13 year old and social media

[2daughters82]

I feel like I need some help/advice from others with teens as I'm struggling to understand and want to support her without pushing her away....

Lovely kind hearted 13 yr old girl who used to be so happy go lucky is now a girl who now seems to have so many worries which I'll list and maybe someone can help me decipher if this is normal for her age

• worries so much about what others think

Ie social media accounts getting as many likes as she can often talking / messaging strangers to get noticed Despite talks about how dangerous this can be

• says she has no friends but her phone log states otherwise - she is struggling with quality over quantity I feel

A constant need to be talking to them all the time / messaging / playing online games with them etc

• spends so much time on her phone

Particularly snap chat and tik tok I'll attach her usage and please let me know what you think ( I think it's too much ) We set limits but we find she goes over So without taken the phone away completely which I don't want to do - I'm just wondering what is classed as ok ?

Things to note, she has a history of self harm, been diagnosed with anorexia nevosa early this year, suffers with low mood and was with CAMhs for some support but was signed off September
She has low body image and self esteem and hides a lot from us

I feel sad for her as I feel this year has been so challenging with nasty girls at school and this need to be liked / thin etc

Thanks for reading
I'll attach her screen time shortly

Her phone and iPad don't live in her room they always come down to charge but she is allowed to be alone in her room with phone so that's not ideal I guess

Absolutely shocking to me that people give adult devices to children and then seem confused when the children can't use them as an adult would. She shouldn't be on any social media at 13.

Yeah I do agree with this too ok hoping to scale back her iPhone and hopefully come to a better system

She has this but she can just type her passcode in and access them but I need to get a bit better at managing it

My DS is 14 - he's SEN so my view/experience may be skewed however;

1. He only has Instagram - and this is heavily monitored so he only has family following him. He only has this so me and his dad can send him funny memes about dogs and F1.
2. I refuse to allow him fb, snap chat, tik tok etc as he is just not emotionally mature enough (SEN aside). He has whatsapp but again only has family and very close friends on his phone.
3. His phone is controlled through Family Link app and is locked between 8.30pm and 7.30am. I can override this on nights he at explorers until 9pm and needs to message me. The Family link app also lets you set limits and once the limit is reached, the app greys out on his phone until enough time has passed (usually 60-90 minutes)
4. He cannot download anything without me putting in a password.
5. I pay the bill so if I ask him for his phone he hands it over. If he refused (which he never does), I would simply lock it from my phone through the Family Link app.
6. I regularly check his messages and internet usage and we discuss anything concerning. He knows he can come to me if he sees anything he isn't sure of etc.

Your daughter is 13 and still a child, you need to talk to her about the responsibility of having a phone and that not everything on the internet needs to be viewed.

DS has to hand his phone in at school reception in the morning and gets it back at home time

If she can override it with her own passcode then the controls are not set properly. My DS cannot override my settings. When you set the phone up was it done as a child's phone?

So, at a minimum, your daughter is spending 27 hours a week on her phone? That's approaching a full time job. It also sounds like she's technically much more adept than you, hence why she's been able to get around limits and delete her screentime record, so any situation where you're relying on the phone to do the work isn't going to work- you need a solution where the phone is in your possession when she's not supposed to be using it.

We do not have the mental health issues you mention with SD15, however, she is on her phone ALL THE TIME and I'm constantly asking her to put it away. Aside from everything else, it's so incredibly rude when we're in a social situation and she is sat off to one side, on her phone, with headphones on, completely ignoring everyone, and I'm embarrassed by it frankly. Unfortunately, her Mum doesn't seem to have any rules about it, so taking it off her when she's here is more of a battle, and we have no access to any of the parental controls and passwords on it. She has told us she's easily managed to remove the few restrictions her Mum put on it and she hasn't done anything about it. I won't be letting DD have a SM enabled smartphone until she is much older.

And you're making excuses for letting your 13 year old child have unsupervised and unrestricted access to apps where she can be sent explicit content and be groomed by strangers that you are aware she is talking to.

My daughter's phone is not accessible between 9pm and 7am

@FoxtrotOscarKindaDay yet everyone has managed to be polite yet you - there is always one 🙄

Thank you to everyone else ! X

Is there anything you could do together such as a mum and daughter movie night or something you both enjoy doing together that may distract her from her phone.

When I have my son on the weekend I make a point of telling friends not to text unless it's an emergency,so he can see I'm not on my phone and go out and do something.

I understand that it's difficult if you have more than one child or your working etc,when I was a teen and in the 90,s when the internet was just starting out I had no parental guidance and would spend time in chatrooms and forums putting myself in high risk situations.

I also spent time in an eating disorder unit and had severe mental health problems so completely understand the self esteem boost the internet gave me.

I don't think you should blame yourself,you are clearly concerned and have come here for advice so don't blame yourself being a parent of a teen is never easy.

@Blueeyedmale thank you, yes we do have time to ourselves when we can - baby is in bed by 7 most nights and I always ensure I have time just us - especially when baby was first born as it was just us for so long and where my hubby works long hours we made a point of doing that. He has takes her out too so we have a balance of time as a family and with just each other

We've had a good chat tonight, we are doing a film night tonight actually and she's doing me a facial with her new products from Christmas, she's really into her skin care so she seems in good spirits

Tomorrow we are going to watch that channel 4 doc when my husband is home a better time and go through her snap chat and phone to ensure all is ok.

I'm keeping snap chat and tik tok but putting a limit on it - I've set up family sharing properly this time !
Turns out as she knows my pin, she was just using that! So now there is a new pin 🤩
When I removed her and added her again to start from scratch it had lots of added security on there which wasn't before so it's done an update since
Also I've added downtime and tomorrow we will talk and set up a new schedule for her to use her phone

Also no phones in bedroom

Thanks everyone for the advice
I'll see how she goes but at the moment I'm happy with that
Also I found an app where I can keep track of what she looks at