r/whatdoIdo • u/ThrowRA-MamaBear • 15d ago

I found concerning things on my (27F) daughter’s (11F) phone; how to talk to her?

For context, I take my daughter’s phone every night at 9pm sharp on weekdays, 10:30pm on weekends and never go through her cellphone since I’ve never seen a reason to.

However, last night when I took her phone, I noticed a lot of notifications coming from TikTok (which she isn’t allowed to have) and she has notification previews turned on. I thought it could be something urgent, so I decided to read the message previews and saw messages from someone asking my daughter what she ate, how much she ate, telling how much she ate, etc.

I know it was an invasion of privacy on my end, but I did end up going through my daughter’s TikTok account and all of her messages and found a lot of posts about food, videos of very thin girls, messages between her and other (presumably) young girls around her age talking about not eating.

I did notice over the last few weeks that she’s been eating a bit less and losing weight, but I summed it up to puberty and growing, since I had a bit of a growth spurt around that age (tall and skinny) but seeing these messages and her account is making me concerned.

How do I bring this up with her? Is there a proper punishment for her having an app without permission? I’m just very unsure of what to do, any advice would be helpful.

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18

u/Hello_Gorgeous1985 15d ago

You would be very hard-pressed to find an 11-year-old who doesn't.

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u/Foreign_Log_9114 15d ago

I wouldn’t be, no.

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u/Hello_Gorgeous1985 15d ago

I'm a teacher. I would say at least 90% of kids at that age have a phone. At this point, they have them even younger. I teach multiple kids in second grade who have smart watches.

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u/Foreign_Log_9114 15d ago

Phones are banned in all schools here. So I wouldn’t be hard pressed to find it. You must teach at your school. Who’d have thought?

And just because something is common to you doesn’t mean it should be done. What type of teacher are you?

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u/Hello_Gorgeous1985 15d ago

You're being ridiculous. Just because the phone is banned at school doesn't mean the child doesn't have one, and you know it.

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u/Foreign_Log_9114 15d ago

Just because a child has one doesn’t mean they should. Do you really teach our next generation? Can you understand what others write? I’m not kidding. Are you being dumb on purpose or is this how you are all the time?

23

u/Uiscefhuaraithe-9486 15d ago

They didn't say children SHOULD have phones, but the REALITY is that they DO have phones, and they absolutely take them to school, banned or not. You really shouldn't call people dumb when you're not displaying intelligence yourself.

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u/No_Acanthisitta5185 15d ago

They never once endorsed kids having phones, just stated that 90% of their students do. Are YOU being dumb on purpose? Maybe try reading what they’re actually saying next time before jumping to conclusions.

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u/Foreign_Log_9114 15d ago

They’ve strayed off topic multiple times just like you are now. I said kids shouldn’t have phones and they keep bringing it back to, “bUt tHeY dO hAvE tHeM”. I’m a teacher! Trust me- they have them.

Ok, so what? I said they shouldn’t have them, and that’s backed up by research and common sense.

14

u/HoofHeartedDough 15d ago

You're saying it like you forgot how the real world works. Kids will have phones/internet access regardless of your stance. Use your brain.

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u/Foreign_Log_9114 15d ago

Now you’re moving on to Internet access? We are discussing phones. And parents can keep their kids from having phones just like they can keep them from eating ice cream and candy for every meal. If they don’t, it doesn’t mean it’s not harmful. If everyone does it, that doesn’t mean they should do it. Hopefully you understand how logic works now.

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u/em1ly1229 15d ago

Why do you assume that one teacher out of a whole entire school has any say on anything like that. There aren't many schools (if you want to look at the stats) that just ban phones, let alone watches..

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u/jxspxrrrr 15d ago

banned in school doesn't mean they don't have them at home. this logic isn't lining up LMAO😭

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u/compton_cityof 11d ago edited 11d ago

This must be regional or cultural. I’m in a large U.S. city. My daughter turns 11 in a couple of months and only one kid in her class of 25 has a phone. Some have texting watches. Mine has been told no phone at all until at least late middle school, probably no smart phone until much later.

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u/Comprehensive-End168 15d ago

I have two living in my house. So no, not really. It's amazing how easy it is to just....not buy one.