Parents need to open thier eyes

[Direstraightsagain]

Just read this article where the Mother of this poor girl said she ‘feels let down by police and social services’ . I feel for the mother too as obviously she must be devastated by the chain of events. However, AIBU to find it ridiculous that the mother, who is meant to parent the child, yet has given her free access to the internet/big bad world (I assume by mobile phone) now blames the police and social services !
rather than taking responsibility for not adequately looking after her 11 year old child? The parent seems unaware that they facilitated this, and should reflect on that.

More generally - I’d imagine there should now be laws / regulations to ensure parents protect their children in the same way they can’t easily physically walk into a room degenerates, they shouldn’t be able to virtually either and parents have to have some culpability for that and be prosecuted if they don’t adhere to basic child protection.

news.sky.com/video/how-girl-11-became-target-of-predators-after-sending-photo-to-a-boy-13183402

I read that article earlier and thought exactly the same thing. It sounds like the girl was potentially vulnerable too. Children are not old enough and rational enough to navigate the world of smart phones at 11! The sooner legislation comes into place the better.

phoenixrosehere there wasn't even a slap on the wrist. At one point they wanted to charge her

It absolutely needs legislation and needs smart phones/ipads and any online chat in any capacity made illegal under 16.

At the time there was a BBC public information unit that made short advert like films to educate the public. We had ones about safe use of electricity. Safe use of chip fans and what to do if there was a fire. The ones about children being safe were not made because parenting was judged to be poor. They looked at what were the main dangers to children and addressed those. So there were ones about children and farm machinery, because children raised on working farms have always been at greater risk of injury from farm machinery.
If the unit still existed today it would be making films about children's use of internet, lack of physical exercise, and how to have a healthy diet.

Once they are at high school its completely impossible to prevent them having access to the internet.

I was just having this discussion with a couple of people the other day and one of the prevailing beliefs is that checking their kids' phones will lead to a breach of trust which will end up destroying the relationship and will cause more problems in the future.

My parents never monitored my internet access. We have open communication and I've never felt judged by them but they still, to this day, have no idea about all the times I snuck out to meet girls I met over myspace/ICQ without knowing a thing about them. I'm incredibly lucky but not everyone will be.

This is what the police told us and not to blame ourselves. And this thread is exactly not a single person in real life knows the hell we've been through. Because it's easier to blame parents than the perverts who could be people you know in your every day life

That doesn’t surprise me, sadly.

I find it ludicrous that so many parents have that belief. It’s the equivalent of sending your child to a busy town centre with no supervision and blind folded then expecting them to get home safely.

It's insanity. MN shows it ALL the time.
I responded to an OP in a way that revealed I checked my DD14s phone every night and was attacked by literally hundreds of posters saying I was invading her privacy. DD is now 21 and very grateful we were so tough on her. Other girls in her year at school had their young lives massively effected by this.

My parents never monitored my internet access. We have open communication and I've never felt judged by them but they still, to this day, have no idea about all the times I snuck out to meet girls I met over myspace/ICQ without knowing a thing about them. I'm incredibly lucky but not everyone will be.

My parents didn’t monitor me either but the thought to sneak out terrified me. I saw way too many tv shows growing up where sneaking out ended badly and the thought of being brought home by the police if caught was not something I wanted to chance.

I don’t think that’s really true though. I don’t think a single person isn’t blaming the actual perpetrators but equally too many parents seem to just think ’oh well can’t police the internet’ or ‘their friends have phones so they need one’. There are many things parents can do to increase their child’s safety online.

You can’t prevent children from accessing the internet as the world now relies on it. You can monitor their access though and make them accountable to you as an adult. Instead, parents are allowing their 8,9,10 and 11 year old children access to the internet with all of the dangers on there with zero monitoring. It’s a huge safeguarding concern and should be treated as that.

I agree it’s not always possible to prevent it, and I do hope things are better for your family now.

But surely if all (or just most) parents took the sensible precautions outlined in this thread, the risk would go down for their children. And it should reduce the number of cases overall, so that police / social services would be able to concentrate on helping those children for whom predators get through all the safeguards.

I just don't understand why it's still going on?

Why is this mother still allowing her access to do this sort of stuff online?

Absolutely, I’m appalled at how shit some of dc’s friends parents are. Her one friend is 11, posting all sorts of provocative stuff on TikTok, has all sorts of weirdos with usernames that clearly indicate they have an interest in young girls following her and messaging her. Her mum and other family members follow her and can clearly see what she posts and who she interacts with.

I know all this because when we switched SIM cards, the parental controls on dd’s phone got messed up for a few days, so her friend put her TikTok account on dd’s phone (because she doesn’t have access to an email to create her own, I imagine). I check her phone every night so saw it and it was swiftly removed. Nothing that was obvious grooming or abuse, but the stuff she is doing is really dangerous and her parents do absolutely nothing. She’s on her phone at all hours, sending messages at 2:30am, etc. Dd is lucky if she gets her phone a few hours a week and any questionable behaviour, it’s taken away for a week plus. She once lost it for a month when she used my Amazon account to buy something.

Two of her friends got in a spat on a group chat the other day. One of them threatened to fight the other at school the next day. There was a lot of horrible language and threats. We all could read it. The punishment was that the girls lost their phones for a few hours but then got them back before bed the next night. 🙄

I really fear for these girls. Without proper parenting, it feels like they are being thrown to the wolves.

OP, some of the technical tricks used by those who wish to groom children are positively Machiavellian, and they evolve constantly. This is why adults get caught out too. So telling not-very-tech-savvy parents that it is their fault is unfair.

I've been over this stuff with my ds. I've pointed out the dangers of sending pictures. I've given him a PC that does not have a built in camera. I've also explained that as his mum, there isn't a bit of him that I haven't seen, and so if someone did publish photos of him in a compromising position, I wouldn't bat an eyelid. I have literally seen it all before. I've told him if it ever happens, I will help him deal with it.

BUT - He's a teen, he has a phone with a camera, he has rampaging hormones, he is not yet so cynical as to assume everyone is a bastard (and I wouldn't want him to be). Everyone makes mistakes.

There is only one person to blame for that poor girl's situation, and that is the abuser.

The abuser absolutely is solely responsible for abusing children. We do, however, as parents take steps every day to protect our children from people who would want to harm them and from them harming themselves.

We would call a parent neglectful if they left their two year old alone in a park - because we know the dangers. If someone then abducted that child responsibility would sit with the abductor, but we would also question the parents actions in leaving their child. For me this is the same thing.

Yes people who groom kids are clever, they easily single out kids with vulnerabilities, they quickly deceive children - those are reasons for parents to be vigilant, to monitor and supervise their kids. As in every other area of life, there will still be kids who fall victim but it’s much easier to catch with actively engaged parents.

So telling not-very-tech-savvy parents that it is their fault is unfair.

I have sympathy for the parents who do their best to skill up, understand the apps, who try to set the controls etc. but who are then out-manoeuvred by someone with ill intent. I don't have any for the ones who shrug their shoulders, say they don't understand any of it, that you can't regulate it, and that it's the job of the government/tech companies/police/social services/whoever to make it safe.

And frankly, the ones I know are the latter - they don't try because it's all too difficult or someone else's job. I don't think it's remotely unfair to blame them, in the same way I blamed my old neighbours for allowing their 3 year old to wander around outside the house at 11pm.

We took every step possible. Locked down phones for years, when less restriction the phones were checked. Laptops checked. Nothing ever untoward as through a gaming app they'd taught her how to bypass stuff, how to hide it.

We never once shrugged our shoulders and have more young adults than just sd. The others no issues. They taught her how to navigate controls and when devices were removed they posted new ones to lockers and emailed her school with the codes.
Sick perverts- they absolutely destroyed our family, destroyed a young persons life and right now her immediate future. They should be castrated and we should not be victim blaming.

My husband plays online games and was chatting to a fella, who suggested they go on Comms to actually chat.

The 'fella' was only 14, so my husband
asked to speak to the boy's parents.
His Dad joined the call, and my husband explained to him that his boy was a great kid, etc, but it's not really appropriate for a 52 year old man to be chatting with 14 year old online.

All of this.

I read about this earlier and was talking about what the poor girl had been through and she's only 13! It made me wonder why some kids are groomed/targeted and others aren't? Is it all down to the parents being far too lax with online safeguarding?

Mine are older now, (youngest is almost 18), but I always restricted their phone and internet access when they were younger. I had age-appropriate talks with them about predators and grooming. Drummed it into them to never post anything identifying online, never ever send anyone nudes/underwear pics etc.

They weren't allowed social media until they were 14 and even then, only Instagram and they had to sign up using an email address only I had access to. They were never allowed any devices in their rooms overnight.

The result is they're pretty savvy about what they post online and who they talk to, what information they reveal etc. And I'm hoping they've made it out of their teens pretty unscathed.

I worry for my nephews who are only 8 and 6 atm. My sister and BIL are both really tech savvy (way more than me), BIL is an IT manager. Yet they don't have any child safety guards on the kid's Ipads, let them have unmonitored access to YouTube. It baffles me.

I read about this earlier and was talking about what the poor girl had been through and she's only 13! It made me wonder why some kids are groomed/targeted and others aren't? Is it all down to the parents being far too lax with online safeguarding?

No, it’s not. These groomers are incredibly skilled at identifying vulnerable children - they may have difficult home lives, be in care, have no real confection with education, mental health issues, learning difficulties etc etc. They are also very skilled at making connections - sometimes in minutes - that makes the child feel special and starts to isolate them from their families in a “you and me against the world” type way. It’s effectively the same process as love bombing at the start of (and throughout) an abusive relationship.

Given that many adults struggle to know when they’re being groomed into something abusive, these young people have no chance, especially if they were vulnerable to begin with. Once the groomer has their claws in, it’s also very difficult for parents because the groomer has aligned with their child, and is dripping messages about how awful the parents are, how much better it would be if they could be together, how loved they are, how the parents just don’t understand. The child seems to be pushing the boundaries more and more, so the parental relationship becomes more strained, feeding the “they don’t care” messages.

By the time abuse has started the young person is stuck - because their parents “hate” them, the abuse has control of them and they feel like they can’t get out.

As with all things, there’s no silver bullet - as a previous poster has described, it can happen to anyone - but raising our kids with clear boundaries, for their own behaviour and for how others treat them, keeping a connection with education, limiting and monitoring online contact, knowing your child’s friends and where they are going when they leave the house, keeping lines of communication open no matter what, can all help. It’s about laying a strong foundation so kids a) don’t find themselves open to grooming, b) are able to identify when something feels off and c) have someone to turn to no matter what.

Its no guarantee that someone won’t try to groom, and no guarantee that they won’t succeed but as in every area of life we create barriers to people who would do them harm having access to our kids.

I agree with you, OP. Parents give their kids these devices (at huge expense) and then wonder why they get into situations.

A mobile phone is a portal which gives all kinds of people/groups/organisations access to your children, who can't be expected to understand the danger they're potentially in - especially since parents don't seem to either!

But, to me, it's just another example of the way the law takes ages to catch up with modern life. (Personally I don't think the law has really caught up with the motor car yet! You can be in charge of a lethal weapon, get drunk/high and kill someone, and it's still just a year or two in prison at most.) I know that IT and social media is extremely difficult to regulate but we still need to try.

I'm not saying it's easy, but can't some of the best minds in this country get together and work out how, if children MUST have mobiles, how the access they have to the internet etc can be restricted.

i work with children and young people and so many have free access online and the parents often admit they’ve no idea about it or what they are doing. It’s really worrying. I’ve met parents proud that they 10 year olds non private tik tok or you tube account has x amount of followers…

Parents need to be parents. They also need to educate themselves before it gets to this point about parental controls, internet access and social media/online gaming. The dangers of it and how to act. They then need to be firm but also educate their children and young people because ultimately it’s about keeping them safe in the main.

These children are growing up in a very different world where technology is everywhere and it’s down to the parents to protect them and ensure it’s done properly

www.instagram.com/p/C9y07khoJU8/?igsh=MWNzYXNuZXkyZHY4Mw==

Some advancements being made here.

You can join the Smartphone free movement which is campaigning for no smartphone access for SM and free use of the internet for under 16's.

I've read a lot since becoming aware of this movement and the statistics are scary.