DD pretending to be older online

[allbuttroubled1]

I have found out that My dd (13) is pretending to be older (20+) online. she doesn't go into adult meaning porn etc spaces but I realised that she has been lying about her age to get friends and is presenting as much older. I don't know what she gains by doing this but I am very puzzled by it. Does this count as catfishing?
I've confiscated her phone to scrutinise it for now... AIBU for everything?

@loropianalover I'm not the daughter. All I'm saying is that nothing suspicious seems to be happening and I've looked at what she's been doing at length as well as checked the friends' pages at length. I'm worried but not as massively as some PP seem to be.

@tentotwotwenty She has some interests but not many and hardly leaves the house. She can't make close connections and I'm struggling to see a way to build self confidence as I've never been in this situation myself.

These online friends are presumably adults and are being led to believe they are sharing a friendship with an adult. Or worse, they realise it’s a child and for nefarious reasons are happy to keep engaging.

Why do you not find anything about this suspicious or worrying? If I knew a 13 year old student was posing as an adult to develop relationships online I’d be contacting authorities.

I'll be honest to give a different perspective. Not excuses or saying this is your DD's case but...

I did this for a short while when I was younger. I was being abused at home and bullied at school. I was a target to everyone in my life. I had no friends, and there generally was no escape for me. I created an online SM account to make friends and have some form of connection with people. To some this would of seemed like a fake online persona and a "catfish" but everything in that account expect the age and name was the "real" me. People seemed to like that version of me and it made me feel seen and normal. However once i started forming those connections I was honest about my age but never my name.

Yes it was wrong and I put myself into very dangerous situations. It led to older men groomed me (even when they were told my age they continued to talk to me) and me becoming an even bigger target once it all came out. None of it was a nice situation at all but for a short while I felt human instead a doll for people to hurt. Looking back I wish someone had helped me sooner and i may not have put myself in such awful positions but they didnt.

Please try and understand why your DD is doing this and whilst making sure she knows how wrong and dangerous this is, support her.

She’s talking to adults on discord (where it’s incredibly easy, literally two clicks to delete a message with no trace).

she has no friends, not even online ones, as the friends are friends with a twenty year old that doesn’t exist.

shes living in a pretend world, online, making up personas to support this rather then building confidence, friendships all important things, in the real world

you didn’t realise she had profiles to support this made up life - what else is she doing online you don’t know about.

the fact you don’t see this as a massive cause of worry, is worrying!

everyone struggles to make friendships at first, it takes effort, being nice, being consistent, these are all traits she needs your help doing this, instead of being stuck inside get her doing stuff outside the house, help her put the effort in and find her group.

@allbuttroubled1

That is all massively worrying. She needs to get offline, leave the house and find some interests to build her confidence, you need to be the one to make sure this happens.

What do you thinks going to happen when she's actually 20 if you carry on like this? She's going to be stuck at home all day, pretending to be someone else online talking to people she doesn't know.
She needs her own identity.

This is absolutely terrifying. Your daughter must be so unhappy poor thing :-(

I am not sure why you aren't absolutely distraught to be honest. There are so many problems here that I would be absolutely beyond myself if this was my daughter (I have a 12 year old)

She is terribly unhappy, she has totally free access to the internet and all sorts of channels and pages, she is lying every single day. Best case scenario all these 'nice' people online have no idea they're chatting to a child and would be absolutely horrified if they found out. How frightening!

So obviously you need to get her offline and get her into therapy asap. This is really, really dangerous behaviour and shows she is really in a bad place.

@tentotwotwenty I know. I am concerned. It's just so hard especially with a child like this thats so attached to this identity and persona. I'm scared that she's going to make another one no matter what. She's already in therapy just not cooperative. Frustrating

How can she make another online persona? Only if you continue to give her unrestricted access to the internet.

It’s very obvious she’s not ready to be using social media apps. You need to remove the phone completely and get a cheap tablet for the house where she can complete homework.

@loropianalover I feel sorry for her, too. I just don't understand how she could be so unhappy that it would get to this point. I think that people her age just bore her (she's ND so socialises better with adults anyway.) She just won't make an effort or budge and I don't know if it's selfish of me to be tired of it too

@loro If not online then another persona in real life, probably. I can restrict the internet but I don't know how far I can go

There was a huge thread maybe a week or so ago about things you did as a child on the internet. Lots of people had fake personas. Be worth a read for you to get an insight

Bluntly, she’s unhappy because she’s spending her life in a fantasy world online where she has to pretend to be someone else.

You need to get her off the phone, into a hobby/group/class, start spending one on one time with her away from the house - walks, museums, cinema, swimming, exercise classes, charity events and volunteering -, start working with the school and therapist closely.

She has no friends, you need to put her in real life situations where she can make some.

I think a lot of children find it easier to socialise with adults but it's not necessarily a sign of maturity. It's because adults make concessions to children.

Also because adults start being polite where a child will just... stop engaging or walk away or yell at them until they stop talking. Kids have fewer filters.

This child is clearly very immature socially and I feel really sad for her

You need to remove the phone. There should be a parent app where you can see the homework? If she needs to mark it done on her own app then hand her the phone, watch her do it and then she gives it back again.

You are the parent , you do not admit defeat, you stand firm. It's for her own good.

Teenagers do not need to be glued to a mobile 24/7 and they only are, because parents let them

Jeez I don’t say this lightly but this is a massive parenting fail on your behalf.

Why has this poor child had access to the internet since the age of 9 to make up fake personas.

You are her parent not her friend. Do NOT be afraid to be seen as the bad guy by putting rules in place if they are to ultimately protect her.

No wonder she doesn’t have many real life friends if she’s been given unprotected access to all of this.

She should know that a smartphone is a privilege not a necessity and that you are the one paying the bill.

You are allowed to have access to her devices whenever you see fit.

She should not be able to take her phone/tablet etc into her bedroom or keep it at night.

The highest parental controls should be in place on all tech.

She shouldn’t be on any form of social media like Twitter for god sakes. My heart breaks thinking about the absolutely vile things that are on there that she’s most likely come across.

Get this poor child out into the real world. Join clubs, go to the park, let her have the childhood she deserves and needs.

The fact you don’t see how terrible this whole situation has been from a very young age is worrying.

Another GAA catfish in the making.

Get her to a psychiatrist quick - this isn’t the kind of thing people grow out of. She’s a pathological liar.

OP you do sound very naive..
I’m with ItGhoul & allbuttroubled1 on this one …
You Need to take this very seriously ..
Good luck with it .

@loropianalover We've tried removing the internet, and we do get her to leave the house/activities/go for walks. She just can't seem to make any lasting connections, never reaches out to people - she just tires of others quickly and I think online is easier because there's no pressure to do anything. I wouldn't be opposed to her making age appropriate online friends though.

Wow. Sounds like you just want her phone to parent her.

I'd not heard of 'Discord' so looked it up, and this was the first bit I read :

Discord is a voice, video and text chat app that's used by tens of millions of people ages 13+ to talk and hang out with their communities and friends.

So presumably she's NOT too young for it, or am I missing something else?

MASSIVE drip feed about her being Neurodivergent.
So, this has been an issue for your vulnerable daughter since she was at least 9 and you're still failing her, several years down the line, with lackadaisical parenting.

She's not mature. Been doing this since 9??? Why did your 9 year old have any unsupervised access. Don't you pay attention to the news? 8 year olds who shouldn't have had phones, blackmailed into explicit pics in Edinburgh recently.

Lock down the phone with parental controls. No phone in her room at all.

Discord is not suitable for unsupervised children. She's not just started using it at 13, she was 9.