I have a 13.5 year old daughter. She is always on myspace.com... I do not know much about this website but heard many negative comments about it.

I try to tell my daughter to cut down on the time that she spends on this website but she does not listen. She continues to go on this site every time I enter her room. She ignored my requests along with her father telling her to chat on line on weekday.

I try to be my daughter friend and talk reasons with her. I emailed to her and explain how she has upsetting me. I ask her not to go on line while she is doing her homework but she does not listen. I ask her to go on line perhaps twice a week but not on on a daily basic. Whenever, I enter her bedroom, she is on this website. I'm stressing out with parenting her and feel that she does not respect me.

I feel that I can't communicate with my daughter. She does not clean her room and does her chores. I constantly have to ask her repeatedly to clean her room. What can I do?

Please help and give me some helpful tips.

Thanks
Nikki

Contact your provider and ask for parental control protection... it may be called something else in your community. You have the right to control what your under-aged child is viewing... for you pay the bill... it is time for you to be the mother not the friend. These actions will hurt for awhile but, the safety of your child is your responsibility

Nikki, I am also the mother of a 13 year old. But that is our only common bond. My daughter is forbidden to be on myspace, she knows it and does not ask, nor does she care. She is also forbidden to be in chat rooms, but she is not intrested anyway.

I am her mother first and her friend second. I set the rules and she follows them. Period, no questions asked.

Uuuggg, I see you let her have a computer in her bedroom :eek:? Let me guess, she has a webcam in her room too?? Out the door that would go if she were in my house! A child, and yes, that is what she is, should never be on the computer unsupervised, NEVER.

Do you have a clue about the online predators out there? Really do you, I mean really? I know of one here in my small town and he is a police officer, just hasn't been caught yet. So, do you have a clue? Have you even looked at her myspace account? Well, if not (and from the sound of your post I am pretty sure you havent), I am sure you are about to have an eye opening experience.


She ignored my requests along with her father telling her to chat on line on weekday.

You are the parent, you do not request. She is the child, she requests.


I emailed to her and explain how she has upsetting me.
You did WHAT :eek:? You actually e-mailed your child to explain how this is upsetting her? Please tell me this is not true!! You know what she did? She deleted it without even reading it.

Apparently she is the parent in this relationship, as she is controlling you and her father.


I constantly have to ask her repeatedly to clean her room. What can I do?
What can you do? You don't ask her to clean her room, you tell her. SHE ASKS YOU IF SHE CAN BE ON THE COMPUTER!!


She ignored my requests along with her father telling her to chat on line on weekday.
You are not the one to be requesting anything, she is. She is the child, you are the parent. She should ask for things and you should grant them for good behavior or revoke them for bad behavior.

First and foremost you and your husband need to grow the kahonas and be real parents. Parents are not friends until a great deal of respect has been earned, and you have not earned that respect.

Get that computer out of her room NOW before she runs off with someone who tells her he is 14, but really 40, and she meets up with him and she is abducted and brutally raped, I won't go on there.

You are the parent, grow the balls and be one!! Sorry if that sounds harsh, but your post sounds like it end in another post about your daughter being a sad statistic.

First on MySpace. It can be a dangerous place or it can be a lot of fun. It depends on how the user handles it. You NEED to get on MySpace and check out your daughter's profile and the ones' of people she has as buddies. If you she restricts her buddies to kids she knows offline, then its not too bad.

Second, you have a problem deeper than your daughter's use of MySpace. When did your daughter gain control of the household? A parent doesn't "request" that a 13 year odl do certain things, they tell them. Its all well and good to try to and be on good terms with your kids, but you are still the parent and you have a responsibility for their well-being that will sometimes make you the bad guy.

Take Luna's suggestion and contact your ISP. There are tools that will allow you to restict her access to the Internet to specified periods. If you told us how you get to the Net, we might be able to advise further.

But the most important thing is to retake control. If she doesn't clean her room or do her chores, then privileges should be taken away. No computer access, no television, no going out or whatever will get the message across that she is not in control.

nikki_vy,

I agree with the others. I have a 13 year old grandson living with me and I'm the boss. I encourage him to be independent and to think for himself but I have the last word. I have my computer in the sitting room and he is allowed on for two hours after school weekdays and for two hours Saturday and Sunday morning. He is into a game called World Of War Craft, an adventure game. He isn't much interested in anything else on the net yet. And he has a few PC games. But any misbehaving and that is the first privilege to go - computer privileges. You say you can't get her to do anything. Move the computer into the sitting room and restrict her use, let her earn her time on the computer.

Maybe moving the computer to a different room (ex: family room or master bedroom) would change the situation a bit. Myspace is very addicting, even for adults!

I'm sorry, but I think that is totally inappropriate for a 13 year old girl have an Internet connected computer in her bedroom!!

By allowing her un-monitored Internet access from the privacy of her bedroom, you have lost the ability to parent her online actions. Beyond MySpace - What about her email, or Instant Messenger, or chat forums, or other websites is she visiting or participating in? Is she giving out personally identifyable information, or her picture, or any of your personal information?

And the most obvious question - How much "accidental" exposure to porn has she had? Has it peeked her interest? Do you have any idea?

It's just bad... for so many reasons... for a girl that young to have private Internet access from her bedroom.


Add to that the fact that she isn't listening to you - or doing her chores.


I would - right now - remove that computer from her bedroom.

Using the computer and having access to the Internet is a privilege, not a guaranteed right. If she wants to earn the privilege back, she'll have to work for it.

As a parent, you can't always be your child's "friend" or "buddy". I would follow others' advice above and become more assertive as a parent.

While I agree with Philly for the most part, I have to disagree on 2 issues. First, there are many 13 year olds who can manage using the Internet on their own with minimal supervision. So I can't agree that its "totally inappropriate" for someone that age. Clearly it is for this 13 year old, but I can't agree with that as a general statement.

Second, I don't agree with what Philly thinks is the "obvious" question. Porn is not that attractive to a 13 year old girl (a boy YES). And, at 13, accidental exposure or even some curiosity is not going to be very harmful.
MySpace is mostly a cyberspace version of the corner playground, a place for kids to hang out and talk to their friends. Most MySpace users don't interact with strangers. And many don't go exploring outside of MySpace.

But the suggestion to move the computer from her room (in this instance) is a good one. But as I said, the real problem is that this kid has gained control of the household and the parents need to get it back. MySpace is just a sympton of that.

Sorry don't know much about myspace but know plenty about raising daughters, which I have three of 18, 13 and 11yrs. I know it is a very difficult time when they are teenagers and you are trying to keep them on the straight and narrow but you must keep tighter reins here.

You have to be FAIR but FIRM, please remove the computer and put it in a family room. She will wail and shout about privacy but stay strong and tell her that when she starts taking responsibility for the bills she will be mature enough to get her own house where she will have all the privacy she wants!

I can see why you emailed your daughter but don't you think that was just encouraging her to do something you don't want her doing? There's nothing like a good old fashioned talk and cuddles it feels so good!

Once you have the computer out of her room put up a timetable of when she is allowed on the computer. The only way this is going to work if you and your husband stay consistent and do not give in to her pressurizing you, which she will try as you have been quite soft in the past.

Lastly, once you have wrote the timetable for her computer you write a timetable for her chores if she does not comply you must have consequences or you are going to end up with a delinquent on your hands.

It is important that you and your husband stay together as a team and know what the rules are. It will be difficult and she will argue but in the end she will respect you for it and you will have kept your daughter very safe and secure.

Please visit www.cybertipline.com for help in understanding what your child is saying online. It also have fantastic tips for parents and discusses online predators.

I would have to disagree with Scottgem. Why do you think that girls aren't interested in porn or sex at the age of 13? Are you serious? Tv exposure alone is something that should be monitored throughout the early teenage years, not to mention the cyber world! I was accidentally exposed to porn when I was about 10 and I remember it to this day. I don't think that it is something anyone that young should be "curious" about (or for that to be okay) and also, where do you get off saying that *girls* that age are not interested in that sort of stuff? I lost my virginity at a relatively early age... my best friend (who's dad didn't really monitor her) lost her's around 12. So, besides there being an obvious defiance against her mother's requests, there are other problems that lie beneath that issue.
More so than that, what makes you think she may not have already met some internet "friends" that may be child predators? Have you ever seen the special on 20/20 about child predators? I think that would open your eyes to what REALLY could happen on the internet when children aren't being properly monitored. Think about it: we don't even know each other, yet we find a common website and talk about very personal and privet things. What could our kids be talking about and to whom?
~Mother to 2

The main issue with this girl is a lack od disipline on the part of the parents. She has taken over the house and does as she pleases without consequences. This has to change or the computer will be the least of your problems. I agree with all the posts here but it starts with mom and dad setting rules and enforcing them.

I would have to disagree with Scottgem. Why do you think that girls areNT interested in porn or sex at the age of 13?? Are you serious?

WHOA! One of the things I have learned in over 20 years of participating on boards like this is to be careful in reading what someone actually said, especially if you are going to be critical of it.

Did I say anything about sex? No! There is a BIG difference between being interested in porn and being interested in sex. Of course a 13 year old, nowadays, is curious and interested in sex. That is just too obvious at least in Western cultures. From what I've read, females are generally not as stimulated or interested in porn as men are. Younger girls especially are more likely to be disgusted by porn then anything else. From what you said I suspect your encounter at age 10 is remembered because you reacted negatively to it. Also, even today there is a big difference between 10 and 13. Ten+ years ago when you were 10, the gap was wider.

I stand by my statement that a 13 year old girl would not be as likely to be searching for porn. And I repeat, that doesn't mean she wouldn't be interested in sex. The two are different.

As for the experiences of you and your friend, do you claim that it was porn that contributed to it? I would find it hard to believe. Young girls are more influenced by the romaticism displayed by mainstream media, by peer pressure and by other factors. Not by porn.

As for the sexual predators out there, there is no denying they exist. I have know about them for a long time, Probably longer then you ever heard of the Internet. The 20/20 programs were not news to me. I took great care in monitoring my daughter's use of the Net and educating here about the dangers and the signals to look for. She is now 22 and has been using Myspace regularly for several years, I believe the dangers, which shouldn't be minimized, are somewhat overblown. As I said most kids restrict their contacts to people they know offline. If someone does not identify themselves they are ignored. That doesn't mean that parents shouldn't monitor the lists and the correspondence, I said that in my first response. But excessive use of MySpace is not an automatic indication that a girl may be involved with predators.

Finally, as most of us have pointed out, the Internet usage is a symptom of a bigger problem, the parental loss of control. That is the major problem that needs to be fixed. Once that is done, the other issues of Net addicition, potential dangers etc. can be dealt with.

ScottGem,


I'm sorry but I strongly disagree with this -

"And, at 13, accidental exposure or even some curiosity is not going to be very harmful."

I have gone on the computer looking for cheats for Playstation games for my grandson, and I have to say that some of the 'porn' that 'accidentally' pops up is bad and I'd say harmful to any child under 18.

18 might be stretching it a bit. But it is quite explicit sometimes.

ScottGem,
I'm sorry but I strongly disagree with this -

"And, at 13, accidental exposure or even some curiosity is not going to be very harmful."

I don't want to hijack this thread further so I opened a discussion on this here:
https://www.askmehelpdesk.com/member-discussions/how-harmful-porn-46418.html

MOTHER NOT FRIEND, I don't have a daughter but a 13 1/2 son he has my space. My husband and I check up ALL the time, He has learned of sex predators at school and all about internet connections. By all means do what you can to stop her. You pay the bills for her connections and social fun and you can take all that away, YOU have the power. A parent should always be a parent and not a friend, they would never say that you were their friend anyway. I do so agree with these other person's answers you need to step up. When she does not listen to you take it away for the day or disconnect it. Set a time for homework and check it. Email her teachers and keep in close touch with her work and grades at school. My husband and I email teachers all the time. If she is caught using it at night after hours, again take it away from her for the next day. That day will be hell but she will learn to respect what you say. Show her resources from the library that will help her to understand that the computer is a dangerous thing for girls and boys that are teenage. Girls have disappeared never to be seen again by the family that loves them. Tell her you want her to earn your trust. One thing my children would never have as long as they live with us is their own computer in their room that is connected to the internet. Our !7 year old has one in his room that is used for games and writing only. NOT CONNECTED. We have a family computer that is shared used for research for school and yes SUPERVISED my space. There are no secrets we make sure of that.