Think I've really fucked up.

[gingergenie]

Taciturn ASD/ADHD teen revealed he needed ingredients for his food tech lesson tomorrow. I frequently have to take the laptop away from him as I find him awake with it in the wee small hours. He claims he gas been talking to his mate. As I am looking at the recipe, a Skype message appears from a female teen in USA. I read it. There doesn't appear to be anything overtly sexual other than a bit of mild flirtation, but it's clear that these late night laptop sessions have not been with his mate. I feel bad for reading his messages, but he's 14, socially awkward and has clearly been lying. I'm out of my depth. Any advice??

Ignore. Say nothing. You haven't seen it. It's benign, save yourself for the big issues.

Turn your thoughts around. He's being social and lying to your parents is a socially developmental norm in teens. So therefore he is learning some great social skills.

I have a 14 year old boy with ASD & ADHD, so might be in a position to help, but I'm a bit confused by your post. What do the food tech ingredients have to do with anything? My DS is not able to self-limit his screen use yet, so we have set his wi-fi access to end at 9pm. After that he can play offline games on his phone or watch TV, but not be online.

Sorry, I've re-read your OP and realised that you used his laptop to access the list of ingredients. OK, I would ignore what you saw and not confront him, but try to bring up the subject of honesty and trustworthiness in conversation. Explain that you are there to talk to if he feels out of his depth about anything that happens online.

My personal opinion is that young teens should not have any devices in their room at night. However, I agree that you shouldn't tell him what you've seen.

Thanks all. I mulled it over and in the end I mentioned I'd seen it. He was fine. Said he understood. We discussed boundaries and acceptable internet usage and safety online etc and we're doing great now x

Phew! Well done.

I wouldn't be OK with my teen conversing with a stranger on Skype. How did he meet her? Does he really know that she is a girl aged 14/15 and not a bloke aged 59 posing as a girl? And why does that girl's parents let her chat to a random bloke on Skype?
At least on Forums there are Moderators. No one is supervising your son's chat on Skype.
If I caught my son chatting to a stranger on Skype (some randomer) I wouldn't be happy about it. Not at all.
On Skype you get sent random ''Contact requests' from strangers. These should always be blocked. Also the Privacy settings should be set to only receive Contact requests and messages from People in my Contact list. Every time Skype updates it may set the Privacy settings back to Anyone not Only People in My Contact List or whatever.

Does he really know that she is a girl aged 14/15 and not a bloke aged 59 posing as a girl?

This...

be very careful - it is a known technique for grooming... skype is not heavily used by teenagers as a method of communication, so it is a little surprising to find a 14 year old boy using it - I would be cautious...

Gamers use it all the time for group chat as some games do not allow voice chat (League of Legends in particular) so a lot of teen boys use skype a lot.
So the fact of skype per se would not concern me but talking to random person would.
I get messages that are clearly from people who I don't know that go straight in the bin. My DS though gets messages from people he plays games with and has to be more discerning communication is key and the best I could do.

Maybe put in a place a rule about tech after bedtime/in bedrooms, or set your parental controls so his account is disabled after 9pm each evening.

And talk to him about trusting strangers online.

There are some excellent resources you can share together on www.thinkuknow.co.uk/