Bad, mean parent

Ickle Magoo

Rules fine, but surely they have to be age appropriate? Intervening on her FB page? Hacking internet profiles and changing passwords for a 14 yr old is way OTT, especially since any teen with half a brain knows a million ways to get around any and all block and most are far more PC smart than their parents will ever be.

All demanding access to her profile does is shouts that the kid isn't trusted to be sensible or do the right thing. I don't think that's the right message to give your child. There is a fine line between being protective and being all pervasive, I think the OP crossed the line.

belongtojazz

My daughter who is nearly 13 has Facebook Bebo, mobile etc. She has them all on condition that I have access to them so I can monitor wht is going on. We have a lot of discussions around this and she is very comfortable with me keeping an eye on it all.

A lot of her friends have added me also on FB and I have a list just for them. In our house this works as she is aware that it is not her I am concerned about it is the big baddies out there that at this stage I need to protect her from.

I think what the OP did was extreme but I think there is a distinct possibility I would do the same thing in her shoes.
I regularly give thanks that my daughter is so easy going and is happy for me to take care of her

Deliverance

Question to think about:

Before the internet, mobile phones and 'Facebook':

What did parents do before Facebook and the internet to protect their kids on same said issues. Were there a similar issues? Or has the new information society provided parents with a 'new set of problems'?

blubloblu

If the child is using adequate privacy protections to ensure that their communications are only within their circle of friends, then any intrusion into that is like following them around their friends in real life. Do you stand beside your child when they talk to their pals?

I feel the proper approach is to teach them how to make sure only their friends can see what they're posting, and recognise that anything they say online should be assumed to be public record. Make sure they trust you so that they can tell you if anything upsets them. Otherwise, spying is a breach of trust and will not result in anything positive.

Quality

Oh god! I am dreading my daughter hitting the teenage years!

I would hope to think that she can make the right judgements then! I think it is important that she learns through positive encouragement, and through being honest with me. I think she will need her privacy and own life.

And I just hope that she can share her problems with me when she gets older.

Op just be careful not to alienate your girl.

I hope things work out!

Cat Melodeon

I think the best way to deal with this is allow them to use Facebook or whatever, but keep the PC in the kitchen or living room and only allow access to it for recreational purposes for a maximum of an hour a night. Don't try to control their accounts, but also don't allow them internet access in their bedrooms - it's can encourage secretive and risky behaviour. I have seen pornographic video clips of teenaged girls from the school I work in on facebook and youtube which they filmed from their bedrooms. They only need to get carried away once posting photos or video clips and it is in cyberspace for ever. You need to allow freedom, but make sure the boundaries are rock solid.

caprilicious

OP I think what you did was right. Ultimately you want to protect your daughter, ok she wont like having her privacy disturbed, but what teen does?

There was time's when I wasn't impressed with my parents for listening in on conversations etc but they weren't doing it to be malicious, they were looking out for me.
At the time I wasn't happy, but in hindsight I know I was lucky to have them keeping an eye on me & for having my best interests at heart.

I hear what people are saying here about reckoning 14 is a young adult, but only the OP knows her daughter.
I know when I was 14 I was very immature (playing with Barbies til I was 12 ), whereas there would've been other 14 year olds out there at the time and still are that are more like 24 year olds such are there level of maturity.

I've seen FB pages belonging to girls of the same age & found it slightly frightening to see how exposed they were.
These are girls where there parents weren't internet/computer savvy so were not monitoring/acessing their FB to see what they had on it.
One girl was 14/15, had much older 'boys' on it as friends (18/19 year olds) and had profile pictures of themselves in bra's/tiny tops :eek:
The older guys they had listed on it as friends were little scum bags too & when I nosed at their profile, they had a lot of similarly young girls listed as their 'friends' which frankly I found disturbing.
Also the nature of the conversation on their pages was quite sexual, and I don't mean altogether in a jokey way either.

I think when the time comes, I would prefer that my daughter was pi$$ed off with me for a while that God forbid for her to come to harm through her actions online.
Unfortunately some of the young girls out there are so impressionable & they have no concept of the danger they are leaving themselves open to.

sponsoredwalk

Woah, that is pretty scary.
Have you even bothered to question your own reasons
why you don't trust your daughter?

What are you expecting to happen, that she'll run off
& join the circus or go off with some terrible biker guy
or be tricked into meeting some pervert?

Obviously you haven't had proper conversations with your daughter
in such a manner as to convince both you & her of the dangers
of not using her brain.

Basically your fostering in your child reasons to go behind your back
to create private facebook pages, giving her reasons not
to trust you when she does something wrong - which she inevitably will
do (you know, that little trait called humanity) and fostering a sense of
rebellion early on. Being a parent is one thing, sneaking into
someone's personal space, taking away their right to privacy
because you don't trust them & want to constantly watch them
is another.

How can she relax & be herelf when she knows her parents are constantly
watching, she's probably already restricting herself with the knowledge
that you're there @ a moments notice to see everything bare.

What was her crime? Wanting personal space...

I'm not saying that you need to be a pal & not a mother,
I'm just letting you know that you run the risk of doing
lasting damage if you exert overbearing punishment for reasons
such as wanting to get some personal space away from parents.
Save the overbearing punishment for when your daughter actually
does something wrong, you should be rejoicing that your daughter
wants you out of her life for a while You know there are more subtle
& friendly ways to keep an eye on your child
without creating new problems.

Having grown up knowing plenty of people who had parents that
acted in ways similar to that espoused throughout this thread I know
that you're only fostering reasons for your children to hide stuff from you.

You haven't even hit 16 years of age, when drinking & sneaking out to parties will become an issue.
If you can't form a loving & trusting relationship with your children
while respecting their autonomous privacy you'll have a hell of a time
coping with pubertous adolescent drinking.

Nevyn

Deliverance wrote: »

Question to think about:

Before the internet, mobile phones and 'Facebook':

What did parents do before Facebook and the internet to protect their kids on same said issues. Were there a similar issues? Or has the new information society provided parents with a 'new set of problems'?

I don't think is is a new problem people are people and bullies are bullies,
I do think that it means that it intrudes into the home.
Before hand parents could lock the door and the only people in the house was the family and it was unlike people would be shouting abuse in the letter box.

These days mean and hurtful things and porn and the likes of rotten.com can be in our children's bedrooms.

The thing is about cyberspace we all carve out our own little areas, be it a face book page, posting here on boards we invest time and emotion in the place we visit and when those are violated it can come as as shock esp when
a person hasn't the maturity esp emotional maturity to handle it.

So yes parents now have to do that for their kids in a way in which they didn't previously and a lot of parents know very little about what is out there and the less respectable parts of the internet and how it can be used to get a person.

No one wants scenes like this in their home.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JrUkYKEcGA

Or the fall out when a group of people target a teen or preteen online.

http://encyclopediadramatica.com/Kerligirl13 [not safe for work. nudity and swearing]

Pretty much this girl attracted the wrong attention online and didn't know to how to keep herself safe
and not only were her online presence accounts bombarded with hate comments and inappropriate comments
but her email and home address were found and taxis, pizzas, hookers and parcel messengers sent there.
And yes we do have the types or arseholes who will do this to people in this country not just america.

I don't mean this as a horror story but it is what can happen when we don't set rules and boundaries
and educate ourselves so we can educate our children and keep them supervised until they are ready
to have the training wheels taken off and use the internet like the wonderful communication and information
recourse that it is,

but kids will go to places on the internet which ideally they shouldn't and then you
are left having to explain what double penetration and a gangbang is if you are lucky they talk to you about it
rather then thinking it's a standard sexual activity or that they are having nightmares from seeing a pic
of some idiot who had his face mangled and his jaw blown off due to a firework.

Inform yourselves and then set about educating your children esp if you don't have the technical skills to limit their internet access to certain sites.

old_aussie

Your a great mum.

You obviously care enough about your daughter to protect her and guide her through the young teen years.

Keep up the good work.

Zen65

cathy01 wrote: »

The teaching has been hard to learn.Shes getting there.I believe in talking , being open etc, but sometimes,I feel I have to be her mam, not her friend.

Spot on. Some of the worst-reared children have parents who wanted to be friends as an easy way to avoid the tough job of being a good parent. My teenage sons have FB accounts and I fully agree that these must be monitored. What goes up on FB (or anywhere on the internet) can have a permanence which could follow that child well into adult life as schools, employers etc increasingly check people's FB accounts to get a sense of the kind of person that they are.

I read some of the "advice" posted here by teenagers and frankly I smile..... I still remember the time when I knew so little about life too!

Be at peace,


Z

Zen65

Further to my previous post....

Of course at 14 she needs space to mature. I suggest that you allow her to use her FB page but insist that either you, or her dad, or an older sibling is on her "Friend" list so that you are aware of any serious issues that might arise with bullying etc.

Remember you can never fully protect against bullying or other improper behaviour by others. FB is only a small portion of her life, so watch for trouble, but don't intervene every time something arises..... wait to see how she handles it first. You may be surprised at her maturity in dealing with these situations.

I've only intervened once in the case of my sons' FB accounts, and that was when a friend posted a video of one of them as a joke, but the humour was very dark and could potentially lead to problems when my son is looking for a job in later life. Some things are best done offline!!

Killing the FB account also potentially blinds you to what's going on in her life, so be glad of her having it in some ways.

Keep up the good work.


Be at peace,

Z

sponsoredwalk

Zen65 wrote: »

Of course at 14 she needs space to mature. I suggest that you allow her to use her FB page but insist that either you, or her dad, or an older sibling is on her "Friend" list so that you are aware of any serious issues that might arise with bullying etc.

Just like to point out the preconceptions here.

You're arguing from the perspective of someone who doesn't believe their child would naturally come to them when they are being bullied.***

This would be an adequate way to deal with childhood bullying if their child was unable to approach their parent out of fear &/or a belief
that their parent wouldn't understand.

It's up to the OP to decide if that characterization fits her situation.

***(That's not to say anything about you lol, simply the argument).

silverharp

The issues here will not affect me for a few year yet. But my predisposition is to avoid raising kids that are useless to the world. In they live if a bubble in their teenager years then they are more likey to have problems adjusting to college or anything else they set out ot do when they leave school.
I fully agree that a parent's role is not primarily to be their "friend" but that being said its not to be a dictator either for the quiet life or to project your fears on to them and to some how feel its a parent's role to somehow block out the big bad world.
It will tend to come down to negotiating boundries and I guess knowing them well enough to understand how much freedom they can deal with at a particular age.

astra2000

Hi op I agree with you completly she is just 14 and that is still a child. Zen65 has given very good advice My son has a face book page I am his friend and I see that most of his friends parents are doing the same. We have a duty as parents to parent. comments about dictatorship and not trusting your daughter are just silly she is 14. I dont think you have crossed any line your daughter did this when she did not accept you as a friend request, you are not banning her from fb you are allowing her to use it with certain conditions which is what reasonable. We all have to live by rules and teenagers can have a hard time accepting this but maybe if you do a bit of online research and show your daughter what can happen she will realise its not her that gives you cause for concern but other potential fb friends good luck!

Scuid Mhór

Zen65 wrote: »

I read some of the "advice" posted here by teenagers and frankly I smile..... I still remember the time when I knew so little about life too!

found this patronising to be utterly unfair and unnecessary. having the freedom to generalise must be awesome.

Nevyn

Giant Squid i fyou have an issue with a post report it.

Zen65

Zen65 wrote: »

Of course at 14 she needs space to mature. I suggest that you allow her to use her FB page but insist that either you, or her dad, or an older sibling is on her "Friend" list so that you are aware of any serious issues that might arise with bullying etc.

sponsoredwalk wrote: »

You're arguing from the perspective of someone who doesn't believe their child would naturally come to them when they are being bullied.

I guess my post reads like that, but based on my own experience, and the experience of other friends who are parents of teenage boys:

• Boys very often won't tell a parent that they are being bullied. In "the teenager code" this is considered a sign of weakness.
  
• In truth the bullying aspect is less of a concern than the possibility of something being posted (by my kids or their friends) which is intended as funny but would be anything but funny if seen years from now.

This thread is close to my heart. I have attended more than one funeral of a teenage child who took their own life, and I have some understanding of what a parent facing this loss goes through. In all of the cases I'm personally familiar with, nobody saw the "warning signs" before the suicide. I believe that every parent wants to find the balance between helping their kids through the difficult years and suffocating them, stifling their development. It's a very fine line, and it only works with trust on both sides.

In the case that the OP is speaking of, the daughter broke that trust by establishing a new FB profile.

Thanks for your feedback.


Be at peace,

Z

Zen65

Zen65 wrote: »

I read some of the "advice" posted here by teenagers and frankly I smile..... I still remember the time when I knew so little about life too!

Giant Squid wrote: »

found this patronising to be utterly unfair and unnecessary. having the freedom to generalise must be awesome.

I'm sorry if my comment seemed patronising to you, Giant Squid, that was not the intention. However I was not generalising and I certainly don't consider all teenagers to be the same.

Let me be more specific for you then. This quote:

Giant Squid wrote: »

if you can't trust your daughter at fourteen years of age to cop herself on and learn about the dangers of social networking, when can you?

Anyone who has read the news in the last few years knows of cases where teenagers of fourteen (and older) have been taken in by people they met on the internet, or teenagers who have been bullied online to the point of committing suicide. Fourteen is not old, and certainly not experienced. There is a very good reason why people don't have a vote until they are 18.

So, when I read your comment, which was intended to be helpful(?) to this parent who is concerned about her daughter, it made me smile. Not in a patronising way, I assure you. As I have said, I remember only too well (and with no embarrassment) my own teenage years when I thought I knew it all. As a teenager I dared to do and say things that I would not say today; not because I am less brave, but because I have learned to empathise with people more. I understand loss in a way I never could have as a teenager (and by fourteen I had already lost three grandparents and one parent, so I was not living in a sheltered world). I understand responsibility in a way that no sixteen-year-old could. This is not my boast, it is merely a consequence of being on the planet for as long as I have, and having shared the lives of so many people.


Be at peace Giant Squid,


Z.

CrazyRabbit

All this hysteria caused by the media out to get ratings/readers by sensationalising the 'danger'. They make it sound that every 2nd Facebook user is a paedophile or bully. It's probably less than 0.1%.

There are millions of kids on Facebook (400 million users totally). Only an extremely small amount ever come to any distress because of it. No doubt that they're more likely to be struck by lightning.

And besides, you can monitor their Facebook/Myspace/Bebo etc all you want, but unless you stand over their shoulder 100% of the time, you will not know everything they do and say with friends or people they meet.

Oh, and speaking from experience...there is nothing like invading your teens privacy that will drive them away from you. My mum was constantly checking up on my brother, routing through his bedroom, reading his text messages etc. The end result is that they don't speak and he deliberately goes out of his way to keep his social life secret from the whole family as he has 0% trust purely because of my mums actions. She drove me nuts with the same treatment until I moved out.

nesf

CrazyRabbit wrote: »

Oh, and speaking from experience...there is nothing like invading your teens privacy that will drive them away from you. My mum was constantly checking up on my brother, routing through his bedroom, reading his text messages etc. The end result is that they don't speak and he deliberately goes out of his way to keep his social life secret from the whole family as he has 0% trust purely because of my mums actions. She drove me nuts with the same treatment until I moved out.

Exactly. It most certainly can be taken too far and not being given space and privacy will drive you nuts.

cathy01

Thanks for all the comments.I will take the advice and look on line for the dangers and make sure I show them to her.
In the mean time, her brother will friend request her and when shes allowed on FB again, she can accept , as this will be a condition of her getting it back.
Thanks again,cathy

wolfpawnat

Cathy01, I understand that your daughter is still only 14 and yes you do need to look out for her, but I do think she does need to be allowed her own life. Cyber bullying can occur on these sites, as can sexual comments, but I wish to say 2 statements about this

1) if your daughter is a confident girl she will brush off these comments from a girl whom may even just be team Edward rather than team Jacob(young teen girls are odd things)

2) 14yo are talking about sexual things face to face, to put them on a facebook page is nothing compared to what they say in public. A 5 min journey on a bus will let you hear that!!!!

She is still in your house and is not yet 18 which makes your concerns a bit valid. But think about how you are affecting her too. If her friends find out she is not even giving th passwords to her own accounts it makes her seem as though she is not the full shilling as the saying used go.

I am not saying you are a controlling mother to the extreme but perhaps I should mention that my mother used do this with me (not facebook but check my phone) she used demand my phone randomly and check every picture, every message, every call. She used try to access my email, and when facebook and bebo arrived on the scene she snooped them too. She started when I was 12 and she continued this into my adult life. I was forced to abandon great opportunities for sociological and academic development. I had to text her every night between the hours of 6-8 when I was 20 or she would ring obsessively and threathen to call the guards. She would force me onto the weighing scals and demand to know my weight as I was "clearly anorexic" (I was 9 stone and a size 10, but since she is the size of a small country that was her accusation) she tried to use mind tricks for me to not have any friends outside of where she lives so I wouldn't leave there and would live with her for life. When I got a boyfriend she would grab my phone anytime I left it on the table and read all the texts he and I used send (as a 20 year old they would have adult content in them, which she would freak at)

Long story short, I am now 23, I have a gorgeous son who she has never seen and have only contacted her through solicitors in the past 2 years!

As long as your child is a teen, yes you need to keep an eye on her, but you cannot expect her to stay an innocent little baby forever! She will hate and resent you if you go too far and she will not want to know you when she gets older. Perhaps a compromize, tell her to make her wall public viewing, but she should be allowed access to her site, can you blame her for wanting to have a place to call hers. I mean, whats next?Will you want to be over her shoulder for every private conversation she has with her friends about the new twilight movie in case they discuss the half dressed actors?

You have to find a happy medium, where you are assured to an unconcerning amount, yet she has space to call hers!

You are better off, letting her know about the world with you to turn to if something goes wrong rather than tell you nothing!

Zen65

CrazyRabbit wrote: »

All this hysteria caused by the media out to get ratings/readers by sensationalising the 'danger'. They make it sound that every 2nd Facebook user is a paedophile or bully. It's probably less than 0.1%.

There are millions of kids on Facebook (400 million users totally). Only an extremely small amount ever come to any distress because of it. No doubt that they're more likely to be struck by lightning.

I agree with you fully CrazyRabbit, the dangers of the internet are hugely exaggerated by the media, though don't forget that 0.1% of the Facebook population is still an impressive 400,000 people.

If a person uses a bit of common sense on the net, then the chances of ever coming into contact with a Pedophile online is really remote. Annoyingly one of FB's weaknesses is the complex privacy settings which so many people don't set up correctly. Some people have a fascination with carelessly "collecting" friends that it is very easy to get somebody to "friend" you, and thereby get access to a lot more of their details.

Honestly, I rarely give much thought to the Pedophile issue on FB. A more damaging feature of any social network site is that the normal school bullying that goes on in every school is raised to a new level because these sites give bullying a platform that is even more powerful than reality television. Yes, bullying is a problem as old as the hills, but social network sites like FB have the potential to make it worse and far more damaging. In school maybe only 3 of your friends saw you being bullied, but FB can open the airways to let everyone see it.

CrazyRabbit wrote: »

Oh, and speaking from experience...there is nothing like invading your teens privacy that will drive them away from you.

Absolutely right! Any parent who starts checking their kid's mobile phone or e-mail is taking a huge risk. Wolfpawnat's story should be a warning to all parents about the dangers of trying to control your kids' lives. Kids grow up, and they can do it without you if they choose.

I'm in favour of keeping a close eye on your kids, even watching their social network sites, but intervention is really only appropriate in serious cases.


Be at peace,

Z

Nevyn

The internet is a tool like any other, the same way a knife is.
There are dangers if you are not aware of what you are doing or if you act stupidly.
As with any tools, we need to make our kids aware, set good guidelines and supervise them
until they can compently use them on thier own, while always knowing they can come to us for help and guidance.

coffee_cake

Zen65 wrote: »

Anyone who has read the news in the last few years knows of cases where teenagers of fourteen (and older) have been taken in by people they met on the internet, or teenagers who have been bullied online to the point of committing suicide. Fourteen is not old, and certainly not experienced. There is a very good reason why people don't have a vote until they are 18.
.

Zen, we also know stories of adults who have been taken in by scams and even gone abroad to get "their" money back. Internet idiocy happens at any age.

I do think on one hand it should be supervised but on the other hand a teenager needs some space from their parents. As long as OP knows where the daughter is and who she's with, there shouldn't be a problem.

iguana

CrazyRabbit wrote: »

Oh, and speaking from experience...there is nothing like invading your teens privacy that will drive them away from you. My mum was constantly checking up on my brother, routing through his bedroom, reading his text messages etc. The end result is that they don't speak and he deliberately goes out of his way to keep his social life secret from the whole family as he has 0% trust purely because of my mums actions. She drove me nuts with the same treatment until I moved out.

I agree. And on the other hand as far as I'm aware my parents never invaded my privacy. They talked to me like an adult as long as I behaved like one, even when I was a child. As a result I kept very, very little from them. They were a little sneaky in that they used to pretend to be slightly more strict than they were as they figured most teens need to push their boundaries and rebel a little. They were always our parents first and were quick to lay down the law when necessary but they always, always respected us as people.

I'm in my 30s now and apart from my husband my mother is my best friend. We talk on the phone most days, sometimes for hours. I want to be around them, I look forward to seeing them, I get their advice on every big and a lot of medium decisions I make. I don't just know I can turn to them when I need them, I really want to turn to them. The older of my brothers is 28 and he calls home several times a week to hang out with my parents. And not for his dinner/washing, just to chill with them, to watch movies together and play games. Most people do love their parents but I know without doubt that not very many like them quite as much as we do.

Parenting isn't just for 18 years, it's for the whole rest of your life. And the things you do now will have consequences in your adult relationships. Obviously your daughter is still your responsibility, you have to ensure her safety and she isn't yet an adult and entitled to all of the rights and responsibilities due to an adult. But at the same time at this point your most important job is to allow her the freedom to learn how to be an adult.

I know it sounds kind of trite but when I look at how much my brothers and I like our parents and compare it to the relationships so many of my peers have with their I always think of "If you love someone, set them free. If they come back they're yours; if they don't they never were." Because it seems to me that the ones who were most respected as people by their parents have best relationships with them now, while those who's parents never learned to treat them as adults have 'dutiful' kids instead of real closeness.

KittyeeTrix

Great post Iguana!!!
Excactly the sort of relationship I am trying and hoping to foster with my teenagers:)

Zen65

bluewolf wrote: »

Internet idiocy happens at any age.

This is a very true statement, even if you remove the word "internet".


Be at peace,

Z

Nasty_Girl

blubloblu wrote: »

I feel the proper approach is to teach them how to make sure only their friends can see what they're posting, and recognise that anything they say online should be assumed to be public record. Make sure they trust you so that they can tell you if anything upsets them. Otherwise, spying is a breach of trust and will not result in anything positive.

This is the key thing.