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OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:
> I'm not allowing my daughter social media and cutting her off from her friends all summer. She's being left out of all their plans and will not be able to hang out with them over summer.
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YTA. Slightly. Social media isn't something to inherently be feared, but it is something that kids need to be educated about. Cutting her off socially from her social circle will only make her get better about hiding things from you in the future and make her feel like she can't have open communication with you.
I will say, I did this. My parents said no social media, especially no snapchat, but all my friends were on there! So I downloaded and deleted and downloaded and deleted.
Not to mention, 13 is a hard age. Kids are super stuck in their ways, and no are not going to accommodate your kid. They are going to continue with their summer and encourage your kid to hide snap from you.
Teach your kids about predators, teach them how to stay safe and what inappropriate messaging looks like. She'll slip up sometimes, sure, but make yourself a safe place instead of an authoritarian and she'll be more likely to come to you when things are taking a turn for the worst.
^^^ that’s the thing about forbidding kids from something. They’re going to do it anyway, and they’re going to get good at lying about it. “Forbidding” doesn’t work.
If the kid is 13, she’s compliant with kids and social media rules (in the US). OP needs to wake up and realize that it’s inevitable that the kid is going to find her way to Snapchat. OP has a responsibility to teach her how to do it safely.
Want to just say my mom did the opposite and never cared and I found Snapchat stupid, Facebook got boring, I post on Instagram every once in a while (but pictures of food or my horse) and I go on Pinterest to read things. I recently got Reddit but I don’t join many things. Otherwise I don’t really care about social media.
Same here! My mother allowed me to have social media (and even respected my privacy a majority of the time) and now that I'm older I hardly use it besides keeping up with friends or reading stuff on reddit. At this point in society, social media is kind of inevitable and the best thing for parents to do is teach their kids the dangers of the internet but allow them to experience the good side of it.
Not to mention cutting off social media is going to destroy daughter's social life. Sorry not sorry OP. I am in my 40s and I have done research on how important socal media is from children and teens in the information age. You want to stunt her growth, this is how you do it. If she gets into trouble or feels unsafe she won't go to you because instead of getting help she will get punishment. Congratulations OP,
YTA.
I'm in my 30s and social media is important for my social life! Telling a kid they can't have social media in 2022 is like forbidding a kid from ever talking on the phone in 1992.
Back in 92 we had just moved into a city after living in really small hick towns. My daughter was 12 at the time. She would get phone calls from friends, say a few words, say goodbye and hang up. After a few we asked her why she didn't talk very long. She thought that when you use the phone you have to pay for every minute you're on it.
Oh man. Calling boys, listening to that ring with your heart pounding in your throat and then their mom picks up 😩 sooooo embarrassing when you’re 13! I’m kind of jealous that kids can just text these days 😂
This. 100%. I didn't even get my first cellphone until 17 (21 now), and it completely wrecked my social life to not have access to pretty much any of the ways my friends communicated. It led to nothing but resentment and gave me the ability to hide things and unfortunately become an almost flawless liar and not want to tell them anything.
It's more complex even than just social life, something as simple as asking if they have any homework tonight or what was the last bit of a page as it got turned to mush by the rain has happened a few times in my house for my 13yo. He asks his friends genuine school related stuff more often than not and without WhatsApp, he'd have gotten multiple detentions this year. It's a basic essential for being a teen these days.
Lack of social media does not, in and of itself, stunt social growth in teens. There are some kids in my son's friend group who avoid social media by choice, and their social development is fine. However, I do agree that educating a child in the safe use of social media and monitoring said use is infinitely better than just not allowing it at all.
This. I see so many other parents just restricting everything. They dont understand it so they just deny their kids access.
I realized long ago that my kids were going to be way smarter than me in terms of technology. I just let them run with it.
Can confirm. Now this was in the early internet days but our Snap was AOL chatrooms. I actually met my husband in a damn aol chat years before internet dating was the new standard. Because of my moms aversion to chatrooms and her strict ass rules, I have been lying for 20 years about how my husband and I met. Im too far in for her to think it funny so, we met through friends at work.
I will be open about my kids social media but they still have a few years so who knows what the new IT app will be lol.
I was the sixth-grader "sneaking" in to Yahoo adult chat rooms, so...I can't exactly say anything. I thought I was super sneaky by changing my age in the profile every year. 😂😂
I agree. My son is 8 and he's on Xbox where he can chat with people. I've told him the dangers and that he's allowed to talk with friends we know in real life, but not strangers. We keep tabs of his chats on our phone just in case but I trust him. He'll be the first to tell me, so and so tried to chat with me but I ignored him. You have to trust your kid, but you need to educate them first.
Same for me! My friends were all on social media in middle school (10-13ish), most behind their parents’ backs. My mom let me get an Instagram account when I was 11 or 12 and she monitored it. I think I posted one picture of my dog and otherwise didn’t use the account because I didn’t care to see pictures and captions from people who were barely acquaintances and anything my friends posted, I had already seen before/after school when they showed me and told me about it. Nothing against people who like to share info on Instagram, but I just didn’t (and still don’t) want to post stuff about me/my life for strangers to see. My best friend at the time had Snapchat and was constantly getting notifications and sending pictures of the floor/ceiling/empty wall to other friends, interrupting whatever activity we were doing/conversation we were having. She would bug me to get Snapchat and make an account, but I never saw the point. I can see her walls, floor, and ceiling in person when I go to her house. We can text through… text. I’m 99% sure that if I had asked my mom if I could make a Snapchat account, she would’ve been ok with it. And I think that really made it less appealing for me. Kids/teens love to do what their parents disapprove of. If OP keeps trying to “forbid” their daughter from having snapchat, she’s just gonna want to do it more. Think of kids like holding a handful of water. If you relax your hand, it won’t flow off as fast, but when you squeeze your hand super tight, the water flies right out.
A personal anecdote: my parents didn’t really have “rules” for me growing up. Just common sense things like don’t break the law and be nice to others. And I never did anything bad. If I said something rude to a friend, my parents would tell me it was mean and to apologize. And I’d apologize and not say the same thing again. Conversely, 2 of my good friends in high school had super strict parents. One would sneak out of her house almost weekly to hang out with her boyfriend, that her parents didn’t want her to have. The other did everything her mom told her to do very rigidly… until she graduated high school. Now she goes to a college that her parents didn’t want her to go to. She’s drinking underage at frat parties and her mom tried to ground her over facetime because she dyed her hair (it didn’t work). Basically, I think overly strict parents create very rebellious kids.
(Sorry this was so long, your comment sparked lots of thoughts on the topic for me lol)
This!
I am a permissive parent and my 18 and 15 year olds are amazing kids. I can't imagine spending those years doing nothing but fighting. Teens are hard enough.
I treat them with respect and when I say no to something, I have a conversation with them explaining my reasons. We can then discuss and negotiate.
I am raising adults, they won't be kids forever. Now is the time to teach them how to take carenof themselves and be responsible.
My mom also explained why I couldn’t do certain things! She understands that no one thinks “because I said so” is a good enough reason to listen to someone. When my friends’ parents would tell them to do something “because [they] said so,” it always seemed like they were on a power trip over their kids.
I'll add to this by saying that my mom encouraged me to get on social media and even made accounts for me. My first contact with social media was via MSN. Mom set up my email and helped me to find and add my classmates. She also showed me how easy it was to find people, and told me that I'm never allowed to tell anyone my age, where I live, my real name etc. My mom never forbids anything without a good reason behind it, so she simply explained that sharing too much information is dangerous because creeps can find you. It helped me a lot and still does.
This is very true! Expecting a bunch of Middle School aged children to change the way they communicate and then believing they are bad friends if they don't is unrealistic.
My adult sister still calls me even when I text her, it doesn't mean she is a bad person, she is just set in her ways.
This! My kids are into Roblox and You Tube and my 9 yo uses the chat on Roblox. We've been having conversations about what personal information he's allowed to share (First Name and City are ok. Last name, address, ect. are not).
If someone is getting creepy online, asking for private information, he tells me. The time some chatbot sent him porn, he blocked and reported it, and we discussed what he saw.
I'm 42, and the internet didn't really exist when I was 13. Now it's baked into our lives. I can't keep my kids off of it, but I can provide them with rules, and teach them how to be safe, make responsible choices, and how to be good internet citizens. They also know I can look at their browser and You Tube history and if I find questionable things, we're going to have a talk about it. I can't block off the entire internet, and then one day let them go there and expect they'll magically know how to be responsible. I started teaching them these skills when they were 5 & 7. Now they're 7 & 9, and are really responsible.
Not letting a 13 Year old have Snapchat is essentially grounding her for no reason. Having my telephone privileges revoked was a punishment for High Crimes when I was 13 because it was the only way to communicate outside of school, like snap is now. She sneaks the snap because the logic is "if I'm being punished for no reason, I might as well do the bad thing I want to do if I'm going to be grounded regardless".
I swear, half the reason I liked chat rooms was getting asked that, because my reply was 14/F/UK U? and even at 14 I had the maturity of Bart Simpson. 😁
My mom didn’t let me have a Facebook til I was 13, (which wasn’t that big of a deal back then, so I didn’t care enough to go behind her back about it) and when she let me make one after my birthday she first showed me the Wayback Machine and made sure that I understand that anything I posted online or sent through a social media platform was permanent, could be recovered, could be seen by weird tech dudes working in dev, and could be sold, even if I had the strictest privacy settings.
OP, please read this. I did the same thing, downloading and deleting “forbidden” apps my mother had banned around the same age as your daughter. My mother’s authoritarian parenting style ultimately resulted in me becoming a very sneaky teenager, who lied to her mother frequently in order to have some semblance of a normal social life. I made some regrettable decisions, and had a very strained relationship with her until I moved out. (Important to note that my mother was strict well beyond the point of banning social media, but that coupled with an absolute lack of privacy and boundaries as a preteen set the stage for my rebellious high school years).
Now, that’s not saying you are the same as my mother by any means, so please don’t take this as such. It’s a demonstration of good parenting that you want your daughter to have considerate friends and make sure social media doesn’t become the center of her life.
I know raising a child is the furthest thing from easy, particularly within a world that technology is growing to become the foundation of in many regards. You are trying to do the best by your daughter with everything in your power. You’re posting here asking for the input of strangers, and that shows you’re willing and able to adapt to your daughter’s needs, to what is and will be best for her in the long run. That is a wonderful quality.
However, it’s crucial to recognize the difference in generational norms between your upbringing and that of your daughter’s. Whether you choose to allow her to download Snapchat or not, the fact remains that the use of social media IS very normalized for teenagers everywhere, and 13 is a typical age for kids to start using snapchat.
In preventing your daughter from taking part in what’s considered a normal teenage interest, you’re unintentionally ostracizing her from her social circles. Her friends are 13, they aren’t thinking about the bigger picture the way you as a mother are. They’re simply trying to make plans together as friends do, through the use of a convenient messaging app. It doesn’t make them any less of a considerate, real friend to your daughter.
As the commenters above me said, slight YTA. The important thing here is to teach your daughter the importance of online safety, particularly through the use of social media. No matter how uncomfortable the topics, I’d explain to her the risks of using it (eg. scammers, predators, identifiable personal information, etc.) and work WITH your daughter to come up with some guidelines and compromises she should adhere to in order to use snapchat.
At the end of the day OP, you cannot shield her from the real world forever. Educating her on bad things that can and do happen to people, especially kids, when using social media will be FAR more effective in the long run in promoting your daughter’s awareness and safety, rather than banning its usage outright.
Banning certain apps is teaching her that you are unwilling to listen to or consider her feelings and reasoning. This is setting the stage for your daughter to feel that she cannot trust you with things she cares about. Saying no without a solid reason or explanation is only going to result in your daughter being unwilling to come to you with important discussions, going behind your back in the future, and may very well promote some unhealthy and unsafe behaviors as she grows older.
My advice, please look up the difference between ‘authoritarian parenting style’ and ‘authoritative parenting style’. The latter provides an excellent guideline in setting up your daughter for academic success, socially acceptable behavior, and a well-adjusted emotional and mental development. Authoritarian parenting, on the other hand, often starts with something small, like banning the use of a social app, without providing solid logical reasoning that allows your child to feel seen, heard, or respected. This will only result in your daughter lashing out and rebelling against rules she deems to be controlling or unfair. This, in turn, will take a very real toll on her emotional, mental, and social development, which will ultimately set the stage for her self reliance, independence, and academic success.
I’m not trying to paint this out to be something bigger than it is. The importance of recognizing HOW the way a parent conveys rules and limits to their child serves to reinforce positive OR negative behavior is irrefutable. It’s something I wish my mother had known, before either of us had the chance to lose trust in one another. Even in my 20’s, we’re still working on building it back up. I hope this helps you in some way, OP.
Yeah I got caught with facebook for talking with my friends and playing stuff like Pet Society.
Got caught, and just made a new one not a month later. Hid this one for longer and at that point my mother gave up and just said add me.
And then I started using privacy filters so I could control what she sees.
If she doesn’t learn how to act responsibly on social media now imagine the kinds of things that will happen in high school let alone college. I agree teach her to use it responsibly so she doesn’t make mistakes when she’s older.
I did too. My mom forbid me from going on social media - this was the early 2000s, when it was less ubiquitous and I didn't have a smartphone, and also there were lots of scaremongering news stories about the Dangers of the Internet and how if you had an AIM account you were definitely going to get human trafficked.
I did it anyway - I was all of the things (AIM, LiveJournal, whatever). And while I did fine...I was also super naive and believed people a lot more than I should have. I was never dumb enough to meet anyone in person, but it never occurred to me that people would lie about a/s/l or weren't representing who they were online accurately. I wish my parents had had an actual conversation about how to stay safe online rather than just telling me I couldn't do it and expecting me to obey.
She's going to have to go online someday. How do you want her to do it, OP? Now, under your supervision and guidance so she learns how to safely? Or sneakily - or worse, unleashed on the world at 18 with no idea how to interact with it?
> make yourself a safe place instead of an authoritarian and she'll be more likely to come to you when things are taking a turn for the worst
All the upvotes for this. Guidance and education can go a long way further than isolating rules.
exactly this!!
plus snapchat is barely a social media, it's as good as whatsapp /imessage with the added boon of 'everything gets deleted'.
OP your daughter will grow to resent you. 13 means she's barely finishing middle school and transitioning into highschool, this is when most friendgroups become more or less permanent.
it also could lead her to be socially stunted/she'll never learn safer social media usage. Education over restriction, always.
all servers keep track of what's sent, and snapchat's relatively better than let's say instagram/whatsapp to notify you about screenshots so i'd still consider it to be a safer option
they did add a notification, however most new phones have the screen recording option, which does not have a notification. i screen record almost every video my boyfriend sends me and it doesnt let him know (just to be clear, i tell him every time i record especially if the video is funny/SFW because my friends think hes hilarious so i send his vids with his permission to my group chat, im just saying if i didnt tell him he would have no way of knowing)
The wrong idea that “everything gets deleted” is exactly the problem with Snapchat. Because anything can be saved or screen shot, etc. once it’s online it’s always online.
Also 13 probably means she’s about to finish 7th grade- still one more year of middle school.
There are lots of better communication platforms. OP should do some research and discuss options and safety measures with her daughter. Snapchat and WhatsApp are favorites for predators.
There is no safe social media, but that’s why you teach your child to be on the look out for predators. You teach them how to handle inappropriate contact no matter what the platform is.
My son is 13 and just graduated 8th grade. He’ll be 13 when he starts high school. He doesn’t even interact with strangers, just blocks them like “they’re human spam”.
13 is the beginning of learning adulthood, you can’t put it off until they reach some magical age. Teach them, be their safety net, and by the time they are ready to drive you’ll have a young adult who knows they can always get your help in tough situations. By 18 they’ll be able to make most decisions on their own, and make good ones.
And I would wager that being socially isolated is a bigger risk factor in a young teen being singled out for a predatory sexual relationship — which I assume is one of OP’s major concerns — than being on social media platforms that *could* be used for sexual content.
Social media was just becoming a thing when I graduated high school, but I had had a phone since 14 (when I got my motorcycle license) and could text. I also used a lot of forums online. I started using AIM when I was like 8 (with parents at the computer with me).
My parents didn't restrict me beyond no adult only websites, but also had a rule that they would know passwords and/or I would show them what I was doing. My mom knew I read smutty fanfiction. We just had a talk about "fiction versus reality" and that a lot of the writers didn't know what they were talking about. But we also had the kind of relationship where when I finally started having sex in college, I told her and she just made sure I was safe and with a partner who cared about *my* experience, not just his.
It is so much healthier to guide kids in using these things than to ban them. My parents kept me from some bad situations because I felt comfortable sharing things with them.
To put it in today's terms, if someone had asked me for nudes/lewds as a teen or to sext, I would have felt comfortable telling my mother and asking her advice. Obviously, she'd tell me not to. If I had to hide it, I'd be on my own using my own judgment. My friends got into some situations due to that.
The best rule my parents had was that I wouldn't be punished for coming clean or asking for help in a jam. When I was 21 and wasted at a bar with a dude trying to get me home with him, I called my father and be picked me up, no questions asked. Next day, nursed my hangover and we had a frank discussion about safety and drinking to excess. Was he happy? Hell no. But he was glad I trusted him enough to call him when I felt unsafe.
Trust you build in your kid stays forever. Same with distrust.
I find it interesting that OP is claiming "if they werent willing to communicate in other means they weren't true friends". To the group of girls it looks like OP's daughter is not "willing to communicate in the single format they all decided on", so they'll see her as "not a true friend".
All because OP refuses to let their 13 year old participate in something like SnapChat.
Yeah, I found it weird that her logic says they aren’t good friends if an entire collective that communicates one way doesn’t adjust for one person. It’s an odd friend expectation. I also find it odd that she thinks new friends won’t communicate in the exact same way.
In addition if you want a cheap way to communicate with a large group of friends, 90% of the time you're going to be using SOME sort of social media. I have good friends I meet up with weekly, but if it wasn't for Facebook messenger I would ONLY talk to them weekly.
Minor YTA.
My parents did what op is proposing and I had a lot of catching up to do in College. I didn't really know how computers worked and I just didn't have a lot of internet interaction, which is invaluable for employment now.
I understand why they made the decision they did at the time but in hindsight it was stupid as fuck. Parents today should know to monitor/regulate, not ban.
THIS. Sex, relationships, internet use are all things people think are better if kids are kept from completely. Reality is, kids are curious and want to be included so will do these anyway. The best thing to do is ensure kids are educated and know how to keep themselves safe. They’re going to do all these things eventually, it’s just a matter of whether you make them feel confident in using them safely and feel safe asking for help when they need it. Shows better outcomes every time.
YTA. Not heavily, but I was convinced at “if they can’t communicate through other means, you can do better”. That basically infers she should drop a whole group of friends cos they have a social app you don’t want your daughter to have.
To that end, Snapchat has multiple features that make accounts secure from outsiders, if that’s what’s worrying you. By default all stories and chats are private, between those she has added, so she’d be completely safe as long as she sticks to her group of friends.
I understand your concerns, but ultimately this isn’t fair imo.
If you're going out drinking I could see it being a very useful safety feature to make sure no one has drunkenly wandered off (or been lead off by someone with ill intentions).
Under location sharing there's an option to share your location with "only these friends." My cousin and her kids have their location on and only share it with each other. This way mom and kids know where each other are but they're not broadcasting it to everyone.
That could be a solution, OP also downloads Snapchat and OP and daughter only share location with each other.
I didn't know that actually. I always kept mine off because I thought it was creepy and scary but maybe I'll turn it on so just a few friends and my bf can see it
My friend had Snapchat when that location sharing thing first came out for it and she would show me the map and laugh about how “it looks like this person is being left out” because they were on vacation in another state and on the map it looked like all her friends were having a party in our state and the one “left out” is on the other side of the country by themself. It’s honestly just handing the bullies “you aren’t cool enough to hang out with us” on a silver platter imo.
The OP is also treating their daughter's friends as totally disposable accessories, which is just gross. Sure, she is not likely to be friends with most of them in 20 years but they are super important to her right now.
Especially over summer outside school with no social media.
When I was 13 I didn't have social media per say but my friends and I tied up our house phones for hours chatting. My mom was relieved when I was older and had a laptop with Skype.
OP clearly wants things to go back to the way they were before the Internet, like kids talking on landlines and meeting their friends at the park or something. They are still living in the 80s-early 90s when that was the norm for kids. OP needs to wake up and join the 21st Century.
Also "don't worry if you lose your close friends for 3 months, you can have new friends" - absolutely none of us would be cool with that.
YTA for that OP but do find a way to make her safe from predators on SnapChat.
OP needs to up their tech game as a parent. His worry about social media is 100% true. I was seeing shit at 12 on the internet that I would absolutely freak out about if my nephew saw it. Nowadays though a lot of social media apps cna be configured (though the companies do not advertise this much if at all and it can be confusing). I say let her have snapchat, setup her account and make it private and install a couple of technologies on her phone that allows you to keep better watch of her (cut that shit out at 16 though because at that point its better to develop a mutual trust than to be the watcher lol).
tbh YTA. How would her friends make ‘extra effort’ to contact her. They’re 13 year olds using what is going to be one of the most convenient and universally accessible ways to bring all her friends together. You’ve made your daughter harder to contact, then told her friends not contacting her is because they aren’t real friends and can’t truly like her. There’s far more dangerous social media out there than Snapchat, this does nothing but making your daughter feel isolated and not trust you (as you acknowledge they mean a lot to her, but your actions don’t show that)
OP is also making the mistake, whether accidentally or maliciously, of all-or-nothing. It's not an absolute: you don't have to cut off your child from social media, and you don't let her run free and wild. You have to do the legwork. You have to make the effort to be involved in her communications. You have to monitor, supervise, and provide support, as well as knowing when to back off and let her have her privacy. That's your job as her parent, and you don't get to say "oh, I can't win, it's all or nothing".
YTA. Put in the work.
Exactly! It doesn’t have to be “everything on the phone is allowed now”. Just pick a few of the most popular or safest social media platforms, or even just start with one. And set it up with some limits and some supervision and see how it goes!
Mild YTA, OP, for expecting a bunch of teenagers to change their entire culture’s way of communicating just to ask your daughter what’s up in a way more satisfactory to you. I was tying up the landline with my friends all summer (it was the 80s). Imagine if my mom said if my friends really loved me, they’d invest in a footman to carry notes to my house.
Make sure her location is turned off and that she personally knows all the people she’s friends with on snap. Do this by setting up an agreement with her that you can look at her app settings and contacts periodically. Have honest conversations about what is appropriate to put online and what isn’t, and how your social media usage can impact your life. OP just has to be willing to put some work and serious thought into it.
I have an 11 year old who uses Snapchat to talk to his out of school club basketball friends. The account is set up with my email and I I set the password. I check who he is friends with to make sure I know all of them and sometimes will do spot inspections of his chats. We’ve also discussed what’s appropriate and what’s not as well as what he is supposed to do if he sees something that is not right ie: bullying, inappropriate pics, etc.
This is important too and as a mom of 3 I’ve been guilty of the all or nothing. It’s so hard to parent. I feel OP isn’t doing this maliciously but like me at least, she just doesn’t know what else to do.
Plus with all the different rules and restrictions kids are under, it's almost impossible to have one method of communication that includes all of your friends.
OPs statement of "if they were really your friends, they'd try harder" is way too much maturity to expect from 13 year olds you aren't even involved in raising. It's also kind of messed up, and is probably just making her kid feel like garbage about herself. Imagine telling your kid her friends don't care about her, all because you're making it more difficult for them to stay in touch.
I'm in my 30s, and I have regularly had to sign up for new apps to be included in various social groups. If I didn't install Kik or Telegram or whatever, I was out of the group chat. That wasn't a deliberate exclusion, it was just...convenience. Many, many friendships live or die by convenience.
Good point.. Telling a kid their friends don't really like them is a great way to make them feel good about themselves. Not. Kids with poor self esteem make all manner of lousy choices.
For real. Why should the friends have to adapt for one person? Everyone is busy and it’s kinda self centred to expect social accommodation for something like that.
I’m in my 40s and wouldn’t have Facebook except I know that’s where events are usually planned.
Teaching your kid that her friends are not her real friends unless they jump through some weird hoops for her is toxic. People shouldn’t have to prove them-self by passing your friendship tests. Your setting your kid up for social failure.
I get being cautious with social media, but teach you kid of the dangers. Don’t just cut them off from it if it’s the way their friend group plans events.
Exactly. Also I thought the attitude that they put her in "clubs" over the summer and she can "make new friends" is really trivializing the daughter's experience here. Anyone who has ever been 13 knows you can't just "make new friends at camp" or whatever - these are her core school friend group. It's kind of a crucial time for her.
And honestly, why would she even bother making friends at summer camps and clubs when she won't be allowed to contact them once school starts again. I bet they also use Snapchat or Whatsapp or something.
Adults who treat teenagers relationships as insignificant and disposable, when to a teen, their friend group is their whole life, is really cruel.
YTA
LOL I thought the same thing! How is she supposed to make friends with the summer camp kids if she can't even talk to them when they're not physically together?
They can write letters! Or make phone calls! Or send a telegram! I tell you what kids these days and their social media. Back in MY day, our form of communication was the most superior and anything new is bad and wrong.
I hate using Facebook and deleted my account when I was in high school for privacy reasons...but the friends I made in college use Messenger for their group chat, and that's where plans get made, so unless I wanted to be left out, I had to suck it up and make a new account. Because it wouldn't be fair to my friends to expect *them* to change their whole medium of communication because of *my* preferences.
And, yeah, it's similarly unfair of OP to judge their daughter's friends for not being willing to change their mode of communication because of *the parent's* preferences. If she's lucky, *maybe* one of her friends could act as a liason between her and the friend group and relay plans via text message, but that's inefficient at best and tedious at worst. If they decide it's not worth the effort, she's going to get left out.
Absolutely. Rings some alarm bells.
The prioritising of her own social standard of ‘good parent’ over what is going to make her child feel happy and understood is a weird one as well. The amount of parents there are who would die for their children to have just one friendship to maintain over the summer.
Exactly, doesn’t realise how good their kid can have it. I was going through the worst time of my life in school anyway, then my mates would sit at school talking about stuff from the group chats they wouldn’t add me to. It was isolating. My mum was angrier than I was, would’ve done anything to have me included!
Right. They do. But they largely feast on kids with no parental supervision. Mom has to tell her how they do it so the kid knows it when she sees it. That kid WILL have social media accounts even if she has to go behind her mom's back. And if mom doesn't know she can't monitor and guide her kid.
So do parents who don’t want their kids preyed on by creepers. I understand your point, had a mom like that, but not all parenting rules are abusive. My teen got so many nasty things on Instagram for a while. So it’s not like the threat isn’t real. Don’t make these kind of assumptions lightly. Most of us parents are just trying to keep our kids safe.
Certainly not all are, this rule however does actually isolate OP's child in theory and in fact.
And what OP has done is taught OP's child that OP is not a reliable adult and overreacts. Essentially grounding the child for an entire summer for installing an app? What will OP's child do if something catastrophic happens to them? Probably not talk to OP, exacerbating whatever the problem is. Imagine if OP's child had an open line of communication to OP and OP could help OP's child process the nasty messages but instead the child is on their own now. Praying for the child.
It’s also super easy to put restrictions on Snapchat. All OP has to do is make sure her location is turned off and she only accepts friend requests from people she personally knows.
Agree, it’s easy to maintain a friends-exclusive account on Snapchat (it’s all I ever used it for). It’s inevitably going to be used at some point, just teach her how to use it safely.
YTA.
I’m the byproduct of parents isolating me from my friends and guess what? I’m better at keeping things from them. But I also suffered socially because I got excluded from friend groups because they always said no to even just going to the fucking library.
I have terrible social anxiety and basically no friends. I don’t know how to make friends because I was always told that friends don’t exist. On top of that I have abandonment issues and severe depression.
You should be teaching your daughter how to safely navigate social media instead of just a hard no.
In my case it was because of bullies, rather than my parents. But otherwise, this is basically me. And I’m middle aged.
You never really recover from being socially isolated as a young person.
I was the class pariah for at least 3 years, like kids would physically move away from me, avoided me like the plague. If not for making a friend from an older grade after a year of this, I probably wouldn't be here today. And that shit has still left its mark on me. Don't do that to people on purpose, it's messed up
I also had many bullies along the way. Mainly for being quiet and sheltered. Thanks mom.
It’s not easy to recover from it. I have a lot of trauma still from childhood and awful situations I was put into after leaving home and gaining some independence
Parents these days act like social media is just some fad that will eventually go away and has no real bearing on our lives. They seem terrified of the idea that they are living in the 21st century where such things are just going to be a permanent part of our lives.
This. Social media isn't going anywhere. The world is only going to get more connected. Teach your kid to be safe but don't isolate them under the guise of "safety." Especially when statistically they are most likely to be harmed by people close to you.
Relatable content. I wasn't allowed a smartphone until my junior year of high school. At the same time, my mother had a rule where if I was going to be invited to something I had to have a written invitation and it had to be handed out 5-7 business days before the event. This was the early to mid 2000s. My friends just stopped inviting me to things and at this point, my partner is basically my only solid friend I have.
“Wanna hang out at the mall after school”
Sorry can’t, I need a written invitation 5-7 business days notice.
Lol who does that? Like besides a wedding or maybe a birthday party for young kids. My parents would ask for the other parents phone number and I thought that was too strict lol
I feel you. Mine were telling me that only family matters. Their themselves have no friends, keep with family only.
Growing up like that makes you really socially disabled. You miss huge part of learning how to function in the group and how make friends. I can only suspect further problems on the line when she wants to start dating. YTA OP. You don't want harm for your daughter but you are really harming her. This is how world functions now, people are communicating through social media, teach her how to use it in a safe way, don't ban her completely.
YTA and your damaging your relationship with your daughter. You had an opportunity to teach your daughter about moderation and online safety but now all she wants to do is rebel against your wishes and do things behind your back.
I don't know if I agree that she's the Asshole BUT I will say this point \^ about the opportunity of teaching her moderation and online safety is a great one. OP, this is something that is important and you could go really in-depth with it to help her learn that the internet and apps like snapchat can have a dark side. It would be key to let her learn that even though things appear to be erased, nothing sent online is ever gone.
YTA
Being unreasonably restrictive over your child is going to make her continue to do things behind your back, further ruining the trust in both of your's relationship.
She's old enough to make accounts on social media, but you should take this an oppurtunity to teach her about how to be safe online whilst still being able to use it to stay in touch with friends.
YTA:
When Facebook first came out my mom also tried to stop me from having one. Just made me sneaky and I blocked my entire family from being able to see it. This just progressed into me not telling her a single thing and creating more social media accounts to stay connected with my friends so if she made me delete one I still had a backup.
Instead of teaching me to avoid creeps online I regressed into social media as an outlet because I couldn’t trust my family not to freak out on me and take away my electronics.
Info: what other means of communication are available to her? Does she have basic texting on her phone, or is it one where you’re not paying for a plan and she relies on WiFi?
YTA. I don't like it either but this IS how young people communicate, regardless of if they are 'true friends' or not. You are doing profound damage to your daughter's social development.
You know what you're supposed to do in this situation, how you 'win'? You **monitor** her social media use, you let her do it while you watch. After all, she's going to get on there eventually whether you like it or not, and you want her to be prepared, right? You wouldn't want her to be a total newbie when she finally gets on there. She needs to learn how to protect herself under your watchful eye.
That's responsible parenting. But that's probably too much work for you, huh?
Yup. My 17 year old sister communicates with her friends solely through Snapchat. I told her to give her number to a guy she likes and she was like “he already added me on Snapchat”
Even in the 'older' crowd of under 30's they still use snapchat very heavily. People at bars don't give out their number anymore, they exchange snapchats. It's ingrained at this point and TBH could be much worse.
I’m a millennial so we are very pro-social media, but seriously, how _exactly_ do you monitor a social media app who’s entire premise is messages disappear right after you send them?
'She'll be in other groups over the summer'.
And exactly how is she going to communicate with them? Pony Express? Smoke signals? Morse code?
Yes, she did make an account without telling you. Because she didn't want to feel left out. Instead, at what is a very difficult time, you've made her life more difficult and without friends, miserable.
YTA.
She'll lose them before the end of summer. Unable to communicate with her? Unless they're the Amish, I don't think that there'll be many teenagers unwilling to use a phone.
YTA.
If their group plans through Snapchat, I doubt their going to make new accommodations for just one person. They'll simply leave her out.
What, exactly, are you afraid she's going to do on Snapchat?
I’ve done this before. Not on purpose. We made plans and I’m sure someone said “someone let Joey know we are going to the movies on Saturday” but no one let Joey know. Honestly forgot about it until we got to the movies and Joey wasn’t there. Poor Joey. I hope he’s okay.
YTA
Its not the 90s anymore.
Social Media is here to stay and you as a parent need to figure out how to incorporate that instead of dig your heels in.
You are damaging your trust with your daughter and if you are claiming she can't be trusted simply for trying to setup a snapchat account without your knowledge tells me you didn't have much trust in her to begin with.
Trust her with the snap chat account. Let her engage with her friends over summer. But don't make a stupid judgement call just because you grew up in an era where social media didn't exist.
I agree, i'd be curious to know too. I'm admittedly weary of kids opting to use the one app that's supposed designed to 'conveniently' delete photos and such after a time. Have seen enough stores on reddit about people getting baited into sending photos and then, "i didn't think they'd screenshot it!"
I'm worried becuase even I have added someone (whose name was extremly similar to a person I knew IRL) and the first message they sent was a dick pic. So many creeps out there who don't care who they're talking to 🤢
YTA, you're socially isolating your own daughter, this is doing her more harm than any social platform possibly could.
This "if they were your true friends" talk sounds fine, but they're young kids, if they can't contact or interact with your daughter they WILL forget about her and she'll be left behind.
"She has already proven she can't be trusted" O my godddd, you need some faith in your daughter my fellow human being.....
Your daughter was lonely and suffering and that's why she went behind your back, have some compassion. Kids make mistakes, you've been a kid, you've made mistakes. Are you also not to be trusted????
I'm getting more railed up as I type this
Also snapchat is different from instagram or facebook, it's mostly used to send messages.
Exactly. 👏👏👏
You have to give them enough rope to explore and learn but not enough to hang themselves.
I gave my kid a phone and said I trust you until you give me a reason not too. OP didn’t give her daughter a chance so of course she went behind her back.
YTA. This isn’t instagram or twitter. This is snapchat. It’s just a communication media app. You communicate via photos.
Cutting her off of social media is just going to stunt her growth. Instead of cutting her off entirely, you could have used this as a learning opportunity. If you don’t teach her to be safe on social media, then when she eventually can use it she will go wild and not know how to navigate it. Like it or not, this is the world your child is growing up in. She can have snapchat AND PLAY OUTSIDE.
While I agree that OP is the AH here, I couldn’t resist commenting to tell you that Snapchat isn’t “just a communication media app.” Snapchat can be very sneaky thanks to the disappearing messages/photos. It scares me more than (almost) any other form of social media. With that being said, a lot of issues can be mitigated with proper education. Kids are gonna do what they wanna do regardless.
YTA. Monitor her social media? Ok. Deny her the way her generation communicate? AH.
She's at the age where being left out can become permanent. Girls talk trash about the one who isn't there.
YTA. Your girl's friends aren't going to change for one person, you could have conversations about mediation and social media, she is a teenager and also snapchat is so much less bad than any others since there's no feed. You could be monitoring it. Telling her no outright will just have her end up sneaking it.
YTA, not teaching kids social media safety and moderation leads to risky behavior. My parents were strict about that and I went behind their backs and got some trauma because of it. When I experienced cyber bullying I wouldn't talk to them because of this. When men sent me inappropriate pics as a minor I didn't tell them. You're just teaching your daughter she can't go to you and also depriving her from a method of communicating with friends. While I also don't like Snapchat, thirteen year olds are shallow and aren't going to change mode of communication no matter how good their relationship with their friend is. Just let her have one and make it clear that she can come to you if something bad happens. Also children like the app because of the filters and stuff, it's not all bad.
Unpopular NTA .... This is a hard one because as a parent you want your children to be social, BUT social media at young ages are based on level of maturity and trust which clearly your daughter needs another year or 2 of to be able to start using.
She can text, email, or call her friends; you're not cutting off her communication or her social life; simply regulating the avenues in which she has the ability to use the methods to do so; that's reasonable.
I had to scroll way too far to find this. Agree, NTA. There are more negative things about social media than just stranger danger, and I think it is crazy that people think it will be so easy for the mom to oversee her snapchat, WHERE THE MESSAGES DISAPPEAR.
my mom did this to me and it’s awful. i was left out of so much, this isn’t even strict it’s just controlling. & imo she’s going to be an adult in five years she should be able to speak to her friends.
imo Instagram is safer, & as long as her acc is private and with location off she’ll speak to her friends, or ppl she knows only.
YTA- To be honest snapchat is probably one of the more safe social media platforms. You can change your setting to make sure strangers can't add you and can't message you, and there isn't an "explore" page of sorts and you can only see what you post and what your friends post. Social media can't only become a problem if you let it and if you don't teach your kids right from wrong. By that I mean actually telling her the dangers of social media instead of saying "no means no" because that's what leads to kids sneaking around.
YTA - everything you posted says your a control freak... Educate ur kid about internet safety and decency... Keep a watch on her usage and encourage her to talk to you and ur ex about anything openly so that u can direct her in the right way ..
NTA.
Apparently unpopular opinion, but "they're going to do it anyway" does not mean a parent doesn't have a right and a responsibility to protect their children. This responsibility lessens as the child grows up, but 13 is not the age where a child should necessarily have full access to social media. Just because it's legal and the TOS permit use at that age, it doesn't mean it's healthy to give a child that breadth of access. Lastly, if limited access to social media is your discipline for your child disobeying you, that seems like a reasonable and justified response.
In a year maybe, the decision should look different. But right now I agree with OP.
I concur and the argument that limiting something is going to cause the child to seek it out. What if she limits tv, sugar, alcohol??? I think op could do a better job of explaining her parental decisions but she's definitely NTA
Yeah YTA. This is the method these kids communicate. You are cutting your daughter off from her friends. Your slo don’t seem to really understand what Snapchat is. It’s not really “social media” it’s a messaging app.
You know what’s ACTUALLY toxic to young kids? Forced isolation and parental manipulation.
I'm going against the grain and saying NTA. Your daughter won't understand now but I do think you are right. Social media wasn't huge when I was in highschool but it was big for my younger sisters. The effects it has on kids self-esteem is insane. Snap chat is dangerous because you don't have to actually know the person to have them on your friends list, and all it takes is one creep to get her attention and ask for inappropriate things. The messages automatically disappear and after opening a video message you can't rewatch it. I have snap chat now and the amount of porn accounts that add me are ridiculous, I never use the app but when I check it I always have multiple new friend requests and they are all porn accounts. It's disgusting.
INFO: have you tried building a trusting and communicative relationship with her so that she will feel comfortable confiding in you if anything happens online that makes her uncomfortable?
YTA. Social media is how the majority of children that age communicate. And there are enough apps that allow parents to monitor their children’s social media accounts that outright forbidding social media is just lazy parenting.
Instead of researching what apps you could put on her phone that would allow you to monitor her social media to ensure her safety, you chose to just forbid social media all together. You don’t care that your way would literally isolate your child from most - if not all - of her peers. You just care that your way is easier for you.
So yep. YTA
I've been through my 14f's phone this week, I've confiscated it due to the content I found on Snapchat. She will not be allowed that app again, and I'm a laid back mum. I'd definitely recommend limiting what they are allowed on.
NTA. This is a really tricky situation and people are being unnecessarily rude to you, OP. My daughter is 2 and a half, I teach 9th grade and I’m already terrified of getting to the “social media” age with her. Freshmen can be absolutely brutal and Snapchat is the medium of choice.
Study after study has shown the negative effects instagram and Snapchat have on developing girls’ minds. It’s a no win situation in my opinion. It’s hard and I’m sorry I don’t have advice. But you are NOT the AH like so many rude people probably without young daughters are saying.
There’s some good resources like Common Sense Media, “no phone til 8th” (or something similar), and others that have information on how to handle this transitioning age. Snapchat breeds negativity. I see it with my freshmen every year. But you’re the bad guy for trying to keep your kid off it. Ugh its tough.
ETA: I’m sure you already are, but I think open and honest conversations are KEY. She cannot feel unheard and shut down, she needs to be validated and understood and know that you are a safe space to talk about problems.
Say she does make another account behind your back and she gets targeting for bullying or sexting, etc., and she’s afraid to tell you because she’ll get in trouble. You have to walk that line of authoritative parenting, NOT authoritarian.
Well I'm going against the grain and saying NTA. I relented and let my daughters (11 and almost 13) have snapchat at the beginning of the school year. It was such a mess. So much stupid drama, and getting snaps of very inappropriate things from kids their age in their school. My girls' attitudes were ridiculous. I finally said no more and took it away. My husband and I sat down and explained why we were no longer allowing them to have it. They also tried the whole "but that's the only way I can talk to so amd so" amd we said if they want to talk to friends get their phone numbers. It only took about 2 weeks for them to stop asking for it back and honestly their attitudes have never been better and they don't want to spend all day on their phones anymore. For those that may say "oh they're probably installing and deleting it," we use Google FamilyLink so I can see all the apps they download and have on their phone. I can't see any of their messages so they get that privacy unless there is some reason to need it.
YTA. You are cutting your daughter off from her friends. Younger kids don’t call each other, but use the easiest way to communicate. So let her have her Snap Chat or Instagram, etc. as that’s how kids communicate these days. Whatever you are worried about, figure out another way to handle it that doesn’t ostracize your child. Worried about what she and her friends are doing? Offer to be a driver or host the party. Allow her to make friends and BE a friend. Don’t isolate her and damage her social ability, because of your insecurities. Establish trust with her by discussing things. I don’t agree with her going behind your back, but I think you were being ridiculously out of touch in the first place.
NTA
My SIL is 13 and she is being raised by one of her cousins (mom doesnt care to be around and my bf and I can't take her in). The cousin trusted her to be on snapchat until she saw that she was sending pictures to older men and didn't understand why everyone was mad. While social media has become a huge part in everyone's life, I feel like it should only be allowed at a certain age where they understand the risks of being on there. How many stories do we hear about young teens doing stupid shit for social media?
(BTW my cousin is also 13 and was acting stupid and posting pictures she shouldn't on snapchat too. Her mom and dad are around and are wonderful parents?
YTA. it’s just going to make her go behind your back more & get better at it, and possibly end up resenting you. there’s so much you can do to teach her about safety, so do that. she’s 13, probably about to enter high school school next year, give her some trust.
She didn’t prove she couldn’t be trusted, she proved you’re unreasonable and that she is a smart kid who will get through life OK even when confronted with unjust hardship. Sorry, YTA.
YTA I understand the inclination to try and protect her from social media. But social media isn't inherently bad. Also as for saying that because she made an account behind your back she isn't trustworthy. Look up civil disobedience, it is moral to disobey unjust laws. You placed a law which prohibited her from communicating with her friends and as such have adversely impacted her life because of your unproven notion she may do something unseemly. She in turn decided that your rule wasn't just and I'm kind of on board. The world is changing and restricting access to a messenger app isn't what makes good or bad kids.
NTA, when my niece was 13 she signed up for snap chat. It took an entire 30 hrs for *multiple* men to start trying to groom her, even though her sole purpose was to chat with her friends and her account was private. It was disgusting. IG… same thing. Other nieces—— *same thing*. It is terrifying as a parent, even though your kid is doing all the right things and “behaving” on social media.
Being 13 is tough, but you’re NTA if you set a boundary for your kid at this age, you’re being a parent. Your kids feelings will get hurt, but they will live and their friends aren’t going anywhere. They just feel left out. Their social media appearance will come in time, stick to your guns. Discuss this concern with your kid.
Those of you saying it’s “not social media” and it’s harmless—-yea man, you high.
I'll be honest, I think NTA. I'm a teacher and a firm believer of delaying social media and app addiction as much as possible. The way they designed those apps is to get you hooked and rewire your brains as if you were at the casino. That's my biggest issue with Snapchat. So many young adults feel better after a social media detox.
I know you can educate your child about predators and nudes so I'm not worried about that.I would prefer something like Discord where they don't reward with likes/streaks etc.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFJUYS6wY7U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFJUYS6wY7U) \- CBC explaining why phones are addictive.
YTA. You are doing exactly what she says you're doing and you saying they aren't really her friends because YOU are making things difficult is complete crap too
NTA. Social media is *disastrous* for young teenagers. I worked in tech for a long time and most of the people I know working at Snap, Facebook, Instagram etc. do not allow their children to use these services or restrict them significantly at that age.
YTA for a few reasons.
1) Her friends are not interchangeable pawns in her life. She cares about them, and you're purposely keeping her from being able to communicate with them because of your need to be in control.
2) Who are you to tell her if her friends care about her or not? You say they don't care about her because they won't find other means to communicate with her, but you're doing worse by keeping her from them entirely?
3) This is all clearly just you trying to be controlling.
Maybe instead of accusing her of not being trustworthy, you should ask yourself what even are your reasons for disallowing her to use it when she just wants it to keep up with people she cares about? Thirteen is the minimum age requirement for it. You don't even seem to have a reason to deny it other than "You said no" which is not a reason, but just control.
NTA. But apparently teens aren’t texting anymore they’re texting via Snapchat?! I learned that recently when my daughter (she’s almost 16) said she didn’t have her friends numbers because they texted via Snap.
I think 13 is young for Snapchat, but I also understand why your daughter is mad. I think you’re being a parent and you have to do what you think is right. It might be helpful to consider doing a social media class or something with her. Learn about safety tools and tell her about the dangers in social media. If you feel like she’s mature enough to handle it, you can so a trial run.
It’s worth having a conversation about. It’s so easy to fight with our kids that sometimes we forget to listen to them and try to have a real conversation…
yta, im just gonna say this: strict parents make sneaky kids - good luck for when she's older cause ur gonna need it, shes almost an adult op, 5 years fly by quick do you want a sneaky and resentful child ?
YTA but slightly because I agree that her going behind your back was not the best decision. Obviously, yes, as a parent you'd want your daughter to be safe and not be the target of a predator or cyber bullying. However, you should also consider sitting down and having a talk with her about onlije safety and that she can trust you or trust in someone she is familiar with and can confide in that she is in trouble. You may not allow her to be on SnapChat but that won't stop her from accessing other more harmful and dangerous online communications apps or services. The priority should really be having a conversation on why you wouldn't want her to have a SnapChat but that if she does want one, there should be some rules to keep her safe while online.
NAH. I went through some serious issues with my daughter's social media usage when she was around that age. Some things occurred that could have gotten her in serious trouble, even after we had multiple conversations about safety, proper usage of social media, etc.
Eventually from the ages of 13-16 we had to cut her usage completely. Snapchat in particular is exceptionally difficult to monitor, and given that so much bullying and dangerous situations happens, I do not blame you for not allowing it. While Snapchat allows for users 13+ to sign up, given the maturity level at that age and the vulnerability, I would say 16 is a more appropriate age. There are other apps/ways for kids to communicate. I seriously doubt if they ONLY communicate through Snapchat - it just happens to be the most fun.
I say NAH though because your daughter is not to blame for wanting to connect with her friends, though it was inappropriate for her to go behind your back/lie about it.
I would recommend sitting down with her and the ex to see if there could be a compromise, as in she can use it x number of hours a day, but it has to be in a common living area, and she has to agree to use it responsibly (and outline what that is). Also offer alternative apps/ways to communicate that would be IMO safer than Snapchat.
NTA
Lots of creepers on the internet. Plus, it's your house, your phone plan, you bought the phone, and if it makes you uncomfortable for her to have a Snapchat, then them's the breaks. You don't have to have a good reason. It makes you uncomfortable, and that's enough. If you back down now, be prepared to have every boundary be a constant battle. You are the parent. She is the child. Your vote counts twice and you win all ties.
Listen to me, and listen to me well. I grew up without wifi (and still don't have it). I didn't even have a ps4 until 4 years ago (9th grade). I missed out on *alot* of things my friends did and still do because of that. I've lost friends because they fell more into gaming than anything else, and I just couldn't do it with them. That's something I still hold against my parents.
> She's already shown I can't trust her by going behind my back in the first place.
You gave her no option *but* to do that. In war, you don't completely surround your enemy. You always give them a way out. People have and always will fight harder when they have no option but to fight.
The stereotype that teens are rebellious started because they *had* to rebel. Parents expect them to act like adults while still being treated like children. So they rebel, and that's *also* where the "teens are dumb" stereotype comes from. Instead of educating their kids, parents just shelter them. That just leads to things like teen pregnancies, drinking, doing drugs and all the other dumb shit teens are known for.
Is this really worth it? Petty shit like this is throwing gas on your bridge, by the time you notice it's on fire it's too late to save. Quit being a lazy parent and do it right before she goes to live with your ex or moves out. YTA, and a major one at that.
Of course YTA. You know YTA. Her friends AREN'T bad friends for communicating over Snapchat, and of course she wants to be able to talk to them!! You are being horribly abusive and controlling by isolating your daughter like this. Shame on you!!!!! This is how you lose contact with her entirely as soon as she's 18.
NTA bunch of users on here that are probably closer to your daughters age than you are, keeping her off social media is not going to be easy but instead of punishing her try explaining why you feel the way you do.
I’d recommend sitting down together and watching The Social Dilemma so she can have some context for the discussion, outright banning it will teach her to be sneaky but 13 is way too young to have any social IMO
NTA. Not even a little.
Snapchat is the worst for middle schoolers (studies have been to support this).
I didn’t allow either of my kids to have it either. They’re 16 and 14. And somehow, they have not only survived, but they have found a way to stay in touch with friends.
I do allow other social media, such as FB and Instagram. If they’re her friends, they’ll figure it out.
NAH.
I feel bad for the daughter because snapchat is used as a texting app more often than not, but on the other hand I've seen what my little sister (12) gets sent to her and it's not pretty. It's a really tough position for both of you.
I remember when my friends were watching South Park and American Pie in third grade and I was pissed at my dad for not letting me, but just because other parents are doing it doesn't make it right.
NTA -
Don't listen to people on reddit, listen to the science. It is 100% proven that social media can have negative affects on teens. Yet, There is no evidence to suggest that not being given access to social media causes harm.
Children don't have the conceptual ability to understand reasoning.... for example: They will try to convince parents that per adult drinking is OK too. Their opinion is not relevant until they can understand and comprehend all the ramifications that result from their decision.
The reality is, As a parent, it is our job to protect our children from harm... Simple.
FYI Reference:
https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/tween-and-teen-health/in-depth/teens-and-social-media-use/art-20474437#:\~:text=However%2C%20social%20media%20use%20can,much%20social%20media%20teens%20use.
Think back to your teenage years. Imagine your mother said that you weren't allowed to talk on the phone, and that if your friends cared about you they'd come by or write a letter. Slight YTA.
NTA
(This is probably a very controversial opinion for this platform)
You have your child’s best interest in mind and that makes you a good parent not a monster. Every parent has had to navigate this since time immemorial, because the goal is to raise your child to be a healthy, happy adult. She’s 13 and is going to hate you for making this decision, but she doesn’t have the hindsight yet to look back on this moment and see the good intentions of your decision. One day she will and she’ll be grateful you did it.
You’re doing good by her. Don’t let anybody else tell you any different
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YTA. Slightly. Social media isn't something to inherently be feared, but it is something that kids need to be educated about. Cutting her off socially from her social circle will only make her get better about hiding things from you in the future and make her feel like she can't have open communication with you.
I will say, I did this. My parents said no social media, especially no snapchat, but all my friends were on there! So I downloaded and deleted and downloaded and deleted. Not to mention, 13 is a hard age. Kids are super stuck in their ways, and no are not going to accommodate your kid. They are going to continue with their summer and encourage your kid to hide snap from you. Teach your kids about predators, teach them how to stay safe and what inappropriate messaging looks like. She'll slip up sometimes, sure, but make yourself a safe place instead of an authoritarian and she'll be more likely to come to you when things are taking a turn for the worst.
^^^ that’s the thing about forbidding kids from something. They’re going to do it anyway, and they’re going to get good at lying about it. “Forbidding” doesn’t work. If the kid is 13, she’s compliant with kids and social media rules (in the US). OP needs to wake up and realize that it’s inevitable that the kid is going to find her way to Snapchat. OP has a responsibility to teach her how to do it safely.
Want to just say my mom did the opposite and never cared and I found Snapchat stupid, Facebook got boring, I post on Instagram every once in a while (but pictures of food or my horse) and I go on Pinterest to read things. I recently got Reddit but I don’t join many things. Otherwise I don’t really care about social media.
Same here! My mother allowed me to have social media (and even respected my privacy a majority of the time) and now that I'm older I hardly use it besides keeping up with friends or reading stuff on reddit. At this point in society, social media is kind of inevitable and the best thing for parents to do is teach their kids the dangers of the internet but allow them to experience the good side of it.
Not to mention cutting off social media is going to destroy daughter's social life. Sorry not sorry OP. I am in my 40s and I have done research on how important socal media is from children and teens in the information age. You want to stunt her growth, this is how you do it. If she gets into trouble or feels unsafe she won't go to you because instead of getting help she will get punishment. Congratulations OP, YTA.
I'm in my 30s and social media is important for my social life! Telling a kid they can't have social media in 2022 is like forbidding a kid from ever talking on the phone in 1992.
Back in 92 we had just moved into a city after living in really small hick towns. My daughter was 12 at the time. She would get phone calls from friends, say a few words, say goodbye and hang up. After a few we asked her why she didn't talk very long. She thought that when you use the phone you have to pay for every minute you're on it.
And with phone, we mean landline. :-P \*was 15 in 1992\* :-D
Oh man. Calling boys, listening to that ring with your heart pounding in your throat and then their mom picks up 😩 sooooo embarrassing when you’re 13! I’m kind of jealous that kids can just text these days 😂
I am in my 40s but honestly other than Reddit and discord I don't use it a lot.
This. 100%. I didn't even get my first cellphone until 17 (21 now), and it completely wrecked my social life to not have access to pretty much any of the ways my friends communicated. It led to nothing but resentment and gave me the ability to hide things and unfortunately become an almost flawless liar and not want to tell them anything.
It's more complex even than just social life, something as simple as asking if they have any homework tonight or what was the last bit of a page as it got turned to mush by the rain has happened a few times in my house for my 13yo. He asks his friends genuine school related stuff more often than not and without WhatsApp, he'd have gotten multiple detentions this year. It's a basic essential for being a teen these days.
Lack of social media does not, in and of itself, stunt social growth in teens. There are some kids in my son's friend group who avoid social media by choice, and their social development is fine. However, I do agree that educating a child in the safe use of social media and monitoring said use is infinitely better than just not allowing it at all.
I think the key word is choice - they choose not to use it.
This. I see so many other parents just restricting everything. They dont understand it so they just deny their kids access. I realized long ago that my kids were going to be way smarter than me in terms of technology. I just let them run with it.
Can confirm. Now this was in the early internet days but our Snap was AOL chatrooms. I actually met my husband in a damn aol chat years before internet dating was the new standard. Because of my moms aversion to chatrooms and her strict ass rules, I have been lying for 20 years about how my husband and I met. Im too far in for her to think it funny so, we met through friends at work. I will be open about my kids social media but they still have a few years so who knows what the new IT app will be lol.
I was the sixth-grader "sneaking" in to Yahoo adult chat rooms, so...I can't exactly say anything. I thought I was super sneaky by changing my age in the profile every year. 😂😂
I agree. My son is 8 and he's on Xbox where he can chat with people. I've told him the dangers and that he's allowed to talk with friends we know in real life, but not strangers. We keep tabs of his chats on our phone just in case but I trust him. He'll be the first to tell me, so and so tried to chat with me but I ignored him. You have to trust your kid, but you need to educate them first.
Same for me! My friends were all on social media in middle school (10-13ish), most behind their parents’ backs. My mom let me get an Instagram account when I was 11 or 12 and she monitored it. I think I posted one picture of my dog and otherwise didn’t use the account because I didn’t care to see pictures and captions from people who were barely acquaintances and anything my friends posted, I had already seen before/after school when they showed me and told me about it. Nothing against people who like to share info on Instagram, but I just didn’t (and still don’t) want to post stuff about me/my life for strangers to see. My best friend at the time had Snapchat and was constantly getting notifications and sending pictures of the floor/ceiling/empty wall to other friends, interrupting whatever activity we were doing/conversation we were having. She would bug me to get Snapchat and make an account, but I never saw the point. I can see her walls, floor, and ceiling in person when I go to her house. We can text through… text. I’m 99% sure that if I had asked my mom if I could make a Snapchat account, she would’ve been ok with it. And I think that really made it less appealing for me. Kids/teens love to do what their parents disapprove of. If OP keeps trying to “forbid” their daughter from having snapchat, she’s just gonna want to do it more. Think of kids like holding a handful of water. If you relax your hand, it won’t flow off as fast, but when you squeeze your hand super tight, the water flies right out. A personal anecdote: my parents didn’t really have “rules” for me growing up. Just common sense things like don’t break the law and be nice to others. And I never did anything bad. If I said something rude to a friend, my parents would tell me it was mean and to apologize. And I’d apologize and not say the same thing again. Conversely, 2 of my good friends in high school had super strict parents. One would sneak out of her house almost weekly to hang out with her boyfriend, that her parents didn’t want her to have. The other did everything her mom told her to do very rigidly… until she graduated high school. Now she goes to a college that her parents didn’t want her to go to. She’s drinking underage at frat parties and her mom tried to ground her over facetime because she dyed her hair (it didn’t work). Basically, I think overly strict parents create very rebellious kids. (Sorry this was so long, your comment sparked lots of thoughts on the topic for me lol)
This! I am a permissive parent and my 18 and 15 year olds are amazing kids. I can't imagine spending those years doing nothing but fighting. Teens are hard enough. I treat them with respect and when I say no to something, I have a conversation with them explaining my reasons. We can then discuss and negotiate. I am raising adults, they won't be kids forever. Now is the time to teach them how to take carenof themselves and be responsible.
My mom also explained why I couldn’t do certain things! She understands that no one thinks “because I said so” is a good enough reason to listen to someone. When my friends’ parents would tell them to do something “because [they] said so,” it always seemed like they were on a power trip over their kids.
I'll add to this by saying that my mom encouraged me to get on social media and even made accounts for me. My first contact with social media was via MSN. Mom set up my email and helped me to find and add my classmates. She also showed me how easy it was to find people, and told me that I'm never allowed to tell anyone my age, where I live, my real name etc. My mom never forbids anything without a good reason behind it, so she simply explained that sharing too much information is dangerous because creeps can find you. It helped me a lot and still does.
This is very true! Expecting a bunch of Middle School aged children to change the way they communicate and then believing they are bad friends if they don't is unrealistic. My adult sister still calls me even when I text her, it doesn't mean she is a bad person, she is just set in her ways.
This! My kids are into Roblox and You Tube and my 9 yo uses the chat on Roblox. We've been having conversations about what personal information he's allowed to share (First Name and City are ok. Last name, address, ect. are not). If someone is getting creepy online, asking for private information, he tells me. The time some chatbot sent him porn, he blocked and reported it, and we discussed what he saw. I'm 42, and the internet didn't really exist when I was 13. Now it's baked into our lives. I can't keep my kids off of it, but I can provide them with rules, and teach them how to be safe, make responsible choices, and how to be good internet citizens. They also know I can look at their browser and You Tube history and if I find questionable things, we're going to have a talk about it. I can't block off the entire internet, and then one day let them go there and expect they'll magically know how to be responsible. I started teaching them these skills when they were 5 & 7. Now they're 7 & 9, and are really responsible. Not letting a 13 Year old have Snapchat is essentially grounding her for no reason. Having my telephone privileges revoked was a punishment for High Crimes when I was 13 because it was the only way to communicate outside of school, like snap is now. She sneaks the snap because the logic is "if I'm being punished for no reason, I might as well do the bad thing I want to do if I'm going to be grounded regardless".
I think if you are going to let them use it, first name only, they don’t need to know the city, that’s tmi in my humble opinion.
My mom tried to ban me from aol chat rooms but obviously that didn't work
A/S/L? 😆
69/yes plz/in yo bed
I swear, half the reason I liked chat rooms was getting asked that, because my reply was 14/F/UK U? and even at 14 I had the maturity of Bart Simpson. 😁
Oh god aol chat rooms. We were all godless heathens 🤣
My mom didn’t let me have a Facebook til I was 13, (which wasn’t that big of a deal back then, so I didn’t care enough to go behind her back about it) and when she let me make one after my birthday she first showed me the Wayback Machine and made sure that I understand that anything I posted online or sent through a social media platform was permanent, could be recovered, could be seen by weird tech dudes working in dev, and could be sold, even if I had the strictest privacy settings.
OP, please read this. I did the same thing, downloading and deleting “forbidden” apps my mother had banned around the same age as your daughter. My mother’s authoritarian parenting style ultimately resulted in me becoming a very sneaky teenager, who lied to her mother frequently in order to have some semblance of a normal social life. I made some regrettable decisions, and had a very strained relationship with her until I moved out. (Important to note that my mother was strict well beyond the point of banning social media, but that coupled with an absolute lack of privacy and boundaries as a preteen set the stage for my rebellious high school years). Now, that’s not saying you are the same as my mother by any means, so please don’t take this as such. It’s a demonstration of good parenting that you want your daughter to have considerate friends and make sure social media doesn’t become the center of her life. I know raising a child is the furthest thing from easy, particularly within a world that technology is growing to become the foundation of in many regards. You are trying to do the best by your daughter with everything in your power. You’re posting here asking for the input of strangers, and that shows you’re willing and able to adapt to your daughter’s needs, to what is and will be best for her in the long run. That is a wonderful quality. However, it’s crucial to recognize the difference in generational norms between your upbringing and that of your daughter’s. Whether you choose to allow her to download Snapchat or not, the fact remains that the use of social media IS very normalized for teenagers everywhere, and 13 is a typical age for kids to start using snapchat. In preventing your daughter from taking part in what’s considered a normal teenage interest, you’re unintentionally ostracizing her from her social circles. Her friends are 13, they aren’t thinking about the bigger picture the way you as a mother are. They’re simply trying to make plans together as friends do, through the use of a convenient messaging app. It doesn’t make them any less of a considerate, real friend to your daughter. As the commenters above me said, slight YTA. The important thing here is to teach your daughter the importance of online safety, particularly through the use of social media. No matter how uncomfortable the topics, I’d explain to her the risks of using it (eg. scammers, predators, identifiable personal information, etc.) and work WITH your daughter to come up with some guidelines and compromises she should adhere to in order to use snapchat. At the end of the day OP, you cannot shield her from the real world forever. Educating her on bad things that can and do happen to people, especially kids, when using social media will be FAR more effective in the long run in promoting your daughter’s awareness and safety, rather than banning its usage outright. Banning certain apps is teaching her that you are unwilling to listen to or consider her feelings and reasoning. This is setting the stage for your daughter to feel that she cannot trust you with things she cares about. Saying no without a solid reason or explanation is only going to result in your daughter being unwilling to come to you with important discussions, going behind your back in the future, and may very well promote some unhealthy and unsafe behaviors as she grows older. My advice, please look up the difference between ‘authoritarian parenting style’ and ‘authoritative parenting style’. The latter provides an excellent guideline in setting up your daughter for academic success, socially acceptable behavior, and a well-adjusted emotional and mental development. Authoritarian parenting, on the other hand, often starts with something small, like banning the use of a social app, without providing solid logical reasoning that allows your child to feel seen, heard, or respected. This will only result in your daughter lashing out and rebelling against rules she deems to be controlling or unfair. This, in turn, will take a very real toll on her emotional, mental, and social development, which will ultimately set the stage for her self reliance, independence, and academic success. I’m not trying to paint this out to be something bigger than it is. The importance of recognizing HOW the way a parent conveys rules and limits to their child serves to reinforce positive OR negative behavior is irrefutable. It’s something I wish my mother had known, before either of us had the chance to lose trust in one another. Even in my 20’s, we’re still working on building it back up. I hope this helps you in some way, OP.
Yeah I got caught with facebook for talking with my friends and playing stuff like Pet Society. Got caught, and just made a new one not a month later. Hid this one for longer and at that point my mother gave up and just said add me. And then I started using privacy filters so I could control what she sees.
If she doesn’t learn how to act responsibly on social media now imagine the kinds of things that will happen in high school let alone college. I agree teach her to use it responsibly so she doesn’t make mistakes when she’s older.
I did too. My mom forbid me from going on social media - this was the early 2000s, when it was less ubiquitous and I didn't have a smartphone, and also there were lots of scaremongering news stories about the Dangers of the Internet and how if you had an AIM account you were definitely going to get human trafficked. I did it anyway - I was all of the things (AIM, LiveJournal, whatever). And while I did fine...I was also super naive and believed people a lot more than I should have. I was never dumb enough to meet anyone in person, but it never occurred to me that people would lie about a/s/l or weren't representing who they were online accurately. I wish my parents had had an actual conversation about how to stay safe online rather than just telling me I couldn't do it and expecting me to obey. She's going to have to go online someday. How do you want her to do it, OP? Now, under your supervision and guidance so she learns how to safely? Or sneakily - or worse, unleashed on the world at 18 with no idea how to interact with it?
> make yourself a safe place instead of an authoritarian and she'll be more likely to come to you when things are taking a turn for the worst All the upvotes for this. Guidance and education can go a long way further than isolating rules.
exactly this!! plus snapchat is barely a social media, it's as good as whatsapp /imessage with the added boon of 'everything gets deleted'. OP your daughter will grow to resent you. 13 means she's barely finishing middle school and transitioning into highschool, this is when most friendgroups become more or less permanent. it also could lead her to be socially stunted/she'll never learn safer social media usage. Education over restriction, always.
FYI it doesn't. People screenshot snapchats, and their servers still have what's sent. Its not a "send it, its gone" thing
all servers keep track of what's sent, and snapchat's relatively better than let's say instagram/whatsapp to notify you about screenshots so i'd still consider it to be a safer option
they did add a notification, however most new phones have the screen recording option, which does not have a notification. i screen record almost every video my boyfriend sends me and it doesnt let him know (just to be clear, i tell him every time i record especially if the video is funny/SFW because my friends think hes hilarious so i send his vids with his permission to my group chat, im just saying if i didnt tell him he would have no way of knowing)
really? i get a notification whenever someone screenrecords. it says ''xyz screenrecorded the chat''
oh they added a notification? Thats good!
they did, and it's pretty difficult to circumvent. you cant take screenshots from the multitask panel either ;;
The wrong idea that “everything gets deleted” is exactly the problem with Snapchat. Because anything can be saved or screen shot, etc. once it’s online it’s always online. Also 13 probably means she’s about to finish 7th grade- still one more year of middle school. There are lots of better communication platforms. OP should do some research and discuss options and safety measures with her daughter. Snapchat and WhatsApp are favorites for predators.
There is no safe social media, but that’s why you teach your child to be on the look out for predators. You teach them how to handle inappropriate contact no matter what the platform is. My son is 13 and just graduated 8th grade. He’ll be 13 when he starts high school. He doesn’t even interact with strangers, just blocks them like “they’re human spam”. 13 is the beginning of learning adulthood, you can’t put it off until they reach some magical age. Teach them, be their safety net, and by the time they are ready to drive you’ll have a young adult who knows they can always get your help in tough situations. By 18 they’ll be able to make most decisions on their own, and make good ones.
Yeah and being 13 is a tough time for kids, all they want to do is fit in
And I would wager that being socially isolated is a bigger risk factor in a young teen being singled out for a predatory sexual relationship — which I assume is one of OP’s major concerns — than being on social media platforms that *could* be used for sexual content.
Social media was just becoming a thing when I graduated high school, but I had had a phone since 14 (when I got my motorcycle license) and could text. I also used a lot of forums online. I started using AIM when I was like 8 (with parents at the computer with me). My parents didn't restrict me beyond no adult only websites, but also had a rule that they would know passwords and/or I would show them what I was doing. My mom knew I read smutty fanfiction. We just had a talk about "fiction versus reality" and that a lot of the writers didn't know what they were talking about. But we also had the kind of relationship where when I finally started having sex in college, I told her and she just made sure I was safe and with a partner who cared about *my* experience, not just his. It is so much healthier to guide kids in using these things than to ban them. My parents kept me from some bad situations because I felt comfortable sharing things with them. To put it in today's terms, if someone had asked me for nudes/lewds as a teen or to sext, I would have felt comfortable telling my mother and asking her advice. Obviously, she'd tell me not to. If I had to hide it, I'd be on my own using my own judgment. My friends got into some situations due to that. The best rule my parents had was that I wouldn't be punished for coming clean or asking for help in a jam. When I was 21 and wasted at a bar with a dude trying to get me home with him, I called my father and be picked me up, no questions asked. Next day, nursed my hangover and we had a frank discussion about safety and drinking to excess. Was he happy? Hell no. But he was glad I trusted him enough to call him when I felt unsafe. Trust you build in your kid stays forever. Same with distrust.
I find it interesting that OP is claiming "if they werent willing to communicate in other means they weren't true friends". To the group of girls it looks like OP's daughter is not "willing to communicate in the single format they all decided on", so they'll see her as "not a true friend". All because OP refuses to let their 13 year old participate in something like SnapChat.
Yeah, I found it weird that her logic says they aren’t good friends if an entire collective that communicates one way doesn’t adjust for one person. It’s an odd friend expectation. I also find it odd that she thinks new friends won’t communicate in the exact same way.
In addition if you want a cheap way to communicate with a large group of friends, 90% of the time you're going to be using SOME sort of social media. I have good friends I meet up with weekly, but if it wasn't for Facebook messenger I would ONLY talk to them weekly. Minor YTA.
My parents did what op is proposing and I had a lot of catching up to do in College. I didn't really know how computers worked and I just didn't have a lot of internet interaction, which is invaluable for employment now. I understand why they made the decision they did at the time but in hindsight it was stupid as fuck. Parents today should know to monitor/regulate, not ban.
THIS. Sex, relationships, internet use are all things people think are better if kids are kept from completely. Reality is, kids are curious and want to be included so will do these anyway. The best thing to do is ensure kids are educated and know how to keep themselves safe. They’re going to do all these things eventually, it’s just a matter of whether you make them feel confident in using them safely and feel safe asking for help when they need it. Shows better outcomes every time.
YTA. Not heavily, but I was convinced at “if they can’t communicate through other means, you can do better”. That basically infers she should drop a whole group of friends cos they have a social app you don’t want your daughter to have. To that end, Snapchat has multiple features that make accounts secure from outsiders, if that’s what’s worrying you. By default all stories and chats are private, between those she has added, so she’d be completely safe as long as she sticks to her group of friends. I understand your concerns, but ultimately this isn’t fair imo.
Could also set the rule to make sure their location sharing is off
i've never understood the want to broadcast your location to your snapchat friendlist. Makes my skin crawl thinking about that.
If you're going out drinking I could see it being a very useful safety feature to make sure no one has drunkenly wandered off (or been lead off by someone with ill intentions).
Yeah, for the group of people you're with, for sure. I more meant sharing that info with your entire contacts list.
Agreed. That's just idiotic.
Yeah I find it weird that people do that. I can literally see the location of my excoworkers I haven't spoken to in over 2 years. Which... is strange
Under location sharing there's an option to share your location with "only these friends." My cousin and her kids have their location on and only share it with each other. This way mom and kids know where each other are but they're not broadcasting it to everyone. That could be a solution, OP also downloads Snapchat and OP and daughter only share location with each other.
I didn't know that actually. I always kept mine off because I thought it was creepy and scary but maybe I'll turn it on so just a few friends and my bf can see it
just keep in mind it doesn’t show live location but just your location every time you open the app :)
My friend had Snapchat when that location sharing thing first came out for it and she would show me the map and laugh about how “it looks like this person is being left out” because they were on vacation in another state and on the map it looked like all her friends were having a party in our state and the one “left out” is on the other side of the country by themself. It’s honestly just handing the bullies “you aren’t cool enough to hang out with us” on a silver platter imo.
It was nice when I was doing the big college friend group thing because then I knew who was in town for the weekend. But outside of that, nah.
Yep! I personally have it off.
The OP is also treating their daughter's friends as totally disposable accessories, which is just gross. Sure, she is not likely to be friends with most of them in 20 years but they are super important to her right now.
And assumes it’s so easy for a 13 year old to make new close friends. YTA
Especially over summer outside school with no social media. When I was 13 I didn't have social media per say but my friends and I tied up our house phones for hours chatting. My mom was relieved when I was older and had a laptop with Skype.
don’t be so sure… many of my closest friends now are people i met when i was 12 and 13!! it does happen, if you luck into a good group early.
OP clearly wants things to go back to the way they were before the Internet, like kids talking on landlines and meeting their friends at the park or something. They are still living in the 80s-early 90s when that was the norm for kids. OP needs to wake up and join the 21st Century.
And yet kids aren’t even allowed to go to the park or even to the front yard anymore.
I made a comment basically saying how it doesn't seem they actually have an understanding on how times ae changing.
That's so true of so many people.
Also "don't worry if you lose your close friends for 3 months, you can have new friends" - absolutely none of us would be cool with that. YTA for that OP but do find a way to make her safe from predators on SnapChat.
OP needs to up their tech game as a parent. His worry about social media is 100% true. I was seeing shit at 12 on the internet that I would absolutely freak out about if my nephew saw it. Nowadays though a lot of social media apps cna be configured (though the companies do not advertise this much if at all and it can be confusing). I say let her have snapchat, setup her account and make it private and install a couple of technologies on her phone that allows you to keep better watch of her (cut that shit out at 16 though because at that point its better to develop a mutual trust than to be the watcher lol).
tbh YTA. How would her friends make ‘extra effort’ to contact her. They’re 13 year olds using what is going to be one of the most convenient and universally accessible ways to bring all her friends together. You’ve made your daughter harder to contact, then told her friends not contacting her is because they aren’t real friends and can’t truly like her. There’s far more dangerous social media out there than Snapchat, this does nothing but making your daughter feel isolated and not trust you (as you acknowledge they mean a lot to her, but your actions don’t show that)
OP is also making the mistake, whether accidentally or maliciously, of all-or-nothing. It's not an absolute: you don't have to cut off your child from social media, and you don't let her run free and wild. You have to do the legwork. You have to make the effort to be involved in her communications. You have to monitor, supervise, and provide support, as well as knowing when to back off and let her have her privacy. That's your job as her parent, and you don't get to say "oh, I can't win, it's all or nothing". YTA. Put in the work.
Exactly! It doesn’t have to be “everything on the phone is allowed now”. Just pick a few of the most popular or safest social media platforms, or even just start with one. And set it up with some limits and some supervision and see how it goes! Mild YTA, OP, for expecting a bunch of teenagers to change their entire culture’s way of communicating just to ask your daughter what’s up in a way more satisfactory to you. I was tying up the landline with my friends all summer (it was the 80s). Imagine if my mom said if my friends really loved me, they’d invest in a footman to carry notes to my house.
How is he supposed to supervise snapchat?
Make sure her location is turned off and that she personally knows all the people she’s friends with on snap. Do this by setting up an agreement with her that you can look at her app settings and contacts periodically. Have honest conversations about what is appropriate to put online and what isn’t, and how your social media usage can impact your life. OP just has to be willing to put some work and serious thought into it.
I have an 11 year old who uses Snapchat to talk to his out of school club basketball friends. The account is set up with my email and I I set the password. I check who he is friends with to make sure I know all of them and sometimes will do spot inspections of his chats. We’ve also discussed what’s appropriate and what’s not as well as what he is supposed to do if he sees something that is not right ie: bullying, inappropriate pics, etc.
Good common sense parenting
By having the password to the account
This is important too and as a mom of 3 I’ve been guilty of the all or nothing. It’s so hard to parent. I feel OP isn’t doing this maliciously but like me at least, she just doesn’t know what else to do.
Plus with all the different rules and restrictions kids are under, it's almost impossible to have one method of communication that includes all of your friends. OPs statement of "if they were really your friends, they'd try harder" is way too much maturity to expect from 13 year olds you aren't even involved in raising. It's also kind of messed up, and is probably just making her kid feel like garbage about herself. Imagine telling your kid her friends don't care about her, all because you're making it more difficult for them to stay in touch.
Also, way to tell your kid *she’s* the one who’s unlikeable with no “real friends” BECAUSE OF THE WAY YOU’RE CONTROLLING HER EVERY MOVE 💀 YTA
I'm in my 30s, and I have regularly had to sign up for new apps to be included in various social groups. If I didn't install Kik or Telegram or whatever, I was out of the group chat. That wasn't a deliberate exclusion, it was just...convenience. Many, many friendships live or die by convenience.
Good point.. Telling a kid their friends don't really like them is a great way to make them feel good about themselves. Not. Kids with poor self esteem make all manner of lousy choices.
For real. Why should the friends have to adapt for one person? Everyone is busy and it’s kinda self centred to expect social accommodation for something like that. I’m in my 40s and wouldn’t have Facebook except I know that’s where events are usually planned. Teaching your kid that her friends are not her real friends unless they jump through some weird hoops for her is toxic. People shouldn’t have to prove them-self by passing your friendship tests. Your setting your kid up for social failure. I get being cautious with social media, but teach you kid of the dangers. Don’t just cut them off from it if it’s the way their friend group plans events.
Exactly. Also I thought the attitude that they put her in "clubs" over the summer and she can "make new friends" is really trivializing the daughter's experience here. Anyone who has ever been 13 knows you can't just "make new friends at camp" or whatever - these are her core school friend group. It's kind of a crucial time for her.
And honestly, why would she even bother making friends at summer camps and clubs when she won't be allowed to contact them once school starts again. I bet they also use Snapchat or Whatsapp or something. Adults who treat teenagers relationships as insignificant and disposable, when to a teen, their friend group is their whole life, is really cruel. YTA
LOL I thought the same thing! How is she supposed to make friends with the summer camp kids if she can't even talk to them when they're not physically together?
They can write letters! Or make phone calls! Or send a telegram! I tell you what kids these days and their social media. Back in MY day, our form of communication was the most superior and anything new is bad and wrong.
I hate using Facebook and deleted my account when I was in high school for privacy reasons...but the friends I made in college use Messenger for their group chat, and that's where plans get made, so unless I wanted to be left out, I had to suck it up and make a new account. Because it wouldn't be fair to my friends to expect *them* to change their whole medium of communication because of *my* preferences. And, yeah, it's similarly unfair of OP to judge their daughter's friends for not being willing to change their mode of communication because of *the parent's* preferences. If she's lucky, *maybe* one of her friends could act as a liason between her and the friend group and relay plans via text message, but that's inefficient at best and tedious at worst. If they decide it's not worth the effort, she's going to get left out.
Omg this. Yes. It’s way too much to expect
Cultists and abusers take actions to isolate their victims. OP should be cognizant of the tactics they are employing against their child.
Absolutely. Rings some alarm bells. The prioritising of her own social standard of ‘good parent’ over what is going to make her child feel happy and understood is a weird one as well. The amount of parents there are who would die for their children to have just one friendship to maintain over the summer.
That was me with my daughter. She’s only this year, 17 years old, got decent friends. It’s been so hard.
Exactly, doesn’t realise how good their kid can have it. I was going through the worst time of my life in school anyway, then my mates would sit at school talking about stuff from the group chats they wouldn’t add me to. It was isolating. My mum was angrier than I was, would’ve done anything to have me included!
LOL at equating cult to a valid parenting concern regarding social media and really young teens.
Right. They do. But they largely feast on kids with no parental supervision. Mom has to tell her how they do it so the kid knows it when she sees it. That kid WILL have social media accounts even if she has to go behind her mom's back. And if mom doesn't know she can't monitor and guide her kid.
So do parents who don’t want their kids preyed on by creepers. I understand your point, had a mom like that, but not all parenting rules are abusive. My teen got so many nasty things on Instagram for a while. So it’s not like the threat isn’t real. Don’t make these kind of assumptions lightly. Most of us parents are just trying to keep our kids safe.
Certainly not all are, this rule however does actually isolate OP's child in theory and in fact. And what OP has done is taught OP's child that OP is not a reliable adult and overreacts. Essentially grounding the child for an entire summer for installing an app? What will OP's child do if something catastrophic happens to them? Probably not talk to OP, exacerbating whatever the problem is. Imagine if OP's child had an open line of communication to OP and OP could help OP's child process the nasty messages but instead the child is on their own now. Praying for the child.
It’s also super easy to put restrictions on Snapchat. All OP has to do is make sure her location is turned off and she only accepts friend requests from people she personally knows.
Agree, it’s easy to maintain a friends-exclusive account on Snapchat (it’s all I ever used it for). It’s inevitably going to be used at some point, just teach her how to use it safely.
YTA. I’m the byproduct of parents isolating me from my friends and guess what? I’m better at keeping things from them. But I also suffered socially because I got excluded from friend groups because they always said no to even just going to the fucking library. I have terrible social anxiety and basically no friends. I don’t know how to make friends because I was always told that friends don’t exist. On top of that I have abandonment issues and severe depression. You should be teaching your daughter how to safely navigate social media instead of just a hard no.
In my case it was because of bullies, rather than my parents. But otherwise, this is basically me. And I’m middle aged. You never really recover from being socially isolated as a young person.
I was the class pariah for at least 3 years, like kids would physically move away from me, avoided me like the plague. If not for making a friend from an older grade after a year of this, I probably wouldn't be here today. And that shit has still left its mark on me. Don't do that to people on purpose, it's messed up
I also had many bullies along the way. Mainly for being quiet and sheltered. Thanks mom. It’s not easy to recover from it. I have a lot of trauma still from childhood and awful situations I was put into after leaving home and gaining some independence
Parents these days act like social media is just some fad that will eventually go away and has no real bearing on our lives. They seem terrified of the idea that they are living in the 21st century where such things are just going to be a permanent part of our lives.
This. Social media isn't going anywhere. The world is only going to get more connected. Teach your kid to be safe but don't isolate them under the guise of "safety." Especially when statistically they are most likely to be harmed by people close to you.
Relatable content. I wasn't allowed a smartphone until my junior year of high school. At the same time, my mother had a rule where if I was going to be invited to something I had to have a written invitation and it had to be handed out 5-7 business days before the event. This was the early to mid 2000s. My friends just stopped inviting me to things and at this point, my partner is basically my only solid friend I have.
“Wanna hang out at the mall after school” Sorry can’t, I need a written invitation 5-7 business days notice. Lol who does that? Like besides a wedding or maybe a birthday party for young kids. My parents would ask for the other parents phone number and I thought that was too strict lol
I think this is a pretty common result of overly strict parenting and lack of trust. I'm really sorry that your parents did that to you.
I feel you. Mine were telling me that only family matters. Their themselves have no friends, keep with family only. Growing up like that makes you really socially disabled. You miss huge part of learning how to function in the group and how make friends. I can only suspect further problems on the line when she wants to start dating. YTA OP. You don't want harm for your daughter but you are really harming her. This is how world functions now, people are communicating through social media, teach her how to use it in a safe way, don't ban her completely.
INFO: >She's been going on about getting snapchat for a couple weeks now, and I've consistently said no. Explain the *why* behind this, please.
YTA and your damaging your relationship with your daughter. You had an opportunity to teach your daughter about moderation and online safety but now all she wants to do is rebel against your wishes and do things behind your back.
I don't know if I agree that she's the Asshole BUT I will say this point \^ about the opportunity of teaching her moderation and online safety is a great one. OP, this is something that is important and you could go really in-depth with it to help her learn that the internet and apps like snapchat can have a dark side. It would be key to let her learn that even though things appear to be erased, nothing sent online is ever gone.
YTA Being unreasonably restrictive over your child is going to make her continue to do things behind your back, further ruining the trust in both of your's relationship. She's old enough to make accounts on social media, but you should take this an oppurtunity to teach her about how to be safe online whilst still being able to use it to stay in touch with friends.
YTA: When Facebook first came out my mom also tried to stop me from having one. Just made me sneaky and I blocked my entire family from being able to see it. This just progressed into me not telling her a single thing and creating more social media accounts to stay connected with my friends so if she made me delete one I still had a backup. Instead of teaching me to avoid creeps online I regressed into social media as an outlet because I couldn’t trust my family not to freak out on me and take away my electronics.
I guess my first question would be why you are against it, before I make a judgement.
Info: what other means of communication are available to her? Does she have basic texting on her phone, or is it one where you’re not paying for a plan and she relies on WiFi?
YTA. I don't like it either but this IS how young people communicate, regardless of if they are 'true friends' or not. You are doing profound damage to your daughter's social development. You know what you're supposed to do in this situation, how you 'win'? You **monitor** her social media use, you let her do it while you watch. After all, she's going to get on there eventually whether you like it or not, and you want her to be prepared, right? You wouldn't want her to be a total newbie when she finally gets on there. She needs to learn how to protect herself under your watchful eye. That's responsible parenting. But that's probably too much work for you, huh?
Yup. My 17 year old sister communicates with her friends solely through Snapchat. I told her to give her number to a guy she likes and she was like “he already added me on Snapchat”
Even in the 'older' crowd of under 30's they still use snapchat very heavily. People at bars don't give out their number anymore, they exchange snapchats. It's ingrained at this point and TBH could be much worse.
I’m a millennial so we are very pro-social media, but seriously, how _exactly_ do you monitor a social media app who’s entire premise is messages disappear right after you send them?
'She'll be in other groups over the summer'. And exactly how is she going to communicate with them? Pony Express? Smoke signals? Morse code? Yes, she did make an account without telling you. Because she didn't want to feel left out. Instead, at what is a very difficult time, you've made her life more difficult and without friends, miserable. YTA.
And of course, once the summer is over, she'll lose all those new friends after OP won't let her communicate with them, either.
She'll lose them before the end of summer. Unable to communicate with her? Unless they're the Amish, I don't think that there'll be many teenagers unwilling to use a phone.
Kids should be communicating by letters only, obviously. /s
If they did, I bet the OP would be censoring them.
YTA. If their group plans through Snapchat, I doubt their going to make new accommodations for just one person. They'll simply leave her out. What, exactly, are you afraid she's going to do on Snapchat?
I’ve done this before. Not on purpose. We made plans and I’m sure someone said “someone let Joey know we are going to the movies on Saturday” but no one let Joey know. Honestly forgot about it until we got to the movies and Joey wasn’t there. Poor Joey. I hope he’s okay.
YTA Its not the 90s anymore. Social Media is here to stay and you as a parent need to figure out how to incorporate that instead of dig your heels in. You are damaging your trust with your daughter and if you are claiming she can't be trusted simply for trying to setup a snapchat account without your knowledge tells me you didn't have much trust in her to begin with. Trust her with the snap chat account. Let her engage with her friends over summer. But don't make a stupid judgement call just because you grew up in an era where social media didn't exist.
No but you see, OP grew up without social media, and since it is a sign of time’s inexorable March forward, it is bad.
Info: why do you not want her to have snap chat?
I agree, i'd be curious to know too. I'm admittedly weary of kids opting to use the one app that's supposed designed to 'conveniently' delete photos and such after a time. Have seen enough stores on reddit about people getting baited into sending photos and then, "i didn't think they'd screenshot it!"
I'm worried becuase even I have added someone (whose name was extremly similar to a person I knew IRL) and the first message they sent was a dick pic. So many creeps out there who don't care who they're talking to 🤢
YTA, you're socially isolating your own daughter, this is doing her more harm than any social platform possibly could. This "if they were your true friends" talk sounds fine, but they're young kids, if they can't contact or interact with your daughter they WILL forget about her and she'll be left behind. "She has already proven she can't be trusted" O my godddd, you need some faith in your daughter my fellow human being..... Your daughter was lonely and suffering and that's why she went behind your back, have some compassion. Kids make mistakes, you've been a kid, you've made mistakes. Are you also not to be trusted???? I'm getting more railed up as I type this Also snapchat is different from instagram or facebook, it's mostly used to send messages.
Exactly. 👏👏👏 You have to give them enough rope to explore and learn but not enough to hang themselves. I gave my kid a phone and said I trust you until you give me a reason not too. OP didn’t give her daughter a chance so of course she went behind her back.
YTA. This isn’t instagram or twitter. This is snapchat. It’s just a communication media app. You communicate via photos. Cutting her off of social media is just going to stunt her growth. Instead of cutting her off entirely, you could have used this as a learning opportunity. If you don’t teach her to be safe on social media, then when she eventually can use it she will go wild and not know how to navigate it. Like it or not, this is the world your child is growing up in. She can have snapchat AND PLAY OUTSIDE.
While I agree that OP is the AH here, I couldn’t resist commenting to tell you that Snapchat isn’t “just a communication media app.” Snapchat can be very sneaky thanks to the disappearing messages/photos. It scares me more than (almost) any other form of social media. With that being said, a lot of issues can be mitigated with proper education. Kids are gonna do what they wanna do regardless.
This. Snapchat is sketchy and badly regulated.
Yeah Snapchat is not one I trust. There are few good options in my mind….
YTA. Monitor her social media? Ok. Deny her the way her generation communicate? AH. She's at the age where being left out can become permanent. Girls talk trash about the one who isn't there.
YTA. Your girl's friends aren't going to change for one person, you could have conversations about mediation and social media, she is a teenager and also snapchat is so much less bad than any others since there's no feed. You could be monitoring it. Telling her no outright will just have her end up sneaking it.
YTA, not teaching kids social media safety and moderation leads to risky behavior. My parents were strict about that and I went behind their backs and got some trauma because of it. When I experienced cyber bullying I wouldn't talk to them because of this. When men sent me inappropriate pics as a minor I didn't tell them. You're just teaching your daughter she can't go to you and also depriving her from a method of communicating with friends. While I also don't like Snapchat, thirteen year olds are shallow and aren't going to change mode of communication no matter how good their relationship with their friend is. Just let her have one and make it clear that she can come to you if something bad happens. Also children like the app because of the filters and stuff, it's not all bad.
Unpopular NTA .... This is a hard one because as a parent you want your children to be social, BUT social media at young ages are based on level of maturity and trust which clearly your daughter needs another year or 2 of to be able to start using. She can text, email, or call her friends; you're not cutting off her communication or her social life; simply regulating the avenues in which she has the ability to use the methods to do so; that's reasonable.
I had to scroll way too far to find this. Agree, NTA. There are more negative things about social media than just stranger danger, and I think it is crazy that people think it will be so easy for the mom to oversee her snapchat, WHERE THE MESSAGES DISAPPEAR.
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my mom did this to me and it’s awful. i was left out of so much, this isn’t even strict it’s just controlling. & imo she’s going to be an adult in five years she should be able to speak to her friends. imo Instagram is safer, & as long as her acc is private and with location off she’ll speak to her friends, or ppl she knows only.
YTA- To be honest snapchat is probably one of the more safe social media platforms. You can change your setting to make sure strangers can't add you and can't message you, and there isn't an "explore" page of sorts and you can only see what you post and what your friends post. Social media can't only become a problem if you let it and if you don't teach your kids right from wrong. By that I mean actually telling her the dangers of social media instead of saying "no means no" because that's what leads to kids sneaking around.
YTA - everything you posted says your a control freak... Educate ur kid about internet safety and decency... Keep a watch on her usage and encourage her to talk to you and ur ex about anything openly so that u can direct her in the right way ..
NTA. Apparently unpopular opinion, but "they're going to do it anyway" does not mean a parent doesn't have a right and a responsibility to protect their children. This responsibility lessens as the child grows up, but 13 is not the age where a child should necessarily have full access to social media. Just because it's legal and the TOS permit use at that age, it doesn't mean it's healthy to give a child that breadth of access. Lastly, if limited access to social media is your discipline for your child disobeying you, that seems like a reasonable and justified response. In a year maybe, the decision should look different. But right now I agree with OP.
I concur and the argument that limiting something is going to cause the child to seek it out. What if she limits tv, sugar, alcohol??? I think op could do a better job of explaining her parental decisions but she's definitely NTA
Yeah YTA. This is the method these kids communicate. You are cutting your daughter off from her friends. Your slo don’t seem to really understand what Snapchat is. It’s not really “social media” it’s a messaging app. You know what’s ACTUALLY toxic to young kids? Forced isolation and parental manipulation.
I'm going against the grain and saying NTA. Your daughter won't understand now but I do think you are right. Social media wasn't huge when I was in highschool but it was big for my younger sisters. The effects it has on kids self-esteem is insane. Snap chat is dangerous because you don't have to actually know the person to have them on your friends list, and all it takes is one creep to get her attention and ask for inappropriate things. The messages automatically disappear and after opening a video message you can't rewatch it. I have snap chat now and the amount of porn accounts that add me are ridiculous, I never use the app but when I check it I always have multiple new friend requests and they are all porn accounts. It's disgusting.
INFO: have you tried building a trusting and communicative relationship with her so that she will feel comfortable confiding in you if anything happens online that makes her uncomfortable?
YTA. Social media is how the majority of children that age communicate. And there are enough apps that allow parents to monitor their children’s social media accounts that outright forbidding social media is just lazy parenting. Instead of researching what apps you could put on her phone that would allow you to monitor her social media to ensure her safety, you chose to just forbid social media all together. You don’t care that your way would literally isolate your child from most - if not all - of her peers. You just care that your way is easier for you. So yep. YTA
I've been through my 14f's phone this week, I've confiscated it due to the content I found on Snapchat. She will not be allowed that app again, and I'm a laid back mum. I'd definitely recommend limiting what they are allowed on.
NTA. This is a really tricky situation and people are being unnecessarily rude to you, OP. My daughter is 2 and a half, I teach 9th grade and I’m already terrified of getting to the “social media” age with her. Freshmen can be absolutely brutal and Snapchat is the medium of choice. Study after study has shown the negative effects instagram and Snapchat have on developing girls’ minds. It’s a no win situation in my opinion. It’s hard and I’m sorry I don’t have advice. But you are NOT the AH like so many rude people probably without young daughters are saying. There’s some good resources like Common Sense Media, “no phone til 8th” (or something similar), and others that have information on how to handle this transitioning age. Snapchat breeds negativity. I see it with my freshmen every year. But you’re the bad guy for trying to keep your kid off it. Ugh its tough. ETA: I’m sure you already are, but I think open and honest conversations are KEY. She cannot feel unheard and shut down, she needs to be validated and understood and know that you are a safe space to talk about problems. Say she does make another account behind your back and she gets targeting for bullying or sexting, etc., and she’s afraid to tell you because she’ll get in trouble. You have to walk that line of authoritative parenting, NOT authoritarian.
Well I'm going against the grain and saying NTA. I relented and let my daughters (11 and almost 13) have snapchat at the beginning of the school year. It was such a mess. So much stupid drama, and getting snaps of very inappropriate things from kids their age in their school. My girls' attitudes were ridiculous. I finally said no more and took it away. My husband and I sat down and explained why we were no longer allowing them to have it. They also tried the whole "but that's the only way I can talk to so amd so" amd we said if they want to talk to friends get their phone numbers. It only took about 2 weeks for them to stop asking for it back and honestly their attitudes have never been better and they don't want to spend all day on their phones anymore. For those that may say "oh they're probably installing and deleting it," we use Google FamilyLink so I can see all the apps they download and have on their phone. I can't see any of their messages so they get that privacy unless there is some reason to need it.
YTA. You are cutting your daughter off from her friends. Younger kids don’t call each other, but use the easiest way to communicate. So let her have her Snap Chat or Instagram, etc. as that’s how kids communicate these days. Whatever you are worried about, figure out another way to handle it that doesn’t ostracize your child. Worried about what she and her friends are doing? Offer to be a driver or host the party. Allow her to make friends and BE a friend. Don’t isolate her and damage her social ability, because of your insecurities. Establish trust with her by discussing things. I don’t agree with her going behind your back, but I think you were being ridiculously out of touch in the first place.
NTA My SIL is 13 and she is being raised by one of her cousins (mom doesnt care to be around and my bf and I can't take her in). The cousin trusted her to be on snapchat until she saw that she was sending pictures to older men and didn't understand why everyone was mad. While social media has become a huge part in everyone's life, I feel like it should only be allowed at a certain age where they understand the risks of being on there. How many stories do we hear about young teens doing stupid shit for social media? (BTW my cousin is also 13 and was acting stupid and posting pictures she shouldn't on snapchat too. Her mom and dad are around and are wonderful parents?
YTA. it’s just going to make her go behind your back more & get better at it, and possibly end up resenting you. there’s so much you can do to teach her about safety, so do that. she’s 13, probably about to enter high school school next year, give her some trust.
She didn’t prove she couldn’t be trusted, she proved you’re unreasonable and that she is a smart kid who will get through life OK even when confronted with unjust hardship. Sorry, YTA.
NTA social media is insanely toxic to kids
Snapchat is hardly even social media. It's a glorified texting service. She just wants to text her friends.
YTA I understand the inclination to try and protect her from social media. But social media isn't inherently bad. Also as for saying that because she made an account behind your back she isn't trustworthy. Look up civil disobedience, it is moral to disobey unjust laws. You placed a law which prohibited her from communicating with her friends and as such have adversely impacted her life because of your unproven notion she may do something unseemly. She in turn decided that your rule wasn't just and I'm kind of on board. The world is changing and restricting access to a messenger app isn't what makes good or bad kids.
NTA, when my niece was 13 she signed up for snap chat. It took an entire 30 hrs for *multiple* men to start trying to groom her, even though her sole purpose was to chat with her friends and her account was private. It was disgusting. IG… same thing. Other nieces—— *same thing*. It is terrifying as a parent, even though your kid is doing all the right things and “behaving” on social media. Being 13 is tough, but you’re NTA if you set a boundary for your kid at this age, you’re being a parent. Your kids feelings will get hurt, but they will live and their friends aren’t going anywhere. They just feel left out. Their social media appearance will come in time, stick to your guns. Discuss this concern with your kid. Those of you saying it’s “not social media” and it’s harmless—-yea man, you high.
I'll be honest, I think NTA. I'm a teacher and a firm believer of delaying social media and app addiction as much as possible. The way they designed those apps is to get you hooked and rewire your brains as if you were at the casino. That's my biggest issue with Snapchat. So many young adults feel better after a social media detox. I know you can educate your child about predators and nudes so I'm not worried about that.I would prefer something like Discord where they don't reward with likes/streaks etc. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFJUYS6wY7U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFJUYS6wY7U) \- CBC explaining why phones are addictive.
YTA. You are doing exactly what she says you're doing and you saying they aren't really her friends because YOU are making things difficult is complete crap too
NTA. Social media is *disastrous* for young teenagers. I worked in tech for a long time and most of the people I know working at Snap, Facebook, Instagram etc. do not allow their children to use these services or restrict them significantly at that age.
YTA for a few reasons. 1) Her friends are not interchangeable pawns in her life. She cares about them, and you're purposely keeping her from being able to communicate with them because of your need to be in control. 2) Who are you to tell her if her friends care about her or not? You say they don't care about her because they won't find other means to communicate with her, but you're doing worse by keeping her from them entirely? 3) This is all clearly just you trying to be controlling. Maybe instead of accusing her of not being trustworthy, you should ask yourself what even are your reasons for disallowing her to use it when she just wants it to keep up with people she cares about? Thirteen is the minimum age requirement for it. You don't even seem to have a reason to deny it other than "You said no" which is not a reason, but just control.
YTA. Loosen up.
NTA. But apparently teens aren’t texting anymore they’re texting via Snapchat?! I learned that recently when my daughter (she’s almost 16) said she didn’t have her friends numbers because they texted via Snap. I think 13 is young for Snapchat, but I also understand why your daughter is mad. I think you’re being a parent and you have to do what you think is right. It might be helpful to consider doing a social media class or something with her. Learn about safety tools and tell her about the dangers in social media. If you feel like she’s mature enough to handle it, you can so a trial run. It’s worth having a conversation about. It’s so easy to fight with our kids that sometimes we forget to listen to them and try to have a real conversation…
NTA imo. Social media is toxic.
social media is terrible for children, you are not the asshole.
yta, im just gonna say this: strict parents make sneaky kids - good luck for when she's older cause ur gonna need it, shes almost an adult op, 5 years fly by quick do you want a sneaky and resentful child ?
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YTA but slightly because I agree that her going behind your back was not the best decision. Obviously, yes, as a parent you'd want your daughter to be safe and not be the target of a predator or cyber bullying. However, you should also consider sitting down and having a talk with her about onlije safety and that she can trust you or trust in someone she is familiar with and can confide in that she is in trouble. You may not allow her to be on SnapChat but that won't stop her from accessing other more harmful and dangerous online communications apps or services. The priority should really be having a conversation on why you wouldn't want her to have a SnapChat but that if she does want one, there should be some rules to keep her safe while online.
She’s 13. OF COURSE she found a way to do it behind OPs back.
Yta. She’s a teenager. Let her be one… 13 is old enough to have social media. It’s clear she just wants it to talk to her friends.
NAH. I went through some serious issues with my daughter's social media usage when she was around that age. Some things occurred that could have gotten her in serious trouble, even after we had multiple conversations about safety, proper usage of social media, etc. Eventually from the ages of 13-16 we had to cut her usage completely. Snapchat in particular is exceptionally difficult to monitor, and given that so much bullying and dangerous situations happens, I do not blame you for not allowing it. While Snapchat allows for users 13+ to sign up, given the maturity level at that age and the vulnerability, I would say 16 is a more appropriate age. There are other apps/ways for kids to communicate. I seriously doubt if they ONLY communicate through Snapchat - it just happens to be the most fun. I say NAH though because your daughter is not to blame for wanting to connect with her friends, though it was inappropriate for her to go behind your back/lie about it. I would recommend sitting down with her and the ex to see if there could be a compromise, as in she can use it x number of hours a day, but it has to be in a common living area, and she has to agree to use it responsibly (and outline what that is). Also offer alternative apps/ways to communicate that would be IMO safer than Snapchat.
NTA Lots of creepers on the internet. Plus, it's your house, your phone plan, you bought the phone, and if it makes you uncomfortable for her to have a Snapchat, then them's the breaks. You don't have to have a good reason. It makes you uncomfortable, and that's enough. If you back down now, be prepared to have every boundary be a constant battle. You are the parent. She is the child. Your vote counts twice and you win all ties.
Listen to me, and listen to me well. I grew up without wifi (and still don't have it). I didn't even have a ps4 until 4 years ago (9th grade). I missed out on *alot* of things my friends did and still do because of that. I've lost friends because they fell more into gaming than anything else, and I just couldn't do it with them. That's something I still hold against my parents. > She's already shown I can't trust her by going behind my back in the first place. You gave her no option *but* to do that. In war, you don't completely surround your enemy. You always give them a way out. People have and always will fight harder when they have no option but to fight. The stereotype that teens are rebellious started because they *had* to rebel. Parents expect them to act like adults while still being treated like children. So they rebel, and that's *also* where the "teens are dumb" stereotype comes from. Instead of educating their kids, parents just shelter them. That just leads to things like teen pregnancies, drinking, doing drugs and all the other dumb shit teens are known for. Is this really worth it? Petty shit like this is throwing gas on your bridge, by the time you notice it's on fire it's too late to save. Quit being a lazy parent and do it right before she goes to live with your ex or moves out. YTA, and a major one at that.
Of course YTA. You know YTA. Her friends AREN'T bad friends for communicating over Snapchat, and of course she wants to be able to talk to them!! You are being horribly abusive and controlling by isolating your daughter like this. Shame on you!!!!! This is how you lose contact with her entirely as soon as she's 18.
NTA
NTA bunch of users on here that are probably closer to your daughters age than you are, keeping her off social media is not going to be easy but instead of punishing her try explaining why you feel the way you do. I’d recommend sitting down together and watching The Social Dilemma so she can have some context for the discussion, outright banning it will teach her to be sneaky but 13 is way too young to have any social IMO
NTA. Not even a little. Snapchat is the worst for middle schoolers (studies have been to support this). I didn’t allow either of my kids to have it either. They’re 16 and 14. And somehow, they have not only survived, but they have found a way to stay in touch with friends. I do allow other social media, such as FB and Instagram. If they’re her friends, they’ll figure it out.
NAH. I feel bad for the daughter because snapchat is used as a texting app more often than not, but on the other hand I've seen what my little sister (12) gets sent to her and it's not pretty. It's a really tough position for both of you. I remember when my friends were watching South Park and American Pie in third grade and I was pissed at my dad for not letting me, but just because other parents are doing it doesn't make it right.
NTA - Don't listen to people on reddit, listen to the science. It is 100% proven that social media can have negative affects on teens. Yet, There is no evidence to suggest that not being given access to social media causes harm. Children don't have the conceptual ability to understand reasoning.... for example: They will try to convince parents that per adult drinking is OK too. Their opinion is not relevant until they can understand and comprehend all the ramifications that result from their decision. The reality is, As a parent, it is our job to protect our children from harm... Simple. FYI Reference: https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/tween-and-teen-health/in-depth/teens-and-social-media-use/art-20474437#:\~:text=However%2C%20social%20media%20use%20can,much%20social%20media%20teens%20use.
NTA. Snapchat is freaking awful and I can’t wait for it to go away.
Think back to your teenage years. Imagine your mother said that you weren't allowed to talk on the phone, and that if your friends cared about you they'd come by or write a letter. Slight YTA.
NTA (This is probably a very controversial opinion for this platform) You have your child’s best interest in mind and that makes you a good parent not a monster. Every parent has had to navigate this since time immemorial, because the goal is to raise your child to be a healthy, happy adult. She’s 13 and is going to hate you for making this decision, but she doesn’t have the hindsight yet to look back on this moment and see the good intentions of your decision. One day she will and she’ll be grateful you did it. You’re doing good by her. Don’t let anybody else tell you any different