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Hi all im new to this so pls bear with me, about 3 months ago i found out that my 14yo step daughter had been groped by 3 different boys at school, when i questioned over this she said that it only happened a couple of times and that it was well over a year ago, after talking this through with my wife we decided it was best forgotton about but told the daughter to have no more contact with the said boys, which she agreed to. Anyway last week we were talking and something inside me said she was lying about being on Facebook so when she went to bed i decided to check for myself, so i logged onto her account and found a message from one of the boys, i decided to read the whole history of chat between the 2 and found to my horror that A. my daughter had lied about the groping business and B. that it was going on upto 2 months previously, the chat consisted of the boy saying how he liked touching her bare boobs and asking her how it felt to have her boobs and privates being touched, he was also asking her questions about whether or not she masturbated or if she had done so to a boy before. As u can imagine by the time i finished reading i was ready to kill the boy that had done this to my daughter, anyway i have since contacted the school ( as it happened in class at school ) and also the police, my problem is i am now worried about her 24/7 unless she is with me, any suggestions on how to cope with this pls.
Hi there
Wow what a difficult situation you are in - especially as you have now technically breached your daughter's confidence by "spying" on her yet you want her to confide in you at the same time.
It is a little about trust and I think you need to understand why she felt the need to come to you in the first place and see what she wants you to do.
Remember people do not necessarily tell the truth on facebook as accounts can be accessed by someone other than the account holder so please discuss this with your daughter before you do anything rash - as this could result in an innocent person being tarnished. You will need to explain why you felt the need to look at your daughters facebook and that will be a painful conversation.
I have a teenage son and one of the conditions of him using facebook is that we are friends with him - that way we can see his wall and general chat. We dont see private chat and that does worry us but like anything he needs to learn for himself.
It is tough and you are right to worry but dont do it at the expense of your daughters trust you will never get it back
Hi Bambam,
Right I have written 4 replies to your post so far and not posted any of them.
Nothing I had written could go anyway to addressing how you feel and as I have a 15 yo daughter I can imagine how you are feeling. After some distance and a bit of caffine, I feel in a place where I can offer some thoughts.
It's great that you care for her so much that you are worried 24/7 about what she is doing but, trust me, that won't help.You are just gonna work yourself up and that will not help the situation.
You have got yourself into a situation now where you know more than you should do. By logging on to her account you have read some stuff that you don't know is true but can't verify or discuss with her, without telling her that you have breached her privacy. Tough situation because, no matter how many times I try to imagine you having the conversation with her it always ends up with her getting very angry over her privacy.
Personally i think you and your partner need to come up with a way of dealing with this - does she know that you about the facebook messages ?
The only way, i think, you can broach this is through a general [censored] conversation. eg "after what happened to you a couple of months ago and the fact that you were grown up enough to confide in us, we think it’s time to have a general conversation about [censored] with you. We think you’re old enough to discuss this with us etc....."
Talk about respecting herself, not being forced into a situation that she's not comfortable in, relationships with boys are complicated, don't rush into anything or feel that you need to try things to be grown up etc. I would not at any point mention the fact that you know the things that you have found out. Try to keep the lines of communication open. The worse thing in the world would be for her to feel that she can't trust you and your partner. I would also try to encourage her to confide in either you or your partner if anything happens in the future. Try not to impose your ideas on her or be judgemental (easier said than done).
This is a tough situation and always tricky to deal with, but sometimes you have to trust in your kids to make the right decisions (when aided with the right sort of guidance).
One thing that has confused me slightly is why did she come home and mention what had happened in the first place ? Maybe she is a little out of her depth and is looking for some advice (or maybe she regretted what had happened and was looking for a way out).
Are any of these thoughts helpful? I hope so.
Gooner
Sorry i may have mislead u into thinking my daughter came home and told me and my wife about being groped this was not the case, we only allow her on the internet in the living room where if we wanted we can look to see what she is doing, this was how i found out the first time by just going over to her to see she wasnt on any site she shouldnt be( she wasnt she was only on Facebook ), but she was chatting to someone, when i asked who she was speaking to she closed the chat very quickly, when asked why she had done this she said it had stuff she didnt want us to see, i apologised to her but said that sometimes we as parents need to know who she is talking to, at which point the chat box opened up (where i could read ) and the boy she was talking to asked how it felt to have her boobs touched in class, at which point i somewhat blew a fuse, she said it happened over a year ago and hadnt happened since, after long talks with both my wife and daughter we decided to let the matter go with just the general respect yourself chat. It was the same boy that we had told her not to have any contact with that had messaged her last week.
Sorry forgot to say that since the first incident we have told my daughter that we can and may look at both her facebook account and phone until we believe she is no longer trying to hide anything that we as parents need to know.
We had in fact agreed to not look at her messages etc from the end of the month. We also have only previously checked on her twice to my recollection. It was just that this particular night she was acting very strange and cagey which made me decide to check heer facebook.
Hi Bambam,
Just wondered where you were with this?
See if there is any more advice for you.
Darren
Hey there
When we were kids we worried about our parents overhearing our phone conversations it is a very different world and all we can do is prepare them for what is out there.
Stay in touch as many of us are going through similar stuff (think it is less of a worry for me having a son??!!) but keen to understand what others are doing
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