Found my 9 year old playing on an old phone at 11pm - TikTok included.

[WinterFaye2]

As per the title - I’ve just found my 9 year old has my old phone in her room & has been playing on it in secret after bedtime. I’ve walked in the room and she hid it under the pillow.

I discovered this after getting a ping on my emails that TikTok has been logged into on another device. She went to bed at 8:30, I found this at 11pm!

I’ve checked the device. Everything is logged out but she has a Tik Tok account! No faces, no comments but she has a Bio, profile pic of something in our garden and 45 ‘friends’.

I’m angry at myself firstly, how did I not see this! I thought that old phone was in the back of a cupboard somewhere.

But also, she’s very aware and definitely knows better. We’ve had lots of conversations around this before. So she knows why this isn’t ok.

I’ve told her this is disappointing and she knows better. That we will talk about it in the morning and I will likely need to mention to school as she will be exhausted tomorrow.

What would you do? I have no idea how to navigate this or what appropriate consequences would be.

I’ve had a talk with the OH and said our phone use around kids is strongly limited. Her Ipad use is probably around 30/40 mins playing time then whatever school work she needs to do on it. She hasn’t even been on it this week so far so maybe not even as much as that this week.

What would you do?

YABU - I guess go easy on her?
YANBU - No this needs a proper consequence

Scarily devious if she’s found phone and set an account at 9 since you need to be older

Yes, she’s always been quite tech savvy. Someone joked once she’s going to be a hacker and I can see it to be honest.

By tech savvy I mean give her an IT problem with the TV or laptop and she will sort it. I don’t class phone use and apps as tech savvyness

what would you do about it?

Whose account is she on if you got notifications? Hers? Yours?

I don’t have Tik Tok anymore but I have the app still on that old phone. It looks like she’s made a totally new account - new name etc but linked to my email address. I checked my emails for other notifications and found a few more. She has around 15 posts…from Feb till now, so I wonder if the app had logged her out prior to this time.

So I also assume all her mates are on it. Otherwise why she so interested in being on it

The first thing I’d do is make sure she has no access to anything like this going forward, including web-based access to any social media — so going into the web browser on her iPad and blocking instagram, TikTok, Snapchat and Discord websites. Make sure all your parental controls are tight so she has to put a request through if she wants to download and new apps. Maybe take a look at her browsing history and check if there are any other things you need to block — I found my daughter looking at chatbot sites and had to go through a block a whole host of them.

I’d explain to her again why you don’t want her on these sites and that you’re very disappointed she’s been sneaky like this. Personally, as a first offence I’d probably leave it at that, but let her know that if she continues to show she can’t be trusted with technology she will lose all rights to it for an extended period.

What kind of posts has she made?

I am afraid that the fact she has been hiding it for so long makes it more serious in my eyes. You need to talk to her about why you have the rules you do. I.E. to protect her. The fact that there is a social media ban coming in in a few months which could have led to legal trouble if you hadn't found out now. Also that she leaves herself more vulnerable because she would be reluctant to talk to you even if she needed to.

There definitely needs to be sanctions. I would be removing the pad for at least a few weeks, except for homework if applicable. I'd also be looking at what parental controls you need to implement on home WiFi and any devices.

I'd be making sure she knows how disappointed you are that she's been sneaky and deceptive and that there are consequences. Good idea to look at your own phone use as parents and putting phones away during family time. Save your scrolling until she's in bed!

I don’t understand the 15 posts part because you said she had made no comments.

I think talking to her about it all is what I would do first. She needs to know why you don’t want her on TikTok and why you don’t want her on a phone at almost midnight. Then there is the broken trust. How can you let her do this or that when you don’t feel as if you can trust her? What would she have done if she needed to tell you about something that happened when she had been in there without you knowing?

Shes only nine so you have to make sure that she is able to come to you if something happens the next time. There’s a long way to go yet.

There is an absolutely horrendous documentary on iplayer about the twelve year old girl from America who shot herself after being blackmailed by a man in NI. She was in such a terrible situation because she couldn’t tell her parents what was happening to her because she shouldn’t have been on a device in the first place.

Also, I would tell her teacher because it’s very likely her friends are on TikTok so they need to do some safeguarding there too.

One of the most frightening things about this bloke in Northern Ireland was that he could get his victims to send him nudes in a matter of hours, then he blackmailed into doing sexual acts and he was done with them all in one night. It was all so fast.

In terms of sanctions I'd confiscate the IPad/any other games access for 3-4 weeks. On a practical level get google family link or some other parental control app on the iPad, ensure no downloads possible without permission and set controls for how much time each app is allowed. Are you/DP tech savvy? We have a separate wifi for our kids' devices which has specific sites automatically blocked (such as tiktok). And we have laptops for them for school work which have two logins - a schoolwork one which has only whitelisted websites (e.g. bbc bitesize), everything else is blocked. And a 'fun' login which we control access to through Microsoft family sharing so they have to send a request for time and we allocate screen time throught that. Worth thinking now about how you want to manage it as she gets older.

You need to stop this going forward but I’d go easy on her. They all push tech boundaries at that sort of age.

She's young, so I'm not sure going hard on her will help as she may not understand. She's also less likely to come to you in future if she sees something on a phone that she shouldn't have. It needs a serious chat but communication needs to stay open. I guess another concern is how she knows what TikTok is in the first place. Does she have teenage siblings?

I don't know about consequences. For me this would be met with a very very grave manner and an explanation of all the dangers of doing this. And disappointment in her. I might come up with a consequence together. If she doesn't know/care what she's done wrong when you talk you have bigger problems that might need a more dramatic response.

I think this is really bad and would make a big show of saying so in an extremely serious manner, but I also think it is bad within the confines of normal if you were worried about that. Kids lie and kids are curious about what everyone else is doing.

This is a hard one. My main concern would be that if she has been doing this since February, she will have seen all sorts of content not appropriate for her, and how that will have influenced her. I would want to convey to her how worried about that I was and how seriously impacted young minds can be by short form technology - how all minds can be!

I deleted TikTok a while back because I realised I was giving a harmful impression of it to my kids by showing them occasional golden retriever videos and the like - they thought that’s what the app is and it’s so cute etc. I’ve explained to them my algorithm is mainly dogs, babies, gardening and cooking. Theirs would target them to advertise products and ideologies around beauty, what it is to be a woman in our society, etc. I see this as your daughter having been exposed to great danger - eg she’s probably seen fairly extreme content already - so your response needs to attend to that first and foremost.

I agree with a pp suggesting you come up with consequences together but the main focus needs to be trust and how if she is doing things she shouldn’t and something bad happens then she might be scared to tell you. And that is dangerous.
I was sexually assaulted as a child and didn’t tell because I was somewhere I shouldnt have been and I thought that I would get into trouble if I told any grown up at all.
This phone situation is the same. She needs to know that she can always come to you but equally in order for her to be allowed things as she grows up she needs to show you can trust her.
Be interested- why was she wanting TikTok so much? What was she wanting to watch? Is there an alternative to this or could you do similar together? Like watching funny cat videos on YouTube. But if it’s to look at make up tutorials I’d be talking about society and pressures on girls to look certain ways and working on her confidence etc.
Dont just shut it down though as if you shame her she will close off to you and she’s already been secretive and hidden stuff. Be open and make her see you’re worried for her and upset she hid it rather than angry at her. Talk and talk some more. And don’t be too hard on yourself or her. She sounds like a clever wee cookie.

Exactly @D0gMum26, th this is what happens when people are groomed. They abuses use the fact that the child or young person was doing something that they shouldn't have been doing in the first place. Children need to know that they can come to their parents no matter what the circumstance.

Oh wow this is amazing. Thank you for the guidance.

I’ve come to lean that I am definitely not tech savvy, not completely in the dark but definitely can improve. I will look into what you have mentioned thank you.

Yes this! I am also very guilty of doing this. I have in the past involved them in the same funny/cute animal videos etc.

In hindsight completely giving the wrong or a one sided impression of the app.

I have sat with it a while and scrolled on her FYP to see what is coming up for her. Thankfully nothing sinister and all pretty much the same. Thats not to say I can be secure in this knowledge but its a relief.

just replying to messages but kids have just woke up so coming off the phone!

How did she even get hold of your old phone? I think it's definitely time to set some stricter boundaries. Does she have unfettered access to an ipad too?

It also glamourises eating disorders, vaping, drinking, ketamine use and worse. It’s incomprehensible that parents allow young teenagers on TT. The way posters copy each other and adopt the same inane persona is concerning too.

Op I'd give her a good talking too and you want her to be safe.

I'd take both devices away for a week. Then return both with parental controls.

what does she access on the iPad in her 30/40 minutes a day? Has she been on TikTok on that? My 8-year-old wouldn’t even know what TikTok was let alone how to access it - this is crazy to me that a 9-year-old is aware enough to secretly access it. She obviously knows it’s wrong as she hid it from you.