To read my daughter's WhatsApp messages

[JoelyJoe]

So. This is a genuine question, and I'm prepared for strong opinions either way, but I would really like to know what people think.
My daughter has just turned 13, she is in year 8 at school and has had a mobile phone since year 6. When she got the phone I told her the deal was that I would read her WhatsApps from time to time.
My reasons are to protect her / her friends, and to ensure that there is not bullying or situations / content that I think are inappropriate at her age. Social Media did not exist when I was young, and while I know that it can't be put back in the box, I think think there are inherent dangers... as many people do.
As I said, I have always been upfront with her that I will sometimes look at her messages, I don't do it very often, and obviously at some point in the near future (not sure exactly when though!!) I will stop doing it.
Any thoughts? Am I invading her privacy or is this a necessity to protect our young people... And for those of you who also do / did the same, at what age did you stop??

Well you’ve told her you are, so you aren’t invading her privacy.. she will just delete stuff though.

I think 14 is the cut off for this

I think it is important to be reasonable when you do check your child phone and not to be too judgemental or overreactive.

I do check my 12 year olds phone, which is how I found her being groomed by an 18 year old at her school. She left the messages for me to see because she felt uncomfortable but couldn’t figure out why, but knew I’d look and that I would know why it was wrong. Yes she could have brought it to me but she’s 12, and had that pull of feeling special while also being worried. I’ll continue to check until she has the ability to reliably listen to that inner voice.

My cousin's 14 year old son was on the absolute brink of meeting up with a stranger who'd found him online. His mother only found out because she could see some of his interactions online, and one of them struck her as odd. So she checked his phone. Turns out it was a man in his thirties who been grooming her son for a long time, escalating it all to sex talk and arranging a meeting. They had all the recommended online safety protections installed and in place. This was via Instagram. But it was her noticing something slightly out of the ordinary that saved him.

I watched 'I am Ruth' with my daughter, talking to her about it all the way through. So she knows why I have said I will need access to her phone. She understands it's safety, and her mental health and not snooping.

When she has reached an age where I feel I can tell her true stories about dangers and honestly talk about risks and how to avoid them (not vague non specific, 'don't talk to strangers' level stuff) then she'll also be the age I can let her navigate it alone. But why would I potentially expose her to that, unsupported, when she is so young?

That happened to me at 14. An 18 year old I barely new started phoning me at home. I had no idea how to handle it. But when Dad clocked his age he just said 'you tell him to stop phoning, or I will'. The relief was immense! Landlines meant parents could hear and monitor.

The age restriction for WhatsApp is set to 16 for a reason. WhatsApp is owned by Facebook, therefore at no point will they accept responsibility for anything your under 16 receives, views or sends on themselves, etc. They put their hands up and say ‘woah we’re not the content provider’ they do the same for Instagram (another owned by Facebook)
This also applies to school involvement in any issues that arise from WhatsApp use. Schools can’t be held responsible for any issues arising from WhatsApp use.

DCs will know to delete any messages before you check on any official message service it’s the unofficial ones you also need to worry about so the ship has already sailed if a 13yoDC has a smartphone. It’s whether parents know how to spot if DC are distressed when they’re offline too, as a physical phone that enables the access can always be removed/banned by the parent.

I don’t think you are unreasonable. I have a 12 year old son, and I had to check his messages when a parent reported back to me that he was being mean to another child online. It was not pretty what I saw.

I wish I kept a stricter observation of his messages while he was young, and tackled this problem early on. After I had a chat with him I hope his behaviour will improve, but it was upsetting.

They don’t realise at that age that they are hurting people by being mean online, and those words can’t be taken back.

I’ve always had a deal with mine - anything that they flag up to me before I find it is dealt with (unless they were bullying someone or the likes) without punishment for them. We deal with issues calmly.

anything I have to find for myself gets less grace

Has often led to a phone being thrust in my face with a “Daniel has been an idiot and sent this…” or “Sarah is being nasty to Molly” with them following up with what they’re going to say or do in reply.

I think that parents who don't check their childs phone are neglectful.

Those same people would be horrified to know how many young (12 or so) children get persuaded to send nude photos to boyfriends or girlfriends, that then are sent around the school.
They would be horrified to know the viciousness of the bullying and random 'group chats' that kids get put into, which could have anyone in there.

This isn't scare-mongering, the nude images happens with alarming regularity (I'm a teacher, and on occasion we have even had kids print them out and stick them up in the corridors...)
The bullying is horrific and in many respects far worse than ever existed when we were kids. For a start there is no escape when they go home from school. Kids have their phones on them most of the day - many 24/7. There is also something about being online that can bring out the worst in people, feeling safe to spout venom from behind the screen - you can see that on here far too often from adults.

I checked my childs phone from when she first got it at age 11 (fairly regularly) and stopped as she came up to 16. As she got older I checked less and by 15 generally only if I thought something was going wrong. She knew that was the rule when she got the phone. I didn't sit and read through her messages in detail or pull her up for swearing etc, but I did look for signs of bullying or messages from people I didn't know.
I found (twice) evidence of some pretty horrible bullying, being thrown into group chats where lots of kids were bombarding it with shitty comments.

And once I found messages she'd been getting from some man who had been in one of those group chats and started to harass her privately. She didn't even know who it was and had blocked him thankfully.

At 13 I was being groomed by a man in his 50s. It ended because his wife found out and reported him to the police. This was before WhatsApp and smart phones were even a thing.

We made it clear when she got the phone that we should always be able to acces it and any messaging apps like snapchat, instagram and whatsapp. She was really young at 10, since she was youngest in her class, but would have missed out on the social life without a phone. At first I checked the messages regularly, now at 13 she knows the rule is to hand over her phone when we ask for it but we rarely do. Social media can be dangerous, bullying does happen and we want her to be safe and responsible on social media. We have aleays told her that we trust her, but want to help her be safe. We have had to intervene a couple of times, together with other parents and a teacher in the class snapchat. Now we rarely check, only when I think there is reason to or she tells us about remarks that seem off.

Totally agree, she can also delete what she doesn’t want you to see or use a different messaging app. It’s pointless.

Agree. What do you think you are going to do and how do you think this will help your daughter?

I would absolutely be checking her messages.

online / phone safety is one of the biggest challenges for children & patents today. Young people are targeted with pornography. I learned recently that young girls who use the internet are regularly asked for nude selfies and I’m disturbed by the level of bullying I’ve heard from the daughters of my friends, via various social media platforms.

teenage boys apparently, can sometimes be sexually aggressive towards girls online / on social media.

checking your daughters WhatsApp will enable you to screen for such risks.

I think it’s very intrusive and a bit pointless. It’s better to develop a good relationship with your children

I think any parent who allows their young teenager unsupervised access to the Internet and phone apps is an absolute moron. Both are incredibly dangerous and it seems really stupid to put being a cool parent above safeguarding them.

With her permission this is fine and sensible. At some point she may wish to discontinue the arrangement and you can have a discussion at that point.

We have the same agreement in place with ds who is almost 13. We also have a tracker on his phone but on the understanding that we only use it when we're unable to get in contact with him by the usual means. We stick to our side of the agreement, he sticks to his for the most part (good communication with us when he's out and about).

It’s not either/or, I have a very close relationship with my daughter, and still check her phone, because she’s 12 and still learning how to navigate life and relationships. I’d rather be intrusive, with a safe child, than a “cool mum”.

Yes a weekly check is fine at 13 and can be part of supporting healthy phone use. You have a duty of care as a parent. 14 and 15 is different, although monthly checks will still be required if the teen has issues

Look how many posters on MN are shocked/ horrified/ screaming in horror because they find their thread on the DM whining "But it's a safe place". It's not. It's an open international forum.

Whatsapp, snapchat and the rest are NOT private. Their friends parents might be looking for a start.

This is it, isn’t it?

It’s not like reading a diary behind a teenager’s back (something my parents did that I’ve never quite forgiven, more than 20 years later).

The point is that it ISN’T private. Kids need to understand that anything they write on WhatsApp/other messaging apps/social media could be read by anyone, and that should include Mum and Dad.

It’s bizarre to get all righteous about ‘respecting privacy’ when one of the most important things they need to understand to keep themselves safe is that they’ve got no expectation of privacy in anything they send.

I had same agreement at 10 when she got a phone, at 14 she started to be upset about it, so I agreed I'd be allowed to look in her messaging apps, but not her friends threads. I'm looking for strangers and creepy men massaging my teen only kind of thing.

Check their phone! It's called parenting. They are still children. We uncovered bullying of my 13 year old from checking his phone.
Checking phone was part of the agreement of getting phone. Frequency varies

Couldn’t agree more. I wish all parents thought the same. I wouldn’t deal with so many awful situations if that were the case

Gross nvasion of privacy IMHO

Yes, because obviously parents who check their child’s phone just don’t bother to have a good relationship with them…

Honestly. What a stupid thing to say.