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High school daughter is not allowed to communicate with strangers on the internet. We, her parents, discovered that she had made a couple of online friends, two males from other countries. We discussed this with her, and she agreed to discontinue. We found out recently that she has continued daily contact with both males, and she has sent inappropriate photos and sexted to the one she considers a boyfriend. They have made plans to meet once she turns 18. She first “met” these people four months ago. It seems she has been spending several hours a day interacting with them.
We have since taken her computer and phone, and she can never use them without us in the room and watching. This is difficult because she has online classes, and we have other kids that need attention. Spouse said it is best if she drop her online classes, since they aren’t needed for high school graduation, but I think she should be allowed to continue them because there is no way to take these in person locally.
Additionally, she used to enjoy spending time with her family as well as friends and had extracurricular activities that she enjoyed. She was a high achiever academically. Last semester, she was taking an online college course that was difficult, and she had an A at midterm. Soon after was when she met the online friends, and she ended up failing the class! She also stopped doing her chores without numerous reminders from us. She doesn’t want to attend activities and see friends, and she avoids her family.
We have now stopped giving her an allowance. We started taking her to a therapist. She doesn’t see how it is a problem for her to have these online friends. She doesn’t think she has changed, but we recognized the changes before realizing what she had been doing.
Spouse wonders if we could contact the companies whose methods were used for inappropriate pictures of our minor daughter or if the FBI should be contacted, since we aren’t sure the true intend of these males.
We feel that we should not fund her doing study abroad in college because we are worried about her trying to meet up with these guys, and we feel that could be dangerous for her. Both of these males are from countries where women are treated very poorly.
After us taking her devices a couple weeks ago, we learned that she had been contacting them on the family computer when I leave and used a relative’s computer to contact them when she was at the relative’s house on her own. So, now I hide the family computer when I leave and she will be home, but we have to figure out more controls on there. There is one day per week that she has online classes for three hours when I have to be gone for work for eight or so hours.
Now she only cries and hardly eats. She has lost a lot of weight and seems miserable.
I would love to have my sweet daughter back. I would love input on how to handle this.
Quote:
Originally Posted by calgirlinnc
I wanted to add two things despite the fact that you probably are done hearing from me.
People here are not trying to be mean. They are genuinely well intentioned. I have asked many questions over the years, and 90% of answers I get are very well thought out. I have often been told things I didn’t want to hear, but things I needed to hear. I have often gone back to my own threads and read them over and over until those hard truths sunk in.
Speaking of hard truths, your best bet at protecting your daughter from predatory men is by teaching her what to look out for, self-defense, etc. Meanwhile, your concern about protecting your daughter from sexual situations is too late. That horse has left the barn.
Well intentioned people are not always correct. Two disturbing things stood out to me:
1) The are boys/men (not sure of age) from a foreign country and she has plans to met up with her "boyfriend" when she is eighteen. This isn't a situation where a high school girl is sexting some local guys or some garden variety teen sexual issue.
2) She is cutting herself off from friends and family.
Also, having her talk to a therapist isn't punishment or sending a message that something is wrong with her.
My daughter was happy I found someone who she could talk to and said it helped her. Yes, it is important to teach your daughter about predatory men but sometimes that isn't enough, many teens don't listen to their parents and this is too risky to just hope that works.
It may be situational or tansient but I would rather give my daughter supportive resources. The therapist I found came from an educational background and works with young people, she knows what goes on with on-line bullying, sexting, and other contemporary issues facing young people. This is why I stated it is important that the daughter have a therapist who she feels can relate to her.
Last edited by Maddie104; 09-05-2021 at 12:44 PM..
Well intentioned people are not always correct. Two disturbing things stood out to me:
1) The are boys/men (not sure of age) from a foreign country and she has plans to met up with her "boyfriend" when she is eighteen. This isn't a situation where a high school girl is sexting some local guys or some garden variety teen sexual issue.
2) She is cutting herself off from friends and family.
Also, having her talk to a therapist isn't punishment or sending a message that something is wrong with her.
My daughter was happy I found someone who she could talk to and said it helped her. Yes, it is important to teach your daughter about predatory men but sometimes that isn't enough, many teens don't listen to their parents and this is too risky to just hope that works.
It may be situational or tansient but I would rather give my daughter supportive resources. The therapist I found came from an educational background and works with young people, she knows what goes on with on-line bullying, sexting, and other contemporary issues facing young people. This is why I stated it is important that the daughter have a therapist who she feels can relate to her.
My son has been in therapy for two years, and he first started for depression. I am all in favor of therapy. And I am well aware of warning signs.
The OP is wondering why the daughter is depressed. OP states that daughter was never depressed before these boys came into the picture. Therefore, she could be depressed IMO because a need she had was being fulfilled and now that has been taken away from her. The “love” she thinks she feels may be very real to her. Perhaps the OP could try to help the daughter find fulfillment in her daily life. That would help alleviate the daughter’s heartbreak.
The OP cannot keep the daughter off a phone/computer forever. They haven’t even been able to do so thus far. What they are doing now is impractical and is not working.
I know a family who kept their daughter away from the boy she thought she loved. She called CPS on her parents. They were cleared but it was a headache no one needs.
rrah, she is interested in study abroad. I never pushed that path. She only ever was interest in this one school because it seems to be more affordable and has a lot to offer. She didn’t look around much, even though I encouraged her to do so. The other school is somewhere I want to take her to tour and show her what they have to offer, but the she will have the final decision.
I am aware sour daughter is at fault on the photos and texts.
My daughter selected her timeline of when to graduate school. That is what I meant. We discuss different paths, but she has made her own decisions on her education all throughout high school. Saying she should attend the public school would be the opposite of this and is something she does not want and has never wanted.
I am conflicted on her college major choice. I am not sure if it is wise to encourage a child to pursue a path that is often listed as one of the worst job markets out there. It seems like we could spend tens of thousands of dollars on her with her coming out regretting her decision. Another poster mentioned STEM, and that has never been a path she is interested in. We haven’t tried to push her to go into anything. I’ve had her take career assessments.
She is 17 and you plan to send her somewhere you have no access to, probably know nobody and may not be able to get into because of future travel restrictions. And your concern is that you are not really cutting her allowance as she has saved money from her jobs. Hello 18 here she comes!
rrah, she has been allowed to make her decisions on her education, activities, jobs, friends, etc. Covid restricted some of that, but she has mostly been allowed to do what she wants with her life and hasn’t been limited beyond Covid.
I am glad she will be starting a new job and will be pursuing driving now.
Seems like you are giving her too much control over areas she might not be mature enough to handle and taking away control of privileges that are developmentally appropriate since you can no longer trust her. If she were my daughter, I'd make her go back this year to her 2 day a week school and explore some new subjects as a condition to getting her phone privileges restored. She can work her new job on the other days around her homework schedule. I'd also would place parental blocks on the phone that automatically blocked foreign phone numbers before giving it back. She needs to be around her peers and probably needs attention from her peers since she is seeking that elsewhere. Kids' social lives are heavily tied to their phones these days and you've cut her off from that. Keep her busy and loosely under adult supervision that isn't her parents. That should really cut down on how much time she can sneak off and try and contact these men behind your back. If the therapist is working for her, keep it up. If not, look around for one that she feels more comfortable with.
At 17, she should be old enough to understand that people who are encouraging her to break the law by sending inappropriate pictures of herself don't have her best interest in mind and it is a big red flag. People who care about you don't ask you to do those sorts of things. We started having conversations with our kids about these sorts of topics by age 12, when did you start having them?
Last edited by wildflower_FL; 09-05-2021 at 05:07 PM..
Deny her the ability to talk to these people, seems pretty simple to me.
Unless they lock her in her room 24/7 it's not simple.
School computers, public libraries, friends with computers and phones, throw away pay as you go phones, determination can overcome a lot of obstacles. Turning yourself into the enforcer, the enemy, with controlling punishments instead of working to resolve the issues probably isn't the best answer. Taking away the phone won't solve the problem, although it may be a temporary fix. Most likely it will simply drive the issue underground, where the parents are unaware it still exist.
You might get one of those programs that keep track of the key strokes and install it without telling your daughter. You could then keep track of what she is saying to these guys. Where she might be going when she turns 18. For what it is worth I suspect that your daughter was depressed or on her way there before taking up these online relationships. My GUESS is the are a symptom rather than the cause.
That said, I think your best bet is to go with what the therapist or other professionals tell you, not me or other people her on CD. Good luck.
The question really has to be why the romantic activities of your daughter are focused on guys living in other countries. Why not kids in the area, from school? How socially integrated is she in the community? Does she have many friends?
Its not weird for a 17 year old to look for love and sexual experience in itself. but the retreat into online long distance relationships usually hints at problems with connecting to people otherwise.
The question really has to be why the romantic activities of your daughter are focused on guys living in other countries. Why not kids in the area, from school? How socially integrated is she in the community? Does she have many friends?
Its not weird for a 17 year old to look for love and sexual experience in itself. but the retreat into online long distance relationships usually hints at problems with connecting to people otherwise.
Yes, this is something I am wondering. We know people that have immigrated from both countries, and one is a young adult male that we highly admire and have always been impressed with. We also have encouraged multi-cultural interactions/friendships in an effort to not be too ethnocentric. We have quite a few relatives that have married and had kids with people from other countries. I have wondered if some of this has come into play.
She does have a variety of friends, but she has reduced her time interacting with them. Her new job will be with her closest friend, and there are many other people that appear to be around their age employed there.
In response to other posts:
There have been a few crushes before this. Having an interest in dating is perfectly acceptable. We are concerned about the online interaction. Additionally, too much time online can affect mental health and cause depression. just read a WSJ article about this yesterday, but there are other places I have read of it before. We are trying to consider all factors.
In an effort to not humiliate her, we haven’t told people in our life details about this. We have only said she seems depressed, and we are limiting time on her electronics, since it had gotten excessive. I think anything more would embarrass her too much. The therapist hopefully will work out. She is in her 20s, so maybe she can relate more to her.
Yes, we have discussed how to interact with males as well as online conduct over the years. We have a cell phone contract that covers the current issues as well. She has been aware of what is appropriate. Several people in our community will take their teens’ phones at night, routinely review what is on the phones, and not allow phones/computers in the bedroom. In the past, she had asked me about these things, and I had told her that we would only pursue similar paths if something came up (like this) that indicated a need for such surveillance. So, she does have friends where this is normal. As it is now, she has access to her devices in the public parts of the house for many hours of the day. She is encouraged to communicate with her friends and use the electronics as needed. I plan to put some type of thing on the computer to limit contact with them, but it hasn’t been determined what method.
Remember, a few months ago, we tried just talking to her about why she couldn’t do it, and she got her devices back after a few days. That did nothing to help, so doing the same would not be beneficial.
She is very skilled at self-defense, and we already had received info about a local person that gives private sessions on how to stay safe in college that we will schedule for her.
In her messages to these boys, she speaks very positively of her home life and activities/opportunities. She had camps and events in the summer, a trip that included a friend, and a trip for her to pursue a personal interest of hers . She picked up new friends at some of these things. Many would find her life enviable, since we have made efforts to let her pursue her interests for the best of our ability. As it is, she has options for social outlets, and I think the new job will allow for one more.
Something else I thought I should add is that she says we encourage her to do so many things and go and connect so much, but she would rather not be so busy. She says she is an introvert, though she has always seemed more middle-of-the-road to me. I probably should have added this tidbit earlier, but it just occurred to me. Beyond Covid limitations, she has had a very full life.
You've taken away her ability to figure out whether these two men are good or bad people on her own. Think about that. Now she has no method to figure that out, she only has the memory of being "in love" with the one, she can't even fall out of love with him by deciding he's not so great afterall, because you've taken that ability away.
Soon she will be 18, she can get a passport, fly to any country she wants to, and never tell you nor ask your permission. She will be an adult.
I think the conversations and therapy are very good things. I think a couple books on predators online given to her would be a good idea. Open her eyes without cutting off her ability to make her own decisions, and you will have done the right thing. Treat her like a child and she will rebel, go out and do whatever she wants, and that could end up being far worse.
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