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We told our son that when he got a phone, he was to understand that the phone belonged to us and that we would periodically check his phone. Yes, we value privacy, BUT you are still a child and it's our responsibility to ensure your safety.
I don't see this as any different than when my parents would randomly call the parents of a friend I said I was spending the night with, going to a party, etc. Trust is a two way street
Did I do the right thing in passing along the screenshots to B's mom after sneaking them from my daughter's phone? That it's a friend is helping me keep some perspective on this but I want to keep the relationship good with my girl though all of this. Ideas?
Yeah you did the right thing. How would you feel if something happened to this girl & you knew something but hid the information from the PARENTS ... (the only people who can keep her safe). How would you feel if it were reversed & nobody said something to you about what your daughter was doing & she was harmed?
If your daughter finds out & has a problem with it, you just tell her "We're the parents. That's my job." Don't ever apologize for being a parent & doing the right thing."
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Originally Posted by wac_432
She has every right to hold it against you, no matter your intentions. It is especially important at this age to acknowledge (to yourself and her) that she is a person with her own individual feelings and she doesn't have to "just be okay" with your snooping. The neat thing is that humans have worked out a social invention once called "punishment" and now sometimes referred to as "corrective action" that can be applied, when both parties are willing, in order to provide physical and/or emotional restitution to someone who has been wronged. Recognize that the disquiet you feel indicates that, even if you had only the best intentions (and did the right thing, overall), you did wrong your daughter.
You need to get ahead of this situation and fess up to your daughter, just like you would want her to fess up to you were the situation reversed. You should feel bad about snooping her phone while giving the explicit or implicit impression that you would not cross that line of privacy. Be a good role model and demonstrate how to bring uncomfortable topics forward without a lot of drama and nonsense.
Are you serious? A parent doesn't owe their kid "privacy". Parent's owe it to their kids to keep them safe. Parent/child relationship is not 50/50. I think you have the daughter confused with a spouse.
I can just imagine how the OP would feel if in 2 weeks, his daughter's friend went missing & he was sitting on something he knew but never said.
Thank you Middlin, Driver 47 and Coschristi! I am appalled by some of the other answers. I definitely like for mine to feel like they have privacy, but at the end of the day parents are parents, not friends. When it comes to safety, we sometimes have to intervene.
Time could of been of the essence and some of you would rather tiptoe around, ask permssion, walk on eggshells etc., in hopes you MIGHT get some info while the friend may be in immediate danger.
To answer the OP's question, I probably would explain to my daughter that while I respect her privacy and she knows she doesn't have to worry about me 'snooping', the immediate safety of her friend took precedence. I also would not act as though I committed this huge sin either as it would only fuel the flames if there were even a flicker before.
To answer the OP's question, I probably would explain to my daughter that while I respect her privacy and she knows she doesn't have to worry about me 'snooping', the immediate safety of her friend took precedence. I also would not act as though I committed this huge sin either as it would only fuel the flames if there were even a flicker before.
If I paid for the monthly service and the phone, there was no privacy. If a child wanted privacy, they could get a job and pay for their phone and service.
My daughter and her friends thought I was literally crazy. Years later, she was thankful!
She never got involved with drugs or anything which made her uncomfortable. She didn't have to make up excuses. She never had to worry about being seen as "uncool" or nerdy. All she had to say was "well, you know my mother!" Her friends would shake their head and say, "poor kid! We all know your mom is crazy!"
In a case such as this (two 15-year old underage KIDS), you can't be too careful, not in this internet-connected world we inhabit. Think of all the children who fell into the hands of predators because their parents respected their "privacy." Your daughter and/or friend might resent you right now for what they might consider an intrusion, but you did the right thing, no doubt about it. Some day they, too, will see it that way.
Are you serious? A parent doesn't owe their kid "privacy". Parent's owe it to their kids to keep them safe. Parent/child relationship is not 50/50. I think you have the daughter confused with a spouse.
I can just imagine how the OP would feel if in 2 weeks, his daughter's friend went missing & he was sitting on something he knew but never said.
Taking a fear-based approach is counterproductive and nothing I wrote indicated that the relationship was a 50/50 partnership. A parent, boss, supervisor, or even president is answerable, via contacts and promises, to his underlings. That does not change who is in charge.
Have you parented a neurotypical teenage child? At fifteen (and younger) they are very capable of deception, unless you so severely restrict them that it does lasting damage to their ability to operate in society, or they rebel against your control. Setting a hard line "I did this for your own good and I lay down all the rules" is a toxic family dynamic and setting yourself up to fail. At fifteen, parents need to have already started incrementally preparing their children to set their own boundaries once they are adults.
I agree that a parent doesn't "owe" a child privacy, but a parent owes it to a child to be a good role model by keeping their promises. The OP gave the implicit impression, and possibly explicit consent, that they would not monitor their child's communications. Then they broke that contract. They know they were wrong, otherwise they wouldn't be worried about "getting caught."
The OP did the right thing in terms of safety, but they set themselves up to fail in terms of trust. If they don't repair the damage and set up a better framework, it is likely that their daughter will rightly assume that she is always being spied upon and take her communications underground. In that case, the OP really would have something to fear.
Your daughter is 15. Not 35. Not even 25. Be a strong parent. Protect your child first and foremost. Protect her friends when you can. They are children, not adults. Do not ever apologize for this.
The mistake you made was sneaking around to do it. I agree with the other poster who said you should have had a conversation with her. But this is a tough call and you can probably wiggle out of it.
I'd encourage you to tell her before B tells her though.
Here's the thing. YOUR child wasn't doing anything wrong, wasn't putting herself at risk. The mother of the other child should have been the one to talk to her own child about it, perhaps snoop in her own child's phone. Seems to me that you've put your relationship with your own, straight-arrow good kid at risk because you decided to insert yourself in another family's problems.
First time with an issue in this forum and I'm looking for some advice.
I've got what seems to me, a complicated situation with my 15 y.o. daughter. Let's call her "A". She's in a small private STEM-focused school and is doing quite well academically. Her best friend, "B", moved to another school last year and they've kept in touch, mostly via calls, chats and online video gaming. They're close but actually getting together regularly has been complicated by the WuFlu over the past year.
I don't restrict A's online activities, nor do I overly monitor her communications with friends. I trust her and she's never given me reason for concern. She's mature and I see her make good choices. I do however, periodically check chats on her phone when I take it to do app installs or backups. It's all been pretty boring until now. A few days ago, I read a chat she had with B which while it did not particularly concern me, did catch my attention.
A: "So he's cute?"
B: "Yeah, really. you should get on val where I met him." [I'm assuming val is a game or social site]
A: "I'm not interested in meeting any val guys. Aren't you just leading him on?"
B: "No, that's just how you deal with horny boys."
B's mom called me yesterday asking about a social event both girls were attending next weekend and then expressed some concerns about her daughter, B. She stressed that she didn't believe that my daughter, A, was involved but that she may know about it. She told me that B's grades had dropped slightly, and she was spending a lot of time online besides the time she spends with A. B told her parents she had met some guy online. Her parents noted that she was stopped spending time online with some other friends who we all know IRL (former classmates, all male) and B said this was because her new online friend said she shouldn't be talking to to other guys. [HUGE RED FLAG] Mom also noted that she had seen B looking at maps and saw a snippet of a conversation between her daughter and this guy with the phrase "well, maybe we could meet.." [HUGE RED FLAG]. He's reportedly in North Carolina and we're in Northern Virginia.
Last night I took my daughter's phone under the premise of updating something on it. I screenshotted the entire conversation (snippet above) and sent it off to B's mom She replied this morning thanking me and said it looks like maybe this has been going on longer than they were aware of.
From my side, I do feel bad about snooping through my daughters' communications. But she's 15. I don't want her to know I did this or shared with B's mom. I don't want the trust or dynamic between us changed. I also wouldn't want to change the dynamic between her and B to change, both for the sake of that friendship or to have B not trust my daughter to protect what is said between them if she thinks my daughter revealed it - and I don't want to potentially lose a source of intelligence on what is going on.
I certainly don't want anything to happen to B. I've stressed with my daughter the dangers of interacting online when you really don't know what the other person is. This guy could be 15 or he could be 30 or 50 trying to lure her away. The "don't talk to other guys" message is a huge problem IMO. It's a different world than I grew up in, but I see many potential dangers here.
Did I do the right thing in passing along the screenshots to B's mom after sneaking them from my daughter's phone? That it's a friend is helping me keep some perspective on this but I want to keep the relationship good with my girl though all of this. Ideas?
Your daughter might be upset that you shared the screenshot with the friend's mom or she might understand that her friend is in over her head and needed someone to do the right thing by alerting her mom (a good life lesson). It sounds like you have a good relationship with your daughter. I don't think what you did will change that.
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