To ground my dd indefinitely and take her phone

[Autumnbe]

Long and short of it went through my dd12 phone last night and saw photos on her phone (saved not active message) of a boy with his top off, next saved photo was her posing in her bikini with her face scrubbed out. Upon questioning her it transpires that she did infact send him this picture. She doesn’t know him well and has not been in contact since.

We are a very open family, sit down to dinner every night, discuss the day, very close. I feel like I don’t know her at the moment. I also feel very guilty for not being aware that she potentially would do this.

I’m worried if I don’t punish her now, her behaviour will spiral.

She also has pornhub in her search history, which she said was a joke with her friend. Her friends are also into vapping. She is adamant that she hasn’t tried it but what do I do?

It's all part of being a teen

Yes, you need to act. No, neither of those are appropriate punishments.

www.thinkuknow.co.uk/parents/ This has very useful guides to where you to go from here.

It may be all part of being a teen but sending pics to boys needs to be addressed sharpish .

You warn her that if she sends pictures she doesn’t know who will end up with them, might be a boy she likes at school, might be a man at a supermarket or a waiter somewhere she goes out to with her friends. Could go anywhere. If she has photos of a naked under 16 on her phone even if they sent them to her she could get into a lot of trouble with the police. I’m surprised her school haven’t covered this in PSHE, it’s really important.

is this a real message?

Your daughter needs your support and help, not punishment.

You need to have a frank discussion with her about sex and how to keep herself safe.

There is so much peer pressure on young girls and all the messages they are getting from the media, music videos and so one are hypersexualised and it is hard for them to navigate this minefield.

What do you do? you act like a parent.

Her school are very hot on it. She is also aware of a current situation at school with another child that sent pictures and they were circulated so the education is there both at home and school.
I’ve been so open and explained in quite gritty detail in the past what can happen by doing stupid stuff like this.

All the education and open door policy we have at home has resulted in this. I’m at a loss as to what to actually do.

I agree with the others. Now is the time for communication, not punishment.

She needs to know she can trust you, so the next time a boy asks for a photo (or worse), she can ask for your support, not expect punishment.

If you’ve already gone down the punishment line, don’t be too proud to pull back from it. “On reflection, I think I was hasty, let’s talk…” is actually a good thing to model to her.

(I’ve just reread your OP and seen that you do lots of talking already. If you don’t already, maybe try sitting with her away from the dinner table so that she can talk privately with you rather than publicly with the rest of the family?)

This is not the time to punish.
This is the time to teach online safety.
Sending a bikini picture with her face scrubbed out was actually a wise move, thing is I would tell her don’t do this again until you are 16 as 12 is below age of consent for sexual activity and bikini pictures are essentially sex advertising.
As far as porn hub, like any 12yr old she will be curious about sex. So now is the time to teach her about sex and also that porn is not realistic because it is all an act as well as exploitation of women. Maybe get Joy of Sex or other type book or more advanced sex education videos for her to learn about sex without thinking it’s like porno.

So, in a nutshell now is the time to say why bikini picture is wrong...her age and why porn is wrong, but here is where you can read or watch to learn about sex and relationships

You need to adress this, but you need to do it in a reasonable manner.

One, the pictures - yes these are a problem, but shirtless boys/girls in bikinis are socially acceptable at a public swimming pool so better to focus on potential peer pressure/photos being shared out of her control or edited, rather than overreacting like a bikini is the same as nudity which will just cause her to dismiss you.

Two, confiscating her phone indefinitely will just make her see you as the enemy who is depriving her of everything with no recourse, much better to set terms of proper behavior, a short period without phone is fine but it should be clear when the punishment ends and after that make her phone usage conditional upon following safety rules.

Overreacting and punishing her is far more likely to cause her to spiral and be secretive and inappropriate with her internet use than actually adressing this calmly, reasonably, and proportionately.

The punishment was an off the cuff reaction, we talk all the time, I am a stay at home parent so
Always here etc after school and our relationship is essentially very open and good.
I think there is a feeling of shock that I’m going to have to deal with it.
Thank you for your advice on how to proceed

Indefinite punishments are always awful, make a decision and stick to it. Also in terms of taking her phone away, you want to ground her (isolating her from her friends) and take away her phone (completely cutting her off from her friends outside school), which I feel, although others may disagree, is the wrong approach.

To me it should be about first educating her as to why what she has done is not sensible and what risks it poses, whilst also putting in place solutions which means you can monitor her future behaviour. If you set her phone to cloud sync all images you can see what images she takes and receives, make sure find my phone is always enabled. If you don't want her looking at pornhub then the solution would be to have the no adult content filters enabled on her mobile network, it would also block gambling sites, but that should not be an issue for 12 year old.

You can also take more extreme measures, but my guess is you probably won't need to. Once you make clear to her the potential issues (does she really want her whole school to see the images of her etc.) then I would imagine that behaviour will change and if not. You can also lay out clear consequences for future actions which breach red lines. However unless you have specifically had a discussion about images, porn etc. where you said it was specifically not allowed, and the consequences of doing so was an arbitrary indefinite grounding and her phone being away, then I feel that punishment does not fit the "crime".

I think grounding would be disproportionate and would be likely to make things worse. And for an almost-teen, confiscation of a phone is practically a crime against humanity. And nothing makes a kid secretive more effectively than an disproportionate reaction. A bikini pic is no more than she'd show on a beach or at a pool.

I think she needs a reasoned, calm explanation about the dangers of sexting etc, staying safe online, how stuff that she puts out there now could well still be around to damage her reputation when potential employers are researching her internet history, and the dreadful abuse of vulnerable women that happens in the porn industry.

It's normal to be curious about sex etc, but the internet has made it so much easier to access really quite extreme stuff (in my day, it was hard to find anything stronger than Mayfair or Playboy!). And I was by some of the stuff available for free. I swear the next generation will grow up thinking people are prudes if they're not into fisting.

If you can block Pornhub and similar, ideally all over 18 sites, on her phone, then do it. If not, I think it would be reasonable to insist that you check her history regularly and she gets to keep her phone strictly on that understanding.

It's really hard to let your kids learn by their mistakes when all your instincts are to protect them from everything that could possibly be harmful, but they'll be more vulnerable at 18 when they can legally do all this stuff if they aren't allowed to learn important lessons now.

And nothing makes a child stop being open more than getting an almighty bollocking now for something that all their mates do.

I'd go for a "more in sorrow than in anger" approach, I think. And I wouldn't worry about the vaping, other than to tell her if she spends her pocket money on vaping stuff she'll never get any more.

Get in there quick, but I wouldn’t punish personally, I’d want them to feel they can tell me anything, that’s just diffrence of parenting though.

Is she aware the boy could actually be a 60 year old bloke? Is she aware he now has this photo of her and what damage that could cause?

Porn is just curiosity, everyone does that (12 is young though but that’s the way it’s heading in this cruel world, best to be armed than defenceless) I would explain about porn, how it’s not real, that’s not what sex is actually like and most women in them are vulnerable or abused.

We’ve already had lengthy discussions about online safety, pictures etc. It’s something that I have championed for a long time, that’s why I am at a loss at what to do because she knows it’s wrong, she knows the consequences, and still she has done it.
I said to her regarding the photo, would you want your grandad to see that photo? And she said of course not. She knows it was over sexualised- yes it was a bikini that her grandad has seen her in, but a photo of her sexualising it, she knows is not acceptable.

With regards to sending photos, if you wouldn’t be happy for you dad to see it, don’t send it, she can use that as guidelines, she needs to be smarter than this, thank god it’s just a bikini photo

you say you do a lot of talking.....do you also do a lot of listening?

I fee that I need to back track in punishments tho, it was a knee jerk reaction to buy me thinking time I suppose

I’d like to think I do, my dds do generally talk to me about everything and anything but maybe that is what I’m doing wrong, I just don’t know what to do

@RainbowBriteUk

It's all part of being a teen

Agreed but 12 is tad young.

@Autumnbe

We’ve already had lengthy discussions about online safety, pictures etc. It’s something that I have championed for a long time, that’s why I am at a loss at what to do because she knows it’s wrong, she knows the consequences, and still she has done it. I said to her regarding the photo, would you want your grandad to see that photo? And she said of course not. She knows it was over sexualised- yes it was a bikini that her grandad has seen her in, but a photo of her sexualising it, she knows is not acceptable.

Puberty is a powerful thing. People are often uncomfortable acknowledging it but it is natural for an adolescent to starting being interested in and having urges about sex, and those feelings can override good judgement.

At 12 she's not always going to make sensible decisions no matter how well informed she is, the immediate satisfaction of having a boy she likes say she looks good in a bikini will override thinking practically about what if the photo is sent on to somebody else - in her mind she likes this boy so obviously he's one of the good ones who will never do that.

Similarly she might be told about the downsides of porn but she is still going to be curious about sex and most 'age appropriate' sources will be very clinical in a way that does not necessarily answer questions about sex in relationships rather than just the science of reproduction so the possibility of porn answering her questions might outweigh the warnings in her mind.

You need to keep talking about stuff like this with her, but also monitor her use, because reliably exercising good judgement is something that comes with maturity and experience.

@Autumnbe
I still would not punish, preteen/teens are in learning mode and cracking down on them just pushes them to live a secret double life.

Give her credit for what she did right. She didn’t send any topless or nude pictures. She didn’t send anything that could be personally identifiable back to her if put online in “revenge”. She did everything correct, except for the fact she is too young to be sending sexualised bikini photos. It’s important with teens to be specific with your praise and concerns, otherwise they are easily confused.

I don’t know what you mean by “knows the consequences”? Because this isn’t something where I ever punished. I simply said consequences of doing x, will be the real life consequences. That my advice is for their own safety, not because I want to control them etc.

The consequences are simply that your DD should ask the boy to delete the photo and not share it. If the boy then posts the picture online or shares and that other person puts it online, then she will have to do all the work to ask for it to be taken down. (With you coaching and advising).

You can backtrack, it's fine. At 12 she can understand that you reacted out of shock. The main thing is tokeep communicating as you have been doing. She will do things that concern you, she's a teenager and she's testing boundaries. Have her back.

Sorry I’m not being really clear :/ I meant she knows the consequences as we’ve educated about sending pictures etc and consequences as in the possibility that it then can be reshared, the shaming by peers etc police involvement, she knows that negative side of doing it.
But definitely going to rethink my approach and talk to her tonight in a more level headed way

I think you are right in not using the punishing methods you were firts planning on. In fact, when it comes to stuff like this punishing is never the right answer. I know you are already very close and talk about everything, you need to just keep doing that. Keep telling her about the dangers of what she did, how it is so easy to get carried away and do things she doesn't actually want to do. At her age they are still lacking impulse control and she probably felt OK doing it since he had sent a topless pic first. Which of course is in no way comparable, but I am sure that gave her a false sense on security.

Good luck and remember mistakes will be made all the time, and she will learn something from this one too.

Thank you and thanks for everyone’s responses. It’s not something I wanted to talk about with friends, to protect her reputation really, as you never know who they will go onto to tell etc. She will be embarrassed and at the moment feels completely backed into a corner.
I do think she needs some form of punishment as this is just one example of recent bad attitude, grounding for the weekend I feel is enough of a punishment to know I am serious, plus it will give me time to really get through to her about recent events.
Will look to put the relevant things in place on her phone too