DS meeting a girl

[StarbucksStraw]

My DS (14, nearly 15) has been talking to a girl om Snapchat for around a week and they want to meet up.

He doesn't know her in person, she is from a city around 45 mins away on public transport.

He has seen pictures and had voice notes from her and in his words, he knows "she's not a 75 year old paedo".

He only announced this trip yesterday and I assumed he was going with his friends as he has done before. He is now saying none of his friends are free and wants to go alone.

Am I being overly paranoid to tell him he can only go if they are meeting in a group and he takes at least one friend?

DS is mature, sensible and very importantly quite open with me. I don't often have to say no to him and although my first instinct was not to let him go, I'm now wondering if I should.

He has promised to message me every hour with his pinned location, and the obvious caveat is that they will meet in the main train station and not leave the city centre.

I was never open with my parents at his age and I don't want to encourage secrecy by being too strict.

AIBU to let him go?

If he is mature and sensible then he should not really have an issue with the dilemma you face here, and accompanying him to the meeting point. I’d also be interested in what exactly does he think a bad person off the internet appears like? AI does wonders! He may already appear vulnerable wanting to meet so fast.

I would take this as an opportunity to teach him about online safety. I’m in my thirties and wouldn’t go meet a stranger I’d only been speaking to online for a week. He has no idea who she really is and neither do you. I’m not a paranoid person and my parents were very relaxed with me but no way in hell would they have allowed this for me or my brother. What’s the rush to meet in person? 14 is also such a tricky age, not old enough to reliably assess risk but wanting to be adults. A 14 yo boy is quite vulnerable in my opinion. Agree with pp though you need a proper open conversation with him about the risks and hopefully convince him to at least defer meeting in person as just saying no without explaining might just send him in the opposite direction.

Edit to say voice notes and photos mean absolutely nothing. A number of my friends have had their photos stolen and used online to create fake accounts. It’s easy to fake voice notes too. He needs to wise up and gently OP so do you!

I can't believe the replies. He has no proof this is actually a 14 year old girl. Voice notes can be faked. This is exactly the scenario that leads to disaster.

This is not about trust or not embarrassing the boy, this is parenting 101.

Voice notes and pictures is proof of nothing. It's standard catfish behaviour.

Why won't she do a video chat?

Messaging every hour is useless. There's a documentary where someone goes to a stranger's flat and texts their friend beforehand, "this is the address in case I get murdered lol." He still got murdered. They were just able to prove who it was a bit more easily.

14 is too young.

Even video chat can be faked now. There was a whole fraud case where they deepfaked company directors in a video call.

I know that Snapchat etc are how many many kids communicate now but the secretive nature of it etc is why I'm keeping DD away from it for as long as possible. And not in a dictatorial way, lots of conversations about internet safety, age restrictions etc.

Is DS being ok about this or is it more in the "so unfair" category if you say no? His response to your concerns would also influence my decision.

Being a parent does sometimes mean accompanying them to things you'd rather not. And why would the friends even know you were there? Don't let that influence what you do/don't do.

He has been videochatting with her - he says he has spoken to her on video about 10 times and they have been playing xbox together.

I have said that he can either meet her with me nearby, or go as a group with his friends. He doesn't want me to go but hasn't made arrangements with friends either so he won't be going.

Edited to add that she is bringing two of her friends, so I would definitely feel better if DS had some of his own people there too

If it was purely up to me I would probably have said a hard no until he has known her longer etc. However I know how unfair that would have felt to me at his age and it's exactly the sort of thing that drove me to lying to my parents so that they had no idea where I was or who with alot of the time.

He hasn't kicked off or gone in a huff, but has been a bit quiet so I can tell he isn't pleased.

I spoke to him about the reasons and his reply was "but she wouldn't do anything like that, it's horrible" and I said that's the point- you don't know her well enough to be sure of that.

Would they have the common sense to not "go for a walk"?

Would they have the common sense to not be in a compromising situation with the other person or send images of themselves, especially if they are in a "relationship " and they do it to?

Would they have the common sense to not do a "favour" for the other person?

Would they have the common sense to not be enticed but some extra cash or branded gear?

Or would they be fooled because she's lovely and they're in a relationship and like OP's son said "that's horrible,she wouldn't do that"?

Why won't his friends go? Does he want to meet up with a group of girls by himself anyway? If it's a group of girls can they come to your town to meet up, perhaps his friends would be more willing to join in then.

I'm assuming his friends are all busy since he never bothered to ask them until later last night/ this morning after I discovered he had planned to meet her alone.

I doubt very much that her and her friends will want to come here - there is next to nothing to do.

I'm not bothered about him going there, he has done so plenty of times with his pals for food/cinema/shopping and I wouldn't think twice about letting him go alone to meet someone he knew well.

Quite honestly I can't be arsed thinking of 20 different options to facilitate them meeting - I've given him two which I think are reasonable, it's not up to me to start second guessing what her parents might be ok with or how far she fancies dragging her pals out of their way.

I think you sound like a great mum and you’ve been very fair saying he can go but with conditions.

It would be a shame if he doesn’t go and so hopefully he’ll change his mind and ask you to be in the area or ask a friend.

When my DD first met her new mates in town (who she knew from school), I dropped her in and waited in the car/went to a cafe just outside of town.
She made me promise not to come into town which I didn’t do but as she has anxiety she was happy that I was close by just incase these new friends ditched her or something.

I think if his mates don’t want to go then you being close by is a good compromise but if he doesn’t want that then that’s up to him.

I think you’re being very fair OP - you’ve given him options and if he doesn’t like them then that’s up to him.
It’s a lot to be meeting after only a week of speaking to someone on the internet (and that’s for an adult).
It’s also telling that his reaction to a suggestion of something being off was “that’s horrible, she wouldn’t do that” which is either trusting/innocent or dangerously naive. Have you seen the content of their conversations?

I do check his phone periodically but haven't done in a while. I am going to let this lie for a while now and if he asks again I will look at messages etc. and try to find out a bit more about her.

A week is definitely very soon to be meeting, but it obviously doesn't feel that way to him and I wanted to handle this in a way that didn't seem hugely unfair from his point of view.

To be honest I'm hopeful that the distance will mean it doesn't come to much in the long run, he has a busy social life here at home with good friends, hobbies and his sports team so I'm sure he wont be bereft if it fizzles out.

Ops ds has video called so OP knows we are talking about meeting a 14 year old girl. And yes, they'd have the common sense not to do those things.

Video call and you should video call with her mum.
If the other kid is having an issue with that then it's a massive red flag. At that age patents should at least chat briefly, at the least just to know they're aware of what their kid is doing and who they are meeting.
I think sitting at another table in the cafe is excessive. Especially if she's visibly a teen girl. Obviously if it's some bloke or much older then they wouldn't want you speaking in advance.

@StarbucksStraw why is your son able to chat to randoms on Snapchat in the first place? Clearly his privacy settings are nearly tight enough!

@RedHelenB young girls are often groomed by gangs using similar methods who then use them as "bait" to get other children , boys and girls.

Hopefully they do, but to be fair ALL parents think that and then wonder what went wrong.

He has chosen not to go and I'll leave it there for now. I don't want to grill him and make a big deal of it. I will wait a couple of days then have a look at his phone/ Xbox chats just to make sure there is no pressure being put on him to do anything he is not comfortable with.

That’s fair enough op. I think you have handled this well and hopefully ds thinks so, too.

This is NOT about how much you trust him or how sensible he is!

Of course it is - why would I not consider his maturity and intelligence when making decisions about what he is capable of handling?

If he was really naive with no common sense it would definitely have made the decision easier.

Because if the person is not a teenage girl but a predator no amount of sense will save him.. I posted my comment before I saw you'd said they'd video called and it is a girl btw.