Help! DD (11), her mobile, horrible texts, and an alarming YouTube search history

[TheMoistWorldOfSeptimusQuench]

She left her phone at home this morning. There was a bit of a misunderstanding with a friend over the weekend (they'd made an arrangement to meet via text, but mixed up the dates), so curiosity got the better of me and I checked back on the texts to see what had gone wrong. I realise I probably shouldn't have invaded her privacy like this, and there we are and although I feel sick now, I'm glad I did.

She's been sending her two best school friends vile, overtly sexualised texts. A few of choice examples: " You want to get physical with X", "X & Y went into the school shed and she licked his penis", " and "you need a dick in your mouth real bad". Lots of fairly innocent speculation about who fancies who and who might be going out with each other (fairly normal for year 7 I think?), but constant references to sex, and a LOT of swearing, especially fuck and shit. She also calls one of them "penis face", and tells her friend to "fuck off bitch" at one point, but these seem to be in-jokes as there's a load of lolling and kisses afterwards. The girls' responses are NOT as grubby, and in fact one of them keeps telling her to stop being so rude. If I was her mother, I'd be blocking my DDs number!

So, alarm bells ringing, I checked her YouTube search history - I don't know how to view what she's actually accessed. Countless searches for "people having sex" "how to have sex" "lesbians having sex" etc. This phone is meant to have a filter on it so that porn can't be viewed, so I'm hoping it's just the searches and she hasn't actually viewed this material, but I can't be sure.

Anyway the point is, this polite, sweet, restrained and rather shy little girl, who is really quite young for her age and has asked for Playmobil and Sylvanian families for Christmas, has developed what seems to be a slight obsession with all things sexual and is sending filthy messages to her friends.

I've already disabled internet access on the phone, and will try to talk to her tonight (although I know her response when I ask why will be a load of clamming up and "I don't know" because that's how she deals with difficult conversations). What else do I do? Confiscate the phone altogether? Obviously I am absolutely worried sick about what's happening to her and want to help get her back on track, but I just don't know how

Worried bump

Absolutely confiscate the phone. This isn't invading her privacy. She's still a child and therefore you need to be keeping an eye on what she's up to. Does she have a laptop? If so, check the history on there too. Sit down and have a long chat with her. Talk to her about sex, love, relationships. Also talk to her about the porn industry in an age appropriate way, and tell her how warped a view it can give. Also tell her that she can ask you absolutely anything and you will answer her as honestly as you can.

My DD is 12 and I check her phone and her history. I don't regard it as invading your privacy. IMO it's just parenting - checking your dc is safe and not stepping out of any age appropriate boundries etc.

In this case I would confiscate the phone making it very clear that you don't think she's behaved in the mature way that comes with the responsibility of having it.

Tricky one!

Is there someone else who could talk to her or will she clam up with them too?

I think you need a gentle chat about what is appropriate, how stuff on the internet is not an accurate representation of real life and that she can come to you with any questions and you'll answer them honestly. To a certain extent, why she did it is secondary - especially if she'll just clam up. Making sure she knows she can talk to you is the most important thing I think.

If she is 11 Why on earth does she have a phone with internet access? If children have internet access then it is absolutely your job to check the history and what they are using it for at all times. It's the internet ffs. Would you be chatting to her about extreme porn and lesbian sex - no? Then don't leave her with the internet then.

This scares me to death that parents think that if they have filters then they are good to go - nooooo.

It's so sad that children are loosing their childhood to the internet. Im hearing so many horror stories from school.

The why is almost certainly because she isn't very mature and is trying too hard to appear grown up and as if she understands what the others are talking about.

Far more than punishment and she will see removing her phone as punishment, not keeping her safe. You need to talk.

If she's stubborn as DD2 is when she knows she's in the wrong that may take most of the holidays to find an opportunity. Don't push it.

The problem with the Internet is it rapidly leads DCs into things we don't want when researching anything vaguely sexual they hear at school.

I think more mature, confident DCs have the confidence to step back and say, OK I don't need to know this and step away. Other DCs get sucked in thinking my class mates make jokes about this, I need to be part of those jokes. They don't stop to think did their big brother teach them that? Do they actually understand?

As for my 15y DD. I don't look at her web history, she quite probably knows most things and keeps that knowledge for her own private amusement when people tease her.

Thank you so much for your replies. Yes, talking, talking and more talking is what's needed - it's just that she seems to find it so difficult to open up, and she certainly wouldn't if I delegated it to, say, her grandma or stepdad as she'd just be even more embarrassed.

So you think confiscating the phone completely, even with the internet access taken off? The thing is, phones are jolly useful, and I do want her to communicate with me if she's at a friend's house, or going to be late home from school for example. How about I let her have it for journeys to and from school (it has to be switched off at school anyway) or if she's going out? And then confiscate it when she comes home. Or am I being a bit thick here?

Its worth mentioning that she is an absolute MASS of hormones at the moment - growing and developing quickly, dreadful mood swings, completely monosyllabic at times. She hasn't started her periods yet, but it can't be far off. She's also become more secretive generally, which worries me.

She's always been such a sweet gentle thing, and I feel I'm losing her now.

Just to clarify a couple of things:

We don't have any laptops or tablets in the house. The only other internet access is on a family PC in the sitting room, and there's always someone else either in there or flitting in and out, so she's pretty much always observed or in danger of being observed (and I do check the history anyway - it's always full of my little pony and 'amusing' cat videos).

I have also periodically checked what she's looking at on the web on her phone and on YouTube, and it's always been similarly vacuous. In fact she hardly uses the web at all, the phone is mainly used for YouTube and Spotify and that's that.

Most of DDs friends seem to have smart phones too, so I don't think web access for this age group is unusual. It is a worry though. The people in the shop told me anything dodgy would be filtered out and I naively believed them

Confiscate for a period of time, unless you would feel safer with it to and from school. I have had to do the same for my slightly older daughter and she's absolutely taken everything I said on board.

If it were me I would replace with a cheap payg phone that makes calls and texts and confiscate the other one.
She is a child.

I also want to point out that many standard phone browsers bypass any filtering as standard. Never ever rely on filters.

I think you should replace it with a basic Nokia Brick type phone that only makes texts and calls - such a worrying world we live in where kids have constant online access to porn -

I don't think you should remove her phone - she was being curious not naughty and you don't want her to feel ashamed of he curiosity

I imagine a lot of the searches were done in a group on the back of the bus etc ?

You have to talk about it because as she grows older other children will have phones and computers without filters

Tell her if she wants to keep a phone at all she accepts you filter her calls - absolutely not snooping it would be insane I allow an 11 year old access without looking constantly at her messages etc

She needs to know that her phone and Internet use is NOT a private space - she can have private conversations but online is an area you will police. This is a good lesson for life.

What about a discreet chat with the school? Really you can't rely on every parent being properly aware - I am shocked that 11 year olds have unrestricted access to the Internet - it's not a safe space. I work in a field where I know a lot of horror stories about over sexualising children and grooming - it is a serious serious risk.

Your child needs protection - the school should have a policy of how they are educating on this issue - really talking about porn and Internet access. There is no point being coy - kids are then not being properly protected.

OP i havent read all the replies but want to say this....you need to find out if she has been a victim of abuse or witness to abuse. I dont want to scare you but in all the conviscate the phone and tell her its inappropriate you need to massively reassure her and tell her you love her!!! I was a highly sexualised teen buthad been abused from a very young age!!!! Please tread very carefully!

Get her a new phone without the internet. (Make sure she knows this isn't a punishment but a way to protect her).
Make her leave her phone with you every evening when she goes to bed so you can keep an eye on it.
She is a child (not even particularly mature from what you've said) it's not invading her privacy.

In all honesty, no I wouldn't take the phone off her. I don't think this is a cause for punishing her because she hadn't really done anything wrong.. When DS started googling adult things, I made his dad have a chat about inappropriate stuff etc and I tightened up the settings. It was more a wake up call for me rather them him doing anything wrong - just a normal curious teen with easy access to too much information.

Talk to her - even if she clams up and just listens it's a good thing. Say you don't expect her to talk now but remember that you are happy to talk whenever.

Even the £8 phone of shame I got DS when he lost his iPhone had Internet access.

I am in the 'get her a basic phone' camp. It may be common for 11 yos to have internet enabled phones but that doesn't make it a right for them. It may well be that as waterrat says this was done in a group - well, in that case they will have to look to someone else to do it. It might be helpful in that instance because having done it once, I wouldn't be surprised if some of the others are pushing her to do it again.

On the YouTube front - I would expect that with those searches, to actually play any results you would need to sign in as an over-18 yo. So it may be that she didn't get to anything, or it may be that she has actually created an account pretending to be older than she is (I don't know how this works on phones but to my knowledge they don't check, it's just your say so). Does she have a personal email account? You might need to do a bit more digging on this one to see how serious she has got with the searching.

You need to google those terms into her phone to see if the filters work - I thought YouTube did not host porn?

You do not have to pass any kind of age filters to look at hardcore porn online

The searches must have been done at home, as the internet only works if connected to our wifi. It simply doesn't work outside of the house. Now I've disabled the wifi, there will be no web access at all. It can only be used for calls and texts - so effectively it IS now just a normal phone. I've always taken it off her at bedtime.

There is no evidence of any social networking, or a personal email address. I've been through it with a fine tooth comb.

I hear what you're all saying about closer monitoring of texts being perfectly reasonable. I will talk to her about it this evening.

Ironically, she has just arrived home with a friend, who tells sur has asked her parents for "premium member of Deviant Art" (whatever that is) for Christmas. DD and I both went . She's really not very techy at all.

My DD, that is.

Regarding abuse, that is a chilling thought, but in this case, I really don't think so.

Thank you so much for all your advice, I really do appreciate it so much

What happened, OP? Did you talk to her? I am sure she will be mortified at the thought of you reading what she wrote. I think you need to reassure her that you love her and that it is normal to be curious about sexual things at that age, but that the things she reads and sees cannot be forgotten, and it is important not to fall prey to searching for seedy material to satisfy or answer her questions. Her over the top swearing and sexual references sound like immaturity and wanting to appear worldly and cool to her friends. Point out that behaving like that doesn't have the desired effect and will make her appear more immature and could possibly lose her friends that feel uncomfortable with it. I would definitely confiscate the phone, give her a basic one with no internet access if you feel she needs one, and all internet use must be at home and monitored. Time for a chat about internet abuse and trolling too. Sorry that you're having to go through this - nightmare for you. You haven't lost your sweet little girl, she is just full of hormones and immaturity and questions and confusion, and needs some guidance.

Mummyxtwo says exactly what I was going to add.

Sexual texts look very much like trying to appear grown up.

She needs to understand this isn't the effect they have and that any parents seeing them will get totally the wrong idea.

My final thought is has she been left out or bullied for being less mature. This does look trying, not very skilfully to fit in.

As you say hormones can mean A horrible mixture of wanting to be one of your peer group and wanting to hold on to childhood.

She probably sees the texts as 'naughty' we see them as over sexualised, rude and inappropriate. There is a huge difference.

Very gently and sensitively your DD has to realise people will increasingly judge her as a young adult and take what she types as if she totally understand it.

I believe Deviant Art is a multimedia website - not what it sounds like. Back to your daughter. YouTube doesn't host anything that bad no matter what your daughters search terms. She hadn't really done anything wrong - she is just trying to find out about stuff she's heard about as most 11-13year olds do. If you look at her search term " people having sex" that is a reasonable thing for her to ask if she has questions - it's just it would be better if she asked you...."lesbians having sex......" Have they discussed this in sex education? I'd explain that you've, reasonably, looked at her phone and have some concerns that she has questions that you would like help to answer. Explain that there are some nasty, disgusting images on the internet that even Mum and Dad don't look at because they harm people and people are exploited in getting them. Explain it is normal to have all these questions and to wonder what all the fuss is about. Perhaps get some age appropriate books for her explaining all this so she can be confident in her knowledge and doesn't feel like she has to go seeking this kind of thing online.
The texting silly immature stuff with her friends I wouldn't really worry about - it's just moved from notes passed in class to phones -kids say this kind of thing.
I would let her have her phone as I don't feel she has done anything to be punished for and she has been asking reasonable questions. I would check it regularly though to see what has been looked at.

I think your daughter sounds like a mature and intelligent girl who is incredibly shy and perhaps lacking in some confidence so puts on a front with her friends. I was not so dissimilar myself at 12yo. I could never have a conversation with my mum about sex or boys, the concept of it was horrifying. In fact i grew so embarrassed about these topics that as i grew up i did a series of embarrassing things and later on in life felt like i let my parents down. I didn't ever tell them that i had a boyfriend until my now DH. I spent most of my teens and early twenties sneaking around behind their backs because i was so utterly embarrassed about liking boys and having relationships. I don't think my mum ever did anything wrong to make me respond like that but i just never felt comfortable talking to her about these things. Subsequently i kept everything to myself and when i was older and the internet took off i also started looking things up, i was probably about 17yo. It's different now though and children are more exposed. I think that you have to do what you can to get your dd to open up without making her feel too uncomfortable. Coming from someone who was very shy about these things i would have found it less embarrassing if my mum had written a letter to me to almost pre warn me and made see that it was okay to talk about these things - that's coming from the grown up me though!