Just had a conversation that I am assuming is typical, but still has me frustrated.A week or so ago I made it very clear that our kids were not to give out personal information on the internet. I made it abundantly clear. As you know I have a beautiful 13 year old daughter and all of the information about internet predators has me paranoid.
So today I discover that she has spent most of the day on the phone with a guy she met in an online game chat room. Now, grant it, he probably is 14 or 15 and harmless, but the fact is that she went behind my back to call him and is now being absolutely impossible. After I told her she could not talk to him with my permission until I heard how they met and that there was a personal connection with someone we know LIVE, she started calling me by my first name (like that’s never happened -- duh -- the old “you’re not my mom, you’re Claudia routine -- BTDT).
Rivalling Viper Girl Vanessa from Cindy’s family, Salinda is being mean spirited and awful about my confrontation. She is declaring that she will disobey me and keep having contact with this no-named person in TX who I am supposed to call to confirm who he is but whose name I can’t know.
I am amazed that she can’t understand (or won’t probably) that if she doesn’t know anyone face-to-face that knows him face-to-face she can’t be sure he is who he says he is. She has all kinds of threats of what she is going to do. The sad thing is that this is just simple, safe parenting and she is refusing to accept responsibility for going completely against my warnings and wishes. I’m sure this is not even adoption 101, but parenting 101. BUt the impending doom of tomorrow’s meeting, the fact that I slept less than 6 hours last night, and all the stress in my work life make me less than ready to face it.
I’m not being as unreasonable as she thinks I am ... if I could even have a name and a parent’s name -- validate an address that went with a name and phone number -- and talked to a parent, I’d be satisfied.Until she communicates with me further about her wishes, she is training the opportunity to sneak around and call a kid in TX for phone and internet privileges at home.
Am I mean?
So today I discover that she has spent most of the day on the phone with a guy she met in an online game chat room. Now, grant it, he probably is 14 or 15 and harmless, but the fact is that she went behind my back to call him and is now being absolutely impossible. After I told her she could not talk to him with my permission until I heard how they met and that there was a personal connection with someone we know LIVE, she started calling me by my first name (like that’s never happened -- duh -- the old “you’re not my mom, you’re Claudia routine -- BTDT).
Rivalling Viper Girl Vanessa from Cindy’s family, Salinda is being mean spirited and awful about my confrontation. She is declaring that she will disobey me and keep having contact with this no-named person in TX who I am supposed to call to confirm who he is but whose name I can’t know.
I am amazed that she can’t understand (or won’t probably) that if she doesn’t know anyone face-to-face that knows him face-to-face she can’t be sure he is who he says he is. She has all kinds of threats of what she is going to do. The sad thing is that this is just simple, safe parenting and she is refusing to accept responsibility for going completely against my warnings and wishes. I’m sure this is not even adoption 101, but parenting 101. BUt the impending doom of tomorrow’s meeting, the fact that I slept less than 6 hours last night, and all the stress in my work life make me less than ready to face it.
I’m not being as unreasonable as she thinks I am ... if I could even have a name and a parent’s name -- validate an address that went with a name and phone number -- and talked to a parent, I’d be satisfied.Until she communicates with me further about her wishes, she is training the opportunity to sneak around and call a kid in TX for phone and internet privileges at home.
Am I mean?
5 comments:
Absolutely not! My friend went through this with her daughter. She had the local police come and talk to her daughter about the dangers of Internet chatting -- the officer who came was in charge of tracking online predators, so he had lots of scary, real information.
There are protections you can put in place on the computer which will monitor keystrokes so you can always keep tabs on what she is saying and what he is saying too.
Heck no, you're not mean. All teenage girls are naive, and all of them will be taken advantage of unless moms like you (and my own mom, of course, who put me on restrictions every 15 minutes when I was a teenager) put their feet down.
Talking to somebody she doesn't even know. Good grief.
Mean would be to take away the telephone and the computer until she turns 18. Which is what I recommend.
Please don't assume that the young man is 14-15..that may be jut what he said.... you may want to check that out.
Meg
http://www.stpaul.gov/depts/police/icac/icac.html
This is the website for Minnesota Internet Crimes Against Children. These young people don't realize what they're getting into. Our rule is that I can read anything they're writing (chatting) at any time and they are only allowed to chat with people they know. They don't like those rules, but oh well! SOMEDAY they'll know it was for their own good.
NO way are you being mean!
My niece had an online friendship w/ a girl for years. What bothered me about it is that she said this girl was her very best friend, and they would be on the computer till late sometimes. My sister didn't feel like they were doing anything wrong, but it just made me uncomfortable b/c how did we really know this was a young girl her age. They were "friends" for years, but I think it finally died down.
I would also ask questions about her friend, but she just blew me off, and my sister told me not to worry. At least it all turned out OK, but it's very scary when you know there's a boy involved, and you don't know him!
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