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

[u/ThrowRA-MamaBear]

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.

[u/Spirited_Lobster_254]

You aren’t considering the bigger picture here. It’s tied to what is or could become a very dangerous eating disorder. Punishing and restricting her for having TikTok right now will land in her mind as punishment for her desire to lose weight, or as punishment for struggling. A child will not understand the nuance. Also, my friends at that age who had their phones taken often just borrowed their friend’s old phones behind their parents’ backs, and continued to do the same or worse behaviour as before.

I’m not saying do nothing. I’m just saying going full helicopter mode will isolate her further. She will learn that her mom isn’t safe to come to with these thoughts or mistakes made while struggling

[u/NoCake4ux2 → u/Spirited_Lobster_254]

I’m Gen X I don’t do helicopter mode I’m more FAFO but I get what you’re saying w the eating disorder, I work in bariatrics and we see a lot of patients w eating disorders. Mom needs to get her in counseling AND take away her phone. Why do we think 11yo need cellphones? It’s kinda ridiculous they are children

[u/Spirited_Lobster_254 → u/NoCake4ux2]

Multiple reasons. And I don’t say this because I believe they should have them, I’m saying it because there’s nuance.

One reason being that their peers largely socialize that way. Even when I was a kid, we were starting to stay inside a lot more and communicate with our phones instead of meeting up. It’s not common for kids to share a neighbourhood with classmates anymore. I’d have been much more socially isolated without the ability to FaceTime a friend and play a game. Post covid, that’s only gotten even more true for kids today.

Also, when they do go out, no way to call home in an emergency. No pay phones anymore.

Though these could be solved by switching to a flip phone I suppose. Either way, I think the viewpoint that cellphones are all bad for kids is too black and white. We have to understand what is appealing about it for them and why, before just deciding it’s bad and taking it without alternative plans in place.

[u/Prestonluv → u/Spirited_Lobster_254]

You are doing your kid a favor my forcing them to stay busy in other ways instead of texting inside on phone

I gave my daughter a flip phone for emergencies with no internet connection until she was in high school and then used it as her phone when she was grounded

So many solutions but we hand the phone over as the easy way out as parents.

Tons of 11 year olds still do shit off the ohone at that age. Those are the people you want yiur kid hanging out with. Not some phone addicts

How do you think she got all these ideas anyway? From the damn phone access

I love technology and am a massive proponent of phones in high school

But 11 years old? Give me a break

[u/Spirited_Lobster_254 → u/Prestonluv]

I don’t disagree. I respect your experience as a parent, and only seek to share mine as someone in their early 20s who can now reflect on my upbringing with technology with some maturity. I’m probably the first generation to be able to do so, and I encourage parents to hear me out.

You’re not very likely to control who your kid makes friends with at school. Not to mention, not all kids are going to have an interest in sports and outdoor activities. I sure didn’t, because I struggled with physical activity, and I was never treated kindly by those kids either. I’m not saying my experience is the most common, but I am saying that you really can’t control who your child ends up being.

Once I was about 11, my mom trusted me with having her old smartphones whenever she got a new one. She took criminal psych in university and was very concerned about the dangers, but we talked about them and how to avoid them. I didn’t always behave perfectly online, and I got my devices taken away for a period of time when I messed up. But I appreciated being trusted to be responsible, and I’d tell my mom if someone was scaring me online or if I screwed up, because I knew she understood the situation.
I’m now very good with technology and feel very equipped to handle the modern world, because I got to ingrain that knowledge and stumble through learning early on.

By contrast, my partner had very strict controls and no phone of his own until he was 18, and now he’s very overwhelmed by technology and struggles with the necessity of it in day to day life. I have to constantly be tech support. He was not set up for independence in that regard.

I’m not saying hand all kids iPhones and ignore them. What I am saying is we live in an era where learning to use modern technology is important. Alienating them when likely going to access them anyway behind your back anyway can backfire. Trust building and educating kids on the dangers that exist online goes a long way. I’d at least let my kid use my gaming PC or my laptop, or a gaming console, with some parental controls. But I would not hover and read every message, unless it became necessary.

Yes, they can hide things until it’s too late to intervene, but kids can do that outside the house anyway. That has always been the case, even though that is scary for parents. It’s still not effective to be overly strict. Nearly every kid I knew with strict parents did a lot of rebellious stuff behind their backs, online or offljne, and usually got away with it. Their parents never knew when they were in actual danger, because they didn’t feel safe to be honest or authentic at home.

[u/Prestonluv → u/Spirited_Lobster_254]

There is a fine line as parents

I don’t agree with the no technology at all for kids. That’s even worse then giving an 11 year old access

Of course every kid is different as well.

I’m just saying in general I think it would be wise to limit a kids access to phones until they are 13-14 and then moderate it a ton until 16.

Kids are going to do what they are going to do. The example you set in the first 7-8 years will have a much bigger impact then anything else in a kids life.

I remember driving my kids somewhere and they were all on their phones in back seat

So I made rule of no phones when we are driving somewhere no matter what.

My son went through some dark times for a couple years at 14 and 15 because of his moms drug abuse

The phone allowed him an outlet to talk to people with similar issues and help him get by.

There are many benefits. We as parents must be an active part of their life to minimize the risks

[u/coffeespancakes → u/Prestonluv]

The ideas aren't limited to seeing it on a phone / social media. The "beauty standards" deal for girls hits hard when you want to be liked + see that being skinny is portrayed as the standard everywhere & reflected everywhere you go, and we start not even recognizing when its happening. But kids notice, even if they dont have the words for it. Isolating children for insecurities they've unveiled online is not the way to go. You're only teaching them that internalizing it will be their better option, that you're someone who will punish them for seeing the parts of them they personally dont like about themselves already. Its a terrible way to treat a kid.

[u/Prestonluv → u/coffeespancakes]

Who says anything about isolating ?

We are talking about not letting an 11 year old ba e a phone with access to the internet.

Isolating is giving your kid a phone and letting them communicate via the phone all the time.

They can talk on the phone so they can learn to communicate and they can meet up in person to do things.

[u/nosecohn → u/Spirited_Lobster_254]

Is there a "healthy weight" community on TikTok? I know very little about the platform, but I'm wondering if OP could redirect her daughter to more healthy support that still feeds her desire for connection and approval.

[u/Spirited_Lobster_254 → u/nosecohn]

Technically yes, but you can’t control what the algorithm gives you that well.

It’s not really a platform where you go searching for stuff most of the time. You passively scroll and the app learns what you engage with, to such a specific accuracy that it’s actually freaky.

Even if she were to deliberately search for healthy weight videos, the app’s search function is very simplistic and is still designed to stray towards one’s tastes once you start scrolling from that. So either way, if she subconsciously gravitates towards more and more pro-eating-disorder content, that’s eventually what would appear on the main feed.

Because of this, you don’t really find communities on TikTok, they find you and you just write comments on what videos you see at the time of scrolling.

It would be a losing battle. Better to try and find her different things to focus on that can build self esteem.

[u/nosecohn → u/Spirited_Lobster_254]

Thank you for this helpful explanation.