Looking for advice from fellow parents.
14 year old DD in Y10 has snap chat since she was 13.
We repeatedly have the usual conversations about only adding people she knows in real life, importance of privacy settings etc.
I know the password to her phone and always remind her I can check at any time but over the past few months have been giving her a bit more space and not checking.
Past few weeks I could sense something was not right and I kept telling her I need to review her screen time and I will be checking her phone.
Today I checked it and I found 2 screen shots on her photos. It looked like a conversation between her and a boy and that the boy had slept with someone else but was begging forgiveness to my DD.
I confronted her and she now claims she created the profile of the boy just to prove to her friends she has a bf.
This actually worried me even more!
I also reviewed her friend list and found hundreds of boys/men's names.
I asked her who they were and she initially said mutual friends and then she admitted she was adding strangers.
Her defence is she doesn't share her location with anyone so it is ok to add strangers.
For now, I have deleted snapchat from her phone but I am very worried as I think she suffers from low self esteem if she has to do such things to prove to her friends that she is popular.
She has had friendship issues past few years and only now settled with a group. To me it now looks like she is doing things to prove she is cool and popular
I will now insist she leaves her phone downstairs for the night and will be checking her phone more often.
I need to work on boosting her self-esteem. She says I don't understand what it is like to not be liked in school and having limits on phone/apps etc.
But clearly she isn't mature enough to be handling social media responsibly.
She is gutted today - but only because she was found out.
I do want to give her freedom but at the same time I do not trust her right now.
Any words of wisdom for me?
Thank you!
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