DD is 15, just moved home from dad's-internet question

[goodmomma76]

OK. Long story short...she wanted to live with her dad, I let her go for a while, even though I knew it was a bad idea, but he filed in court, and I knew he would win because she was old enough in our state to choose. My X is hot headed, and very controlling. Well her dad sent her home because he couldn't deal with her anymore.

I let DD have myspace and facebook at my house, the computer is in the kitchen, and the rule is I can read whateer you do, it's not private. I have passwords and such. And she is only supposed to be friends with people she knows in real life.

This is the current dilemna---her dad and SM set up a fake person on facebook. They asked her to be friends, and she did (rule break #1, since she didn't know this person.) Then they basically asked her to come out and meet this 18yo she never met before, and she agreed to sneak out and do it (#2.) And then they basically ask her how far she would be willing to go, and she says not all the way, but pretty far...AAAAAAHHH. X emailed me a printout of the conversation. First, let me say I wouldn't put it past them to fake some of the conversation, but let's say I do wonder about this now.
She knows he was sending it to me, and says she knew it was a fake person all along (X says no way, she didn't until she found the name and password written by the computer at their house) WWYD???? She's only 15, and I worry about predators on the net, and yet she's 15, and they didn't trust her AT ALL, so tricked her and set her up to fail all of the time, and I don't want to make that same mistake. There has to be some level of trust...but did this breach it???? Any ideas would be greatly appreciated!!!!!!

[fork]

It could very well be that she knew it was a fake person, even though she obviously didn't know it was her dad. She could have been faking right back. Did she give out any personal details? Did she actually try to sneak out?

I think that whole thing was pretty terrible for dad to do, and I think there is a big difference between saying she would sneak out, and actually trying to sneak out. Of course, when I was a teen I had all sorts of fake online persona's, and probably had more than one perv hanging out at a mcdonald's on the other side of the state waiting for me to show up. The internet rules I had were simple, don't give out your last name, address or phone number, and if I wanted to meet someone then I had to talk to mom and she would make it happen (safely). I never broke the rules, but I pretended to a lot with fake stuff.

Of course there are teens that do think it's a good idea to sneak out and meet up with some internet stranger, but I think this is a rarity, and usually happens after talking for a long time. I think dad did a terrible thing that really has the potential to damage his relationship with his daughter for a long time. The worst part is that it didn't really tell him anything. He doesn't know if she had any intention of actually doing what she said, or just saying it because it's what he wanted to hear. She did break one of your rules "no friends you don't know" so maybe you should address that and use it as an opportunity to talk about why you have the rest of the rules that you have.

[Aislinn]

Sticky situation, but a learning experience

As a single mother of teens, I can relate to the frustration with having an ex-spouse engage in less than stellar parenting behavior.
You basically have two issues here. One, your daughter's father and stepmom basically broke every rule in parenting 101 in their deception. As parents our job is not to try to deceive our children into steering down the wrong course. It's to set boundaries, which you did, and to maintain them when our kids miss the mark, which they will from time to time. There are going to be some serious trust issues between your child and her father for some time, and I hope that eventually they will get beyond this. Perhaps he started from a good place, I don't know the man, but he should have quit and confronted his daughter the moment she accepted him as a friend. To carry it as far as he did was immature, irresponsible, and just plain wrong. Kids at this age are not biologically designed to assess far reaching consequences and he blew an opportunity to help her be responsible,and to learn something, and I say that as a mother and a teacher.

The second issue is the fact that your daughter did, indeed, break the Myspace rules you set down (while she must have been freaked to descover his deception, I do not believe she knew it was him - she would probably have stopped going along with it if she did). Those rules are in place for a good reason - to keep her safe. I have similar rules, I randomly check accounts in and out of my children's presence. I've had them delete friends with questionable content, and they are to never engage in conversations with people they don't know. Also, it's important to check, because as careful as they try to be, kids can quite innocently give clues as to their whereabouts.

If it were me, I would enforce the myspace consequences, slowly give priveledges back while providing opportunities to be responsible. The dad situation is tricky...it really should be discussed with her, but not in a way that creates a situation where you are turning her against him.