Worried about my 16 year old sisters online activity

LegacyUser

Long story short my little 16 year old sister met a boyfriend last summer online who she claimed to be 16, it was later revealed he was a lot older. We didn't know about it for quite a few months during which time they got very close but did not meet. When my parents found out there was war and all her tech was taken from her. Things got out of hand, both her reaction and my parents. It's caused a big rift in their relationship and rebuilding her trust is proving difficult with any of us and she was pretty distraught and upset for months.

Things got so bad that she is now staying with me and my husband and has her phone back to stay in touch with friends at home. She's going to go to a Leaving Cert college here and staying with me for the school year. She gets messages from friends in the day and I ask about them and she tells me bits of the gossip from home as she goes. She watches youtube and netflix on the phone at night and I often go into her room late at night before I sleep for a chat and she is laying there doing that and she goes to sleep around 12 or 1.

The thing is the last few nights I've found it hard to sleep and checked viber myself messing with my phone and noticed she's appearing online every few minutes until around 4am. I went into her room a few times the last few nights and she seemed to be sleeping, but she would have heard me coming. I've asked her about it and she swears blind she's not on the phone at that hour. It has come to a near showdown and now I feel me pushing it or confiscating the phone at night would be a step I don't want to take as it's so close to term starting. Next week she'll be out all day and can be chatting to whoever she likes on it all day too.She is pretty vulnerable. I don't want things to go off course again over a stupid phone mistake or technical blip if she is telling the truth. I of course would whip it away in a second if I thought she was online so much at those hours in light of what has happened in the past for her safety.

I was wondering if anyone has any advice? I've read up on the accuracy of "online" and "last seen" times on apps, mostly in the context of affairs and most people seem to trust them. In the daytime I'm checking her status and it seems to be accurate when we're together in the living room both on our phones.
I've tried talking calmly, begging her to be honest, that we can talk about anything together and cope as long as it's out in the open. She maintains indignantly that I'm trusting an app over her. If I thought she was onto a friend all night I'd be relieved but I feel she'd just tell me but instead she's swearing blind she's not using it at all. Maybe I'm being overly anxious. I don't know.

Sardonicat

She's 16. A child. You are the adult. It's your home. If you say no phone after midnight then so be it. You don't need to give a reason or get into a debate.

Did she come and live with you as a result of your folks removing her devices?

Hannibal_Smith

Could you impose certain times of day when she's allow have the phone/tablet and at night time you have them?

The_Conductor

Presumably she is using the house wifi- can you just set time blocks on it?
Also- there is a similar device for mobile networks- which is simple to setup which blocks the signal within certain time blocks.

If she is going into Leaving Cert year- and shes up until 4AM in the morning on Viber- honestly- how the hell is she supposed to function................?

yosser hughes

You can turn the wifi off between certain hours if you want; in your router's settings. Say between 1am and 6 am?
It's easily done.It won't prevent her using her own credit but it's something.

silverharp

The_Conductor wrote: »

Presumably she is using the house wifi- can you just set time blocks on it?
Also- there is a similar device for mobile networks- which is simple to setup which blocks the signal within certain time blocks.

If she is going into Leaving Cert year- and shes up until 4AM in the morning on Viber- honestly- how the hell is she supposed to function................?

im not aware of a time block option on virgin, my solution was to buy a smart plug controlled by an app that i can plug the router power supply into

Ghekko

I'd just take her phone as she's going to bed and give it back in morning. It will be easier next week when back at school as no doubt she'll be going to bed before you so tell her to turn off her phone and leave it downstairs. Then either take it up to your room or hide it elsewhere in case she gets up looking for it. This is what I'll be doing when my teens go back to school next week. Whatever about school holidays, there's no way they will have the opportunity to be online til all hours during school term. I think it's addictive so every time they wake they'll most likely pick it up so it's best that they don't have it at night.

Seth Brundle

You can be confident that the time on the app is 100% correct. She's lying to you.
Phones are addictive and too much time in front of them makes the user more irate.
Children need downtime before bedtime for a good sleep. The phone should be left in a different room until 8am for example or you won't fund it.
Be prepared at some point for a stand off and dont back down once: if you back down she will ignore any further threats or instructions.
You are responsible for her and her current behaviour (online until 4am) could lead to her failing her Leaving Cert.

wiggle16

silverharp wrote: »

im not aware of a time block option on virgin, my solution was to buy a smart plug controlled by an app that i can plug the router power supply into

That sounds ideal... though if she's crafty she'll just plug it into a mains socket when you're asleep I'd look into contacting the provider and seeing if there is a timeblock option available from them. Or take the power cable to bed with you.

Fair play to you for stepping in and taking her in. I see where you are coming from but it sounds like you are being too soft, if I'm honest. You can see she's online, but she's told you she's asleep, so she's lying about it anyway. The online/last seen feature of apps is accurate, as they only change when the app has established or ended an internet connection, respectively; ie, when it's been opened and used. So to be honest I would trust the app over her, unfortunately.

As others have said, she is 16, and is living in your house: it's not unreasonable of you to say no phones after 12am or whenever. It's your house so it's entirely your call. It might sound authoritarian but you do not need to give a reason.

If you're concerned about losing trust you can tell her that the reason is because it's her leaving cert year (and that's a perfectly valid reason too, anyway) but I would also consider the fact that trust works both ways. You allowed her use of the phone etc because you trusted her, but she is quite clearly lying to you about something or someone.

You have to weigh up what's more important and what's best for her. As you say, she is vulnerable. She is also 100% lying to you. If she is hiding someone from you or even talking to that guy again, then I think banning wifi after midnight and being the bad guy for a while is a small price to pay.

Either way, whether your suspicion is right or wrong, she has her leaving cert coming up anyway. Most of us here did not have wifi (or even the internet) growing up. She will get over it!

pl4ichjgy17zwd

I don't know about Viber, but my Facebook messenger regularly declares me online when I'm not.

Goose76

For what it’s worth, I find the Viber last seen time to be very inaccurate compared to whatsapp.

GingerLily

Liliana Pitiful Sundae wrote: »

I don't know about Viber, but my Facebook messenger regularly declares me online when I'm not.

Facebook messenger is definitely not reliable!

OU812

Get “OurPact”. Install the certificate on her device and the app on yours.

From that you can turn off all but the core apps - phone, text message, clock etc.

All third party apps can be switched off.

You can do it remotely or else set a schedule, so it turns off automatically at (for example) midnight & turns back on at 7am. Or for school & homework time.

You can still call or text her, she can still call and text you.

It’s free for the basic version with this function, if you subscribe it’s got many more functions.

It removes all the friction. Brilliant app. Brilliant service.

I have no connection apart from being a very satisfied user.

splinter65

Sending their child to live with her sister was the worst thing your parents could have done. Your mother should have toughed it out.
Your parents overreacted and then displayed that they couldn’t cope with a difficult teenager by sending her away to another house.
Teenagers are absolutely crying out for someone to be in charge.
If your sister thinks she is now living with someone who is really just a loving friend (you) then she knows no one is really in charge and she’ll just get worse.
Your parents need to get professional parenting advice in a hurry and she needs to go back home and stick to rules and regulations and EVERYBODY must be completely consistent.

c.p.w.g.w

I know I'm going to get called all sorts.

Keylogger software, will let you know what she's doing. Where she's doing it. It'll give you her passwords if she is accessing sites your unaware of. Getting it onto her phone could be difficult

When she's chatting to men online who are older, that's a massive red flag. And as she is child, if she were to send nudes, she is technically distributing child porn.

Finchie1276

Hi

I think it is really a bad idea to have her live with you. She has got to be able to sort out her differences however difficult it may be- what model is she being set for conflict resolution as an adult?. Your parents also have opted out and responded to a perfectly appropriate concern they made which she didn't like by allowing her an escape route. You are all in between a rock and hard place now as she has got her way, has pushed all the boundaries and found they were actually swinging doors to freedom. In short she has had no consequences. This is hard to reboot but she should go home, realise the gravity of what she did and respect her parents. Your parents need to learn ways to communicate assertively with her and she needs to learn to listen to and respect opinions that differ from her own.

Phones in my house are not allowed past the hall after 6pm. One check allowed at 9pm then nothing till morning. No tech upstairs and no wifi upstairs deliberately.

Don't want to sound like I'm ticking you off but you need to step out of parenting her and step back into your role as a sister.

Finchie1276

splinter65 wrote: »

Sending their child to live with her sister was the worst thing your parents could have done. Your mother should have toughed it out.
Your parents overreacted and then displayed that they couldn’t cope with a difficult teenager by sending her away to another house.
Teenagers are absolutely crying out for someone to be in charge.
If your sister thinks she is now living with someone who is really just a loving friend (you) then she knows no one is really in charge and she’ll just get worse.
Your parents need to get professional parenting advice in a hurry and she needs to go back home and stick to rules and regulations and EVERYBODY must be completely consistent.

The best advice you'll get all evening.

Fakediamond

Can you be sure she’s still not in touch with the older man? It’s easy enough to groom a teenager and convince them that it’s them against the world.

wiggle16

Fakediamond wrote: »

Can you be sure she’s still not in touch with the older man? It’s easy enough to groom a teenager and convince them that it’s them against the world.

Defo. The whole "love against all the odds" narrative is very easy to fall into.

This might sound a bit cray cray, but:
If she's adamant that she's not online at night, it's not hard to prove it either way. Ask her to leave the phone with you for a night, in a drawer for example, with the wifi turned on but the screen locked. Send a message to make sure it's not on flight mode. Then check her last seen as usual during the night. If she's telling the truth and the phone is somehow active while she's asleep, then the phone will show that viber etc was last seen/online while the phone is in the drawer and out of use. And if she's going to be asleep anyway and has nothing to hide, there shouldn't really be an objection to such an experiment. If she's so indignant about being accused of using the phone at 4am, then she should be only too happy to prove you wrong by leaving the phone with you for a night.

Unfortunately all it will likely prove is that she is lying: regardless of their accuracy, last seen/online time stamps are updated when the app is activated and establishes an internet connection. Even if the app is constantly updating itself, the last seen should be pretty accurate. If she's showing as online, then it means she's online.

You have an emphasis on rebuilding trust, and that's fair, but that has to come from her in the first instance. She is the one who gave you and your parents reason not to trust her, and trust does have to be earned back when its lost.

Seth Brundle

I wouldnt get into testing whether there are posts during the night: just say "that from now on there are no phones at night because its leaving cert year, period". Getting into a scrap about her potentially lying is not a good start.

LolaJJ

Wow! Why is this teenager being given so much power? She has already proven herself as incapable of dealing with the responsibility of having tech freedom.

If she is staying in your home, then you're not the sister/friend. You're the adult. Your folks were right to restrict her tech access following on from what happened previously and you should have enforced the same ban.

There's plenty of evidence and research on how damaging it is to have phones/blue lights/screens in your room while you sleep for you to make a "no phones in your bedroom at night" rule that has nothing to do with her suspected nocturnal activities.

You can always claim to be doing the same thing yourself.

.......

I am finding it difficult to understand why she has unsupervised access to technology having already shown that she cannot be trusted with it.

I wouldnt even be entertaining an argument on whether or not the online function is correct. Just take the phone away at night.

LegacyUser

Take the phone at night, simple. She has zero need to have a phone in her room overnight. You’re the adult. Kids are abducted by older men after meeting them online, this isn’t something that only happens in other countries. You know those kids that go missing for days that you see online, they haven’t all just run off by themselves. If she’s not willing to live by your rules under your roof tell her she can go home. Your parents were absolutely right in restricted access. Chances is are she’s in contact with the same or other older man.

Wesser

So much emphasis on turning off the phone at night. Surely he can contact her by day too!! No one seems to be addressing that issue. The issue of...him!!!

Wesser

So much emphasis on turning off the phone at night. Surely he can contact her by day too!! No one seems to be addressing that issue. The issue of...him!!!

.......

Wesser wrote: »

So much emphasis on turning off the phone at night. Surely he can contact her by day too!! No one seems to be addressing that issue. The issue of...him!!!

Is it feasible for her not to have a phone at all?

Really the best option here is for her to be educated about the dangers of online communications AND an adult monitoring her internet access. (plus no tech at night etc..)

Unfortunately in todays world there are probably ways that she can send messages that cannot be monitored - kids will find ways around monitoring software etc..

The man she was in contact with before - how much older than her was he -
did SHE know he was older or had he told her he was 16 as well? Was the content of the messages explicit - was it reported to the Guards as possible grooming etc?

LegacyUser

Wesser wrote: »

So much emphasis on turning off the phone at night. Surely he can contact her by day too!! No one seems to be addressing that issue. The issue of...him!!!

This is the biggest issue. I'm not so worried about her being up late etc. I feel like this night time behaviour is an indication she's talking to him or at least someone she doesn't want me knowing about.
She will need a phone for school, she'll be getting two buses everyday to get there and back, in that time she'll be free to talk to who she wants then. She hasn't been sitting on the phone for hours in the daytime at all over the summer and she'll often show me a pic or laugh at something a friend has said when she's using it in the day so I've felt reassured nothing unusual is going on then.

Now though I find myself wondering what the hell is going on because of this activity on Viber. If it is the phone acting weird and I'm totally in the wrong and go to town on her right before school starts I feel I'll jeprodise her place in my home, her school plans, her mental health etc. We'll be into a rinse and repeat of last year which was an awful year for her. I know it sounds over the top but in the context of the last year I feel I need to be careful. I'd love to snap everything away and come the heavy parent but realistically I'm the last bit of trust she has with anyone and I feel the phone probably won't be the only avenue she'll have of contact. I don't want a sense of isolation to drive her off into his or anyone else's clutches. It would be worth the risk of course if I knew but right now I'm only going on an app which could be incorrect. I just wish I was confident it was correct.

The idea of testing it for a night was a good one. Thank you whoever suggested that. I don't know why I didn't think of it.

Finchie1276

I don't think you are seeing the bigger picture. Sorry but you are facilitating her breaking off her relationship with her parents. Are you avoiding this subject with yourself? Because really you should not be having to worry about her online behaviour.


This stood out for me:
'I'd love to snap everything away and come the heavy parent but realistically I'm the last bit of trust she has with anyone'

You are not her parent nor are you the last bit of trust she has with anyone...
Long term I think this is not a good move. I'd be moving her back home.

Good luck.

suicide_circus

How much older is this guy?

shesty

Why are you so hung up on whether the app is correct or not??There are several ways to eatablish that if you must but the real issue here is that trust in her has been broken, app or no app, and along with that, worry about her being in contact with an older man.You are there worrying about being the last adult she has a bit of trust in-I'm sorry, but it should be the other way around-she should realise she needs to earn back the trust she has broken.

I can tell you (as both an oldest sister and a parent myself), you should not be solving this.This is your parent's responsibility to sort out.She has to prove herself trustworthy again to be honest, and they have to wise up and learn how to deal with problems that come with today's technology.It's not rocket science and it is their issue to solve.

wiggle16

MiddleOfTheNight wrote: »

The idea of testing it for a night was a good one. Thank you whoever suggested that. I don't know why I didn't think of it.

You're welcome :P , good luck x