Social Media : Contact Issues

[bellywobble]

My fifteen year old child has made it clear that they do not wish to have contact with their father. (Very valid reasons)Their father has made attempts out of the blue over the last few weeks to contact them via social media, along with another friend of his. (The risk of going online I know!)This has really upset my child, particularly his friend trying contact, as of course any contact issues are obviously not relevant to them at all.

My child has voluntarily chosen to block them but is left feeling quite nervous, despite my assurances. Their father is well aware that his child has requested no contact, and they feel upset that contact attempts are being made in what they see as an underhand way, with comments they find embarrassing. Any advice? My child fees that their father is completely ignoring their wishes regarding contact, but does not want to remove their profile from all their social media sites, as of course this is how so many teens now keep in touch, and they don't want to feel bullied into having to delete all their online accounts.

My child feels also that its been done to goad a reaction, possibly from me, and is really quite offended by it all. There's not a lot I think we can honestly do apart from the blocking, but does any one with any other knowledge about this kind of thing have any further ideas? Its not as simple unfortunately as writing to their father, long story, but basically any reaction is a good reaction as far as they are concerned!

It's quite possible, on all mainstream social media sites, to "hide" your profile from other members who are not friends/following you so you can't be found by others.

How did his father find him on Social Media in the first place?

Hi wakeycakey

I can only assume that he did a search, but I am not really au fait with social networks, but I have been told its relatively easy to find someones profile if you really want to, and have IT knowledge. That's the problem, I did explain that once you go on these sites anyone can look you up!

You can no longer hide facebook accounts

Call 101 and see if this behaviour constitutes harassment, which is a criminal offence.

Tricky. Which sites does your child use? My son has 2 facebook accounts, neither are in his real name, likewise for Twitter (not because he doesn't want to speak to his father, he's worried about his privacy).

My children, for no reason other than future employers finding them, have Facebook accounts under other names.

You can block people on facebook too, but if she's using her real name there's nothing stopping him from setting up another account with a different email address and contacting her. She needs to go through her security settings, change her name and her profile picture. My son has an animal, so it doesn't need to be a picture of her. She should be able to manage who see's her pictures on there, but needs to be careful if she's posted a picture in her timeline or if she's been tagged as other people can see it. On her facebook page at the top there's three dots next to the box which says 'View activity log'. If she clicks on there and scrolls down to 'View as...' she'll be able to see how her page appears to the 'public' (anyone not on her friends list). She can lock her twitter account so that her tweets are not public.

I think the child should email the father saying if the father or his friends make any on line connections/send messages etc they will report it as it has already been made clear no contact is wanted. Keep a copy of the email.

On the other hand put yourself in the shoes of that parent - imagine if any of us on here got no contact with our child how awful that would be. Can they not arrange perhaps just one dinner every 2 months or something just for the sake of humanity to the other parent?

I doubt the OP or her daughter are doing this lightly, Greengrow.