn’t want to open up too then that’s fine, just reassure her you are there if she needs a chat.

My ds was being bullied st high school, he didn’t tell me, he thought he could deal with it himself, I asked him numerous times if everything was ok and it was another parent who approached me as their child was worried, should I have grounded my son for lying to me?

I think you’ve dealt with this the totally wrong way pushing your dd further away by doing so.

I agree with @Nanny0gg summary on this OP.
It is not your fault shit can and does just happen sometimes, but I think you should consider getting some counselling for yourself around your parenting style moving forward. Remember we cannot control or change others but we can modify our own styles which in turn effects the way that others including our children respond and communicate with us. So please don’t take to heart but see this as a blip and an opportunity to move forward taking a few steps yourself.
Try and applaud your daughter for the positive sensible decisions and choices that she did make...she did not respond back in an explicit manner. If you go ape shit beware she will not open up to you in the future and that might create mega issues.

An 11yr old girl getting sexually explicit messages?

its gutting what girls are having to put up with these days- and that women seem to think they should.

I totally agree, Helmetbymidnight

Thinking about it, the police would be overkill, and they would probably refer it to SS. So the thing to do would be to talk to Safeguarding and leave it at that. The school need to know about this. They might already have concerns about that family.

It is worrying that a boy of 12 would text such sexually explicit stuff, that would be the thing that is cause for concern. You should now focus on supporting your DD instead of punishing her; she was simply out of her depth and didn't know what to do.

Plus that he told your daughter not to tell you.

She's being bullied isn't she?

@Helmetbymidnight, who said girls should have to put up with it?

I think most people here are advising the OP to not go down the route of blaming and punishing the victim for receiving these messages. The girl didn't ask for them or encourage them.

@diddl Exactly. For an 11 year old to behave like this, with a girl who is older than him, is very worrying. He's learned it somewhere, and I would expect that at the very least there's likely to be domestic abuse going on.

women seem to think they should
Where are these women? No-one on this thread has said the DD should be getting sexually explicit messages.

You seem to be taking her moodiness personally. She's almost 12, hormones are kicking in and it's perfectly natural for girls of that age to become moody and withdrawn.

I'm strict, and my 16yo has told me I'm overprotective, but we have open dialogue. She comes to me to ask advice on boys and friendships. She knows I have her back and she can tell me anything. It's about building trust and it can be tricky to negotiate, but the level of punishment you've handed out seems far too extreme. You've left your daughter with no way to regain your trust and have cut her off socially. Is she going to allowed to do anything for her birthday in two weeks?

I think you need to try to calm down a little. Deal with each issue separately and calmly. Going ape-shit with pre-teens and teens rarely works. Address the lies, find out why she felt the need to lie to you and find a solution. Give her a chance to regain your trust. Reopen the lines of communication. Then talk to her about the boy and how inappropriate his behaviour is. I agree with regards to the messages this needs flagging up to either his parents or the school. You say it's her best friend's cousin; could you speak to the best friend's mum?

Punishment always needs to fit the crime and right now yours feels disproportionate.

Oh good lords op you need to control your emotions here and be able adult

Utterly devastated
Letting us down

Can you hear how you sound? Can you imagine the emotional stress handling your distress is adding to your child’s issues?

@AliMonkey

OP - ignore those telling you that you're really strict and controlling. I've had the same on here, because I check in on my DCs every so often if they are in their rooms and don't allow them to spend hours on end in their rooms on their own.

Why 'ignore'?

Are only comments that agree with the OP allowed? What's the point of asking for opinions then?
Are your views the only right ones?

@bonnie1981 Have I understood correctly that your daughter is being addressed as 'you slag' by her female friends on the Whatsapp chat?

If so, I am sorry to say this is completely normal. But what's particularly unpleasant is that it has filtered down from 15-16 yr olds, who routinely call one another "slag", "minger", etc - but it's "banter" (God, I detest "banter").

So the 11 yr olds copy it, without really having a clue how offensive and unpleasant it is. They're just trying to look big and cool. It doesn't make it any better, but they are probably not actually calling your daughter a slag.

Point out to her that she is new to the stresses of growing up, and you are new to the stresses of having a daughter who is growing up. You have both made a pigs ear of this

This is good advice, @MasakaBuzz
I have had to admit to having made a pig's ear of it on more than one occasion. It tends to go down well with teenagers, who become more inclined then to say that, yeah, actually, they have been a bit crap too.

I voted YABU not for your rules, they are in place to protect your DD and I understand that, she is only 11, but because if the way you have handled it. You have the teen years coming up and by blowing up at her the way you did, you have shown her she can't come to you to talk. I think you can rectify it a little bit, sit her down and talk to her, tell her that she is grounded and can't have her phone except for school because she lied to you about having a boyfriend and not because she had one, also I would talk to her about the messages and make her see that they aren't appropriate, that they wouldn't be appropriate for an adult let alone an 11 year old, teach her to respect herself and not let anyone talk to her like that as she deserves more.
Something I would also do is tell her that if she can follow your rules on this and prove herself to be mature enough to take her punishment you will consider tweaking a few rules to give her a little bit more independence, for example you will get the train with her and a friend into town and let them go off on their own for an hour to get lunch and then meet up with them at a designated spot, or you will pet her go to a new friends house as long as you take her to the door and pick her up afterwards. That way you can still make sure she is safe but she can get a little bit of the independence she is fighting for.

My son is 13, I had this before Christmas, his girlfriend same is the same age as him. He wasn't sending explicit messages but his messages were definitely coercive control. The girls mum rang me and we discussed it and she also reported it to the police who came out to see my son. I was totally onboard with it and would have been devastated if I hadn't had known. DS has a lot of issues. He is adopted and has attachment disorder. This kind of behaviour is what we've been warned about, because we are aware we are able to seek help regarding control and better relationships. I would definitely tell the parents.

Thing is she's been keeping a big secret from you (him & the pics), probably wanting to tell you, scared of your reaction...

Hopefully when you have apologised for your reaction she might feel able to talk.

But you can't try to force her.

She's obviously very conflicted.

My daughter had this when a friend was self harming.

She had to tell me even though she had promised to keep it to herself because it was just too big a thing for her to know as a child.

She was also frightened for her friend.

Final word from me (for now, at any rate).

Your DH needs to melt into the background a bit on this one. Otherwise it's two against one where your DD is concerned. Plus there can be nothing much more mortifying than having your Dad involved with sexting, boyfriends etc when you are an 11 yr old girl. Obviously there are situations where it would be appropriate - but my DP is a single dad (wife died), and he has always had a close female friends who have acted as godmothers/aunties to his DDs so they always have an older woman to go to.