Help! We found inappropriate text messages on dsd's mobile phone.

[SheerWill]

Please forgive me if you find I'm drip feeding. I haven't slept much having only found out about 8pm last night.

I returned home from visiting friends to find dh very distressed. Yesterday he picked up his daughter from up north and brought her down to us. While he was picking up his mum (who is also staying with us) dsd told them she had a 15 year old boyfriend. Dsd is 12. She is a vulnerable young lady who attends a special school for students with mental health problems and Autistic Spectrum Disorder. She's only been attending school find September having refused school since the end of Y6. We have had concerns about her use of internet/social media for around 2 years. She was hospitalised 2 years ago for self harming and dh exw told him that she'd found evidence of dsd emailing older men and that messages had been inappropriate - of a sexual nature. Dh wanted to report it and do something at the time but exw persuaded him that due to her fragile state of mind they needed to not report it and he was persuaded.

Fast forward to now. Dsd has virtually no policing of her social media/gadgets use when she is at home with exw. On a number of occasions since the incident I describe above she has posted videos on YouTube where she talks about things no 12 year old should know. She has now created a Facebook account (separate to the one her mum knows about) that we only just found out about. She has also been texting this 15 year old boyfriend who goes to her school and is also autistic.

Dh asked to see her phone and she point blank refused. We police all the children's internet and gadget use while they are here. He managed to get her phone off her and she had a meltdown. When DH read the messaged they were extremely sexually explicit. No revealing photos have been shared but it has been encouraged. His messaged are more explicit than hers but from what I've read she started it.

DH is absolutely distraught. As soon as I got home and he told me we put his mum in charge of the kids so we could talk privately and we made notes on all the occasions leading up to this incident. We have now contacted the police where she lives as she is already known to social services and CAMHS. We are so frustrated that her mum continues to refuse to police her phone/tablet and internet use. The police are going to get back in touch with us either today or Monday.

We're in a mess and don't know what to do. I would much rather she stay with us until this whole sitation is resolved. DSD will hate it but I feel this has now gone far enough and she needs parents who will not only love her but also give her boundaries and protect her (from herself if nothing else). She has very poor self esteem and body image issues and I'm sure she just likes the attention and the nice comments these men have made but it's horrendous.

Any advice/guidance welcome - please help!

Can your DH speak to CO about it? Dh said if he's not deployed they will/can give him time off to sort family problems out, maybe even provide family liaison or private healthcare for his daughter, or help with legal aspect. I know it'll vary from base to base but dh says that the military care about their private lives and try to help where they can, be it time off or practical support.

I agree with the others who say to try not lay all the blame at Mums feet. You and your dh failed to stop her accessing Internet during the limited time she's at yours, her mum has to do it 24/7. Dsd may be able to adapt to boundaries at yours and I appreciate you have experience through your work but you have her in your care for short periods of time and only need to monitor her for a few days, not sure how to word it, but you're only dealing with a tiny percentage of managing your dsd and her condition. I guess I'm saying it's very easy to say Mum is failing her or not looking after her and point out her mistakes when you're not the one providing the full time care. You only need to alert for short periods of time, the rest is down to mum.

Dh could have done a lot more tbh. Why has he only contacted social services now? Why hasn't he contacted the professionals himself? From what you've said, he knew his child was getting sexual messages from adult men and he wasn't concerned enough to report it to the police then, and despite you saying he had concerns he didn't try to apply for residency. If I genuinely thought the above incidences were down to my child's parent not keeping them safe, I'd not be offering residency but going to court to fight for it.

Yes the messages with the 15 year old are wrong, but the boy is vulnerable himself and if your dsds autism makes her vulnerable and not capable of understand, why isn't it the same for the boy? I'm not saying this doesn't need to be dealt with it does, but it's a different scenario to the adult men sending sexual messages.

With the boy, perhaps a talk with his parents and the school would have been a better first step? if you flip it, what if the boys parents saw the messages first and phoned the police on dsd, and said she's abused him and started the sexual exchanges (which you say she did). Would you be a bit irked you where not given a chance to fix it before the police turned up to arrest her? I hope the police treat him as the vulnerable child he also is of he also has no awareness of how inappropriate it is like your dsd.

Is Mums reluctance to share info because she feel blamed and judged by your dh and yourself? The transgender thing is something 12 year old do know about. Talks are given in schools (not sure about special schools) but it's in the media a lot too. There's links between girls with and and autism saying they are trans that might be worth looking into to help her deal with those feelings.

I don't mean to sound hostile to you OP and I know it'll be very worrying for you, my sister has a number of issues and IIts so easy for me to say stepmum should be doing this to stop sis doing that, when I only see sis for a few hours a month.

Exw and he married when dsd turned 1

OK, this might make a difference to PR - but it is not something that a police officer or social worker can advice on. Your DH needs legal advice.