I don’t know, I wondered the same thing. They were pretty confident that my daughter is safe…I think I am going to call back tomorrow for clarification. There were so many things I should have asked or said that I didn’t (I’m kind of a mess in these situations.)
My daughter has the added benefit (?) of having me around. I was an awful teenager and know the tricks and what to look for a bit. The only thing that has really changed is the technology and the “crimes”. When I was sneaking around it was to party, and I didn’t start that until I was a touch older…
But for full disclosure, I did get pregnant at 16 (and married shortly after) and my baby-daddy (EX Husband) was 26 at the time, so I sort of know how she is thinking. But still, even given that, at 13 I think I still thought boys were icky! It’s the starting so young that I wasn’t expecting.
We thought about school. Thinking about making her leave the phone at the breakfast table each morning. The school has rules against cell phones anyway, so we’d really just be enforcing that. I’m not too sure just yet, but it is something we are thinking about.
Luckily for me, I don’t sleep. At least not much any more. And she’s still on meds that make her sleepy, so trying to wait me out at night is a no-win situation for her. I have disconnected the internet from “her” computer so she can’t go online if she wakes up before me in the morning. I feel like a damn prison guard!
Now I am scared to read that thread! I do remember what it was like, but as I said my own troublesome teen era started a few years later than hers and my older girl has never been like this, so I was unprepared for it so soon I think.
I know. Our fervent hope is that she will feel like she is being watched and that will keep her in line…but it didn’t work for the computer so there is no reason to think it will work for the phone.
I am thinking we will play along for a day or too and then the cell phone will be returned to bio-mom with a warning about giving it back/buying a new one. Bio-mom doesn’t have visitation again this week (Spring Break still, so her dinner visit is superseded) and she has a “no unapproved gifts” clause in her visitation orders anyway, so if push comes to shove we could fight about that in court too (but God I hope it doesn’t come to that!). My personal thoughts are to smash the stupid thing and return it to bio-mom in pieces, but I know that is just wishful thinking (before anyone says anything, I’d never actually do that! It’s just a fantasy!).
I missed the edit window but just saw this typo and wanted to point out that I do indeed know the difference between too and two. Please just mentally substitute the proper two in there for me.
Don’t let yourself believe that. People (and children especially) will be infinitely resourceful in situations like this.
I’m only 20 right now, but that means I was in middle school and high school during the beginning of the cellphone boom. I promise you, I promise you that those cellphone rules mean nothing. She might use her phone in the bathroom, at lunch, while skipping a class, or, if she develops a skill for it, in the middle of class right under the teacher’s nose. That’s what we did, despite the threat of having our phones confiscated. Very few of us were caught.
Be honest with yourself; can you actually hear the clicking of a phone’s buttons from the next room? If so, it’s a fair bet that she can hear the sound of you getting out of bed, walking across your room, opening your door and approaching hers. Plenty of time to turn off the phone and hide it away. And if not, she’ll be texting anyway. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t take precautions, because you can, but you need to assume that she’s smart enough to use it.
Nah, that’s normal. matt mcl gave us the French name for it: l’esprit de l’escalier, something like “the ghost at the staircase”. The only people who come up with every question they need to ask and every witty retort they can make on the spot are people in movies, and those cheat The rest of us leave with a nagging feeling and then go “:smack: This is what I should have asked!”
Kids are being sold the notion that it’s purrfectly fine for a 3yo girl to wear a skirt that shows off the glittery Juicy written across her panties, for a 10yo boy to look like Daddy (P. Daddy, that is) or for a 13yo to have intercourse. Amazingly enough, people buy what they’re sold.
Those rules are there in order to give teachers weaponry against particularly-obnoxious students or, as in this case, to arm the parents. I’m in grad school right now: every single classroom and computer lab has signs stating “no food or drinks can be consumed in this room”; yesterday in PoliSci class (14:15-15:15, straight after the 12:15-14:15) there were something like 5 people eating lunch and more than 20 with drinks, out of 50ish.
Hell, I can barely hear the clicking of the phone buttons when she is next to me! What I am doing tonight (and why I feel like a prison guard) is listening at her door…intently. I’ve been up there every few minutes since she went to bed, so at least I am getting my exercise by going up and down the stairs. She might hear me coming, but I am pretty light footed and our floors are carpeted. I have surprised her a time or two unintentionally, so I am working under the assumption that she won’t hear me, but being very careful to be quiet in addition to that. We also have a 114 pound dog running around who is not light on his feet, so chances are good that any footfalls would be blamed on him anyway.
Oh I know about the school’s rules…and that they are rarely followed. In fact one of my daughter’s friends asked me to pose as her mother and complain about her phone being confiscated (I didn’t) and they all giggle about learning to text in class, etc. I am just hoping that with my daughter I can say that in addition to not wanting her to have unsupervised phone access, I also want to enforce the school rules. Maybe I can teach her a little better about following the rules instead of looking for ways around them. (I know that’s not likely, but a parent can dream…;))
LOL I am not sure why but that cracked me up. P. Daddy, P Diddy…it’s all good.
A bit draconian, but it would get the idea across …
Wouldn’t work while she was at school, and I forsee that she could borrow someone else’s cell phone when you confiscate hers in the morning while she is at school …
I like it but it would have the unfortunate side effect of jamming our cell phones too, wouldn’t it? I could deal with that (I never wanted my cell phone in the first place and my husband is the only one who calls me on it anyway most of the time) but I am afraid my husband couldn’t. He uses his cell for work-related calls and part of his contract is that he is available by phone almost 24/7 so that would throw a huge monkey wrench into that for him…and as you said she has friends with cell phones and I am sure she was using theirs long before she had her own. So it is a nice thought, but impractical for our purposes right now I think. Now if there was a specific phone jammer…that I could work with.
But all this talk of the phone usage and all the “spying” I have done tonight (happy note: the girl snores, which I had forgotten about, but has proven comforting tonight. :)) I have started to think about longer-term control of the issue.
What do y’all think of this idea (and cut me some slack for it being 4 AM so I am possibly not thinking clearly ;)). We have been talking about moving bedrooms around as my oldest son is about to go to basic training (he has the basement) and I have been wanting to turn one of the upstairs bedrooms into a computer/sewing room…so would I be incredibly out of line thinking that now might be a good time for the girls to share a bedroom? I could put them into the (extremely large) basement room and then I would know that my older daughter would know what the younger is getting up to in her room.
It’s just a thought right now, because I do not want my older girl to become a spy for me, and I don’t want them to lose any trust or sisterly love over the youngest’s behavior but then too the youngest has been hiding all of this from her sister as well…so would doubling them up make her sneakier or would it take away her ability to do so?
One is “Smart Limits” which allow you to restrict which hours the cell phone and texting can be used, and, a list of approved or unapproved numbers that can be called/texted.
A GPS like tracking (that is opaque to her) that will tell you exactly where the phone is. Concerned that she is where she says she is? You can know this without her knowing.
I assume the other cell carriers have similar features.
As her guardian, I believe you have rightful access to the logs for her phone useage. If not, you need to PROVIDE a phone and remove this one.
Every SMS and call destination and time is kept. (Just look at Tiger Woods of you want examples)
I’m not the parent of teenagers yet…got another 10 years before living that particular hell…the pregnant at 16 by a 26 year old? Sounds like something you might want to let her know about. Kind of a ‘I’m being a bitch about this because I lived it.’
Sure, she might think it’s unfair because you got to ‘sow your wild oats’ and she wants to, too…I dunno.
Clearly the FBI wouldn’t stop an investigation just because the predator and the victim didn’t talk for a day. Between that and the fact that they really didn’t seem all that concerned about what or even if you told your daughter about the investigation tells me they already took him down. My guess is that he’s been arrested. I’ll bet that you see no activity at all on his FB page from this point on. In fact, even if he doesn’t go to jail, my guess is that part of his probation will be that he’s not allowed to have a computer.
I hope it wasn’t worded like that, I’m 38 years old and that wording sounds so “square”.
Oh, don’t I know that! :rolleyes: I still have no idea how many BFFs there are in an LOL …
I like the idea (we’ve changed our kids’ (ages 5 and 7) bedrooms around the odd time, but mainly because my wife just decides all of a sudden to change them (“something to do” I guess).
I’m wondering, though, how much younger trusts older? Is older a confidant to her? Does she see her as an ally against the “evil mom and dad”?
My biggest question at this point is the Texas trip. Is this still a go? With her? I’d be wary about having her go there even if it’s three months away, even if the Feds have knocked on Predator’s door, cutting off communication, she is undoubtedly still pining for him, and is just counting the days that she can get out to see him to find out why he hasn’t been talking to her and so she can finally meet the “man of [her] dreams”.
Yeah, from what it sounds like has been happening they may very well have enough to nail him to the wall just from accessing his face book account, especially if he is already on probation.
I’m guessing that you are wanting to save the major confrontation until you have the therapist in attendance, but I would probably approach it along the lines of “It has come to our attention that you have been in contact with a sex offender” It’s accurate based on what you know he intended to do, and has apparently done in the past, and it’s possible that it might shock some perspective into her, I’d also emphasise that you have been very much afraid for her safety, and that is the motivation for the measures you are going to obviously have to take. I don’t think you should feel compelled to give much else in the way of details of what you know, how you know, and what you have done.
As other people have pointed out, it’s highly unlikely you can prevent her from using the internet and mobile phones, so you might want to look into ways of providing phones and accounts that she can use, but you will be able to monitor completely (are there any phone carriers that will give you bills with a list of all calls made?).
If at all possible it might be nice to persuade your daughter to write an apology to the girl who tried to warn her, I have a horrible feeling that for that girl in particular this will have turned out to be one of those cases of no good deed goes unpunished
Some of us who are anxious around strangers are less uncomfortable with them online. Online, it’s harder for them to see that we’re anxious, so the whole vicious cycle of feeling more anxious because we know that the person we’re talking to knows we’re anxious doesn’t happen.
Part of the problem is that all of our cues for when we’re in a bad situation have evolved over the millions of years that computers didn’t exist. So now, when we communicate via this very recently developed medium, we just have no way to see the warning signs that might scream out to us in person to holy-shit-GTFO-now.
If you’re not wanting the older sister to become a spy, you could have an honest conversation with her and let her know that you hope if she sees something dangerous going on, she’ll come to you with that information but you aren’t asking her to become a tattletale.
I really think you should reconsider letting the 13 y/o have the phone at night and at school. I talked on the phone all night long after my parents had gone to bed. I know you don’t want to be the bad guy but I really do think you’re being too permissive with her. I’d have a conversation with her and let her know “If you do this, this is what will happen” then follow through with the consequence.
Because of her issues with her mom, she might need to be kept on a bit of a shorter leash for her own safety.
Just my opinion and I wish you the best with a difficult situation.
Teenagers always had problems with this kind of thing, though, even before computers. One problem is, we learn about those bad situations by experience. Teenagers don’t have the experience that an adult does.
Okay, I called them back this morning and got a little bit more out of them. So at least their seeming to not really care too much about this guy makes sense. They said, “Mrs. Katze, I know you are concerned and technically I am not supposed to tell you this, but…” I don’t know if he is telling the truth or just trying to give me the feeling that he is letting me in on a secret. Predator is (was) allowed to have a computer but apparently something he was doing unrelated to my daughter violated his parole on a charge that I didn’t find when looking up his records. So the first thing that happened (without my knowledge) was that he was picked up on that violation and is spending the next few days in jail pending…whatever they do…They said that he is unlikely to go back to jail for any length of time because the violation is “minor” but that I shouldn’t worry about my daughter talking to him until at least Monday or so…and not even then “if he knows what’s good for him” which he obviously doesn’t. They assured me that they haven’t dropped any investigation and that if they have any pertinent information regarding my daughter they will contact me…I just don’t know what they consider “pertinent”.
The trip is still on for us, not for her. We are sending her to visit family in another state at that time. I talked to some of my in-laws, gave them the Cliff’s notes version of what’s going on and they said they’d be happy to shelter her for us that week. It’s a really great place that she loves with cousins and aunts and uncles she hasn’t seen in a while, so her vacation should still be a lot of fun for her.
That’s exactly it, and exactly how I am (but my daughter not so much, she is pretty outgoing in person too). I can “talk” all day to strangers online, even sharing intimate and personal details of my life or arguing silly points, but in person (and to a lesser extent on the phone) I turn into a quivering mass of nerves and it takes all my strength to maintain a “normal” appearance (sometimes I don’t, and sometimes I really do shake) and to form a coherent sentence. Talking in person with strangers is an exhausting exercise…after a party for example I need a couple of hours to decompress and rest up until I feel normal again.
In the meantime I am still looking for daughter’s cell phone. I can’t do anything through the provider because I know nothing about it. Until recently I didn’t know daughter had one of her own. It was a gift from her bio-mom who told her (apparently in so many words) to hide it from us…and she has. Daughter denied its existence as long as she could (despite having the number on her FB page and talking to her friends about texting etc.) and now says that she does have it, but left it at bio-mom’s house. I am not buying that for a second, and she had until today for the phone to materialize, but so far it hasn’t. She apparently wants to do this the hard way…
If you know the cell phone number, you could try calling it. If its on it will ring (unless its on vibrate), but if it is someone else and they pick up, you will at least know where it is.
And she’s still on meds that make her sleepy, so trying to wait me out at night is a no-win situation for her. I have disconnected the internet from “her” computer so she can’t go online if she wakes up before me in the morning. I feel like a damn prison guard!
Our fervent hope is that she will feel like she is being watched and that will keep her in line…but it didn’t work for the computer so there is no reason to think it will work for the phone.
The rest of us leave with a nagging feeling and then go “:smack: This is what I should have asked!”
but it would have the unfortunate side effect of jamming our cell phones too, wouldn’t it? I could deal with that (I never wanted my cell phone in the first place and my husband is the only one who calls me on it anyway most of the time) but I am afraid my husband couldn’t. He uses his cell for work-related calls and part of his contract is that he is available by phone almost 24/7 so that would throw a huge monkey wrench into that for him…and as you said she has friends with cell phones and I am sure she was using theirs long before she had her own. So it is a nice thought, but impractical for our purposes right now I think. Now if there was a specific phone jammer…that I could work with. 