How can we teach our daughter that people are not always what they initially seem?

February 9, 2009 12:41 PM

How can I convince my daughter that she really doesn't know someone?

We've had all the talks. She's aware of stranger danger but, since she's met someone once, she assumes that she knows them. She's 16 and very outgoing, smart, pretty and is a good student.

We have a big problem with someone sending her a msg via myspace and reminding her of how they know her and then the phone conversations and texting starts.

She's made mostly good choices all of her life and I dread what could potentially happen when she learns this the hard way.

To us, (her mom and pop) a friend is someone who we've met or maybe someone she knows from school. She does not see the danger of someone saying oh, we met at (wherever.)

The bottom line is, could the hive please provide some anecdotes that we could get her to read in regards to someone not being who you thought they were?

posted by winks007 to human relations (53 comments total)

is there another that she is close to? perhaps an older cousin or an aunt?

such advice/stories-from-experience might come across better from someone other than m & p, no matter how close you are. and said older cousin/aunt might have just such stories.

i wish my parents would have wanted to have to someone talk to me about this! i can't think of any stories off the top of my head since i was not a teenager when meeting people on myspace happened :)
posted by sio42 at 12:47 PM on February 9

ugh..i mean "another relative"...
posted by sio42 at 12:48 PM on February 9

she's old enough to make these judgment calls on her own. you've raised her the best you could. parents are very bad at determining who is or is not a good person for their child to be around (i don't know about you, but my parents always seemed to love the kids i knew were the biggest screw ups and were weary of the kids that i knew were the most promising).

just because you know them, doesn't make them safe. just because she met them online doesn't make them a rapist.

keep the lines of communication open and don't dismiss a friend of her's just because you don't value the type of contact they keep.
posted by nadawi at 12:48 PM on February 9 [14 favorites]

I would think that the whole Elizabeth Smart thing is a good example. The man that abducted her was known by the family - he worked a bit for the family, it appears that he conversed with various members of the Smart family, her father hired him. Still, he was dangerous, even though the previous contact (through doing some labor for the family) was benign (he didn't act dangerous) and brief, he was still a nutcase. He was still a stranger.

You could take so many accounts in the news today. Husbands leading double lives, killing their pregnant wives and dumping them somewhere; children killing their parents; parents killing their children, etc. I'm just saying that we don't even know the people that we should know best.

But then again, I have the attitude that LITERALLY EVERYONE has it in them to abduct, rape, kill, and dismember me.

You just never know.
posted by Sassyfras at 12:49 PM on February 9

Sometimes you do just meet people (wherever). It sounds like you've raised a good kid, why not trust her to make good decisions based on the values you've instilled in her? Of course you should try know as much as possible about the people she's hanging out with, but unless she's engaging in risky behavior, why push the issue? I would think just reminding her (as it seems you're doing) that people aren't always what they seem would be sufficient. Is your problem that she's...talking to and IMing people that you don't know personally? How else is she supposed to actually find things out about these potential friends/bad guys?
posted by phunniemee at 12:51 PM on February 9 [2 favorites]

Not to jump all over you, but some kids have fairly wide social circles. When I was 16, my parents certainly did not know everyone I was hanging out with, or everyone that I would consider a friend. Are you sure she has met this person only once, or is this just the first time you've heard of this person?

If she's made good choices all her life, I don't think you have anything to be concerned about. I'm just not quite sure what your fear is. Is there something peculiar about this mysterious stranger that rubs you the wrong way, or is it more the way that she's introduced to new people (social networking sites, etc.)?
posted by antonymous at 12:52 PM on February 9

Also: To us, (her mom and pop) a friend is someone who we've met or maybe someone she knows from school.

I just want to say that the times that I brought friends home when I was a kid, the friend was always on their best behavior and my parents would never have known whether they were nutcases or not. I remember my parents expressing their satisfaction at some of my friends and I would just shake my head because they had NO CLUE who they just endorsed. Just because you met them doesn't make them safe. And vice versa. It's a judgment call - on your part and on your daughter's part.
posted by Sassyfras at 12:55 PM on February 9 [2 favorites]

To us, (her mom and pop) a friend is someone who we've met or maybe someone she knows from school.

How is a person she knows from school more trustworthy than a person she knows from somewhere else?
posted by Greg Nog at 12:57 PM on February 9

Maybe tell them something about yourself or your family that you know she didn't know before. That might make the point indirectly that even people close to you are often more than they seem. Plus it could generally help. Just be discerning in what you reveal!
posted by KMH at 12:59 PM on February 9

We have a big problem with someone sending her a msg via myspace and reminding her of how they know her and then the phone conversations and texting starts.

Don't lose track of the fact that this is the new norm for her social/peer group. You meet someone somewhere ... friend of a friend ... and in the "old" days you'd get to know them as you saw them in person a few times, then a few more times, then phone calls and notes in class or whatever.

Today its just socially different. Myspace, phone conversations, texting: none of those in and of themselves are risky behaviors. In her world, its totally normal and unremarkable that you meet someone physically once but get to know them over the web via Facebook, myspace, texting, all those message services.

The big key here is the choices she makes in person, after she's established a relationship with those people.

She does not see the danger of someone saying oh, we met at (wherever.)

Its true that this is a danger, but have you talked with her about how she's establishing the bona-fides for these folks. Often teens I know won't text or chat with somone who has established communication in this way without verification from others in their group: Hey, do you remember JohnX from Amy's party? Yeah? Oh yeah, the cute guy in the Cramps shirt?

To us, (her mom and pop) a friend is someone who we've met or maybe someone she knows from school.

First, acknowledge that its not like that anymore, then ask her some questions rather than doing all the talking. You may be surprised at some of the answers you get.

(PS: The worst thing that ever happened to me happened with "a guy from school" who had met my parents probably 50 times (his family went to our church, too) The hardest part of being a parent is to acknowledge that there is a risk of Bad Things happening.)
posted by anastasiav at 1:00 PM on February 9 [11 favorites]

She does not see the danger of someone saying oh, we met at (wherever.)

Frankly, neither do I.

If she starts hanging out with someone who you have legitimate reason to believe is sketchy, talk with her about those specific reasons. But I think you may be inventing a problem where none exists.
posted by ook at 1:00 PM on February 9 [2 favorites]

I thought getting hurt from personal interaction was part of growing up, and only something you learned through experience...
posted by ZaneJ. at 1:02 PM on February 9 [3 favorites]

I know that when I was 16, my parents were very very protective of who I spent time with and spoke to and very uncomfortable with the idea of my using social networks they were unfamiliar with. I know this is said too often, but I say this honestly, and with a dose of regret, that several times I was too adventurous because my parents were pushing me too hard in the opposite direction. Providing your daughter with horror stories won't really solve the problem, I think it's just making the right choices, and based on your description of her, you should just trust her. And make her feel comfortable to talk to you! That's the worst...when parents have been so judgmental about certain aspects of a teenagers life that they then don't feel comfortable about confiding in their parents about what they're doing or who they're with, and that's probably the most dangerous thing.

(Also, she's 16. There's only so much you can do...if she wants to do it she'll probably find a way to do it with or without your permission, and it's definitely preferable that you know about it.)
posted by Grimble at 1:03 PM on February 9

There will be a time when she gets in a little over her head. She might be at a party or she might be out at the mall or she might be in a car with someone she just met, but at some point, she'll all of a sudden realize that what she thought she knew she doesn't. You can't prevent her from experiencing this moment no matter how hard you try, but you can teach her what to do in a situation where she realizes she's in too deep and she needs to be rescued immediately, and you can be that person to rescue her right away.
posted by incessant at 1:03 PM on February 9 [11 favorites]

To us, (her mom and pop) a friend is someone who we've met .

Your daughter is 16. From now and going forward, your daughter's social circle will only get wider. Learn to embrace the fact that your daughter will have friends that you don't know. If you've raised her right, it's not going to be a problem.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 1:04 PM on February 9 [2 favorites]

Seconding what KHM said. I didn't figure out that my gut reaction, instinct, and judgment was not 100% reliable until adults started letting me in on inside dirt.
posted by kristymcj at 1:05 PM on February 9

Perhaps semantics can help? She isn't altogether incorrect when she says she knows them, but are concerned that she doesn't know them well enough.
posted by crickets at 1:07 PM on February 9

To go against the fray, a 16 year-old does not possess the cognitive capacity to have "good enough judgment to know." The frontal lobe is not developed enough to understand the consequences of behavior in the way an adult's is. They know just enough to be dangerous.

This isn't to say that you daughter can't be a good judge of character, but I agree with you in that she maybe hasn't had enough life experience to know that the sort of friends who are randomly hitting her up on myspace aren't the kinds of friends she necessarily needs.

I would say, though, that if she's on myspace, there's not a whole lot you can do at this point without making her life totally miserable. At this point, you need to talk to her about the importance of not meeting internet friends in person, and remove identifying information from her profile and from her profile pictures. Just by having a picture of her HS mascot in the background, someone from your town could put two and two together to find where she attends to abduct/rape/otherwise harm her (and I've heard tales of girls being found out this way).

Another alternative is to encourage her involvement in activities where she is engaging with people you believe to be trustworthy, or at least where they're supervised (e.g. HS sports, church, choir, band, other clubs). My guess is that she's like any typical 16 year-old girl and she just wants some guy to like her (this is usually the point of Myspace at 16...flirting and finding your one true love), and as a result will excuse a lot. Foster the situations where she can meet said guy, and the myspace problem becomes a lot less prominent.
posted by messylissa at 1:07 PM on February 9 [1 favorite]

... but YOU are concerned...
posted by crickets at 1:07 PM on February 9

She's made mostly good choices all of her life and I dread what could potentially happen when she learns this the hard way.

Note that you said when, not if. Something's going to go wrong in her life at some point. But she's 16, and you're fast approaching the point where your hard work is mostly in the past; you've taught her and been an influence, and now it's time for all that to do its job.

Does she have a cell phone? Because while there are always hypothetical scenarios of total disaster, the fact of the matter is that nearly all mistakes of the "oh god, I should have never gotten into a car with this asshole" variety can be responded to with a quick call of "Mom, dad, I'm at the corner of Street and Avenue, I need pickup NOW."
posted by Tomorrowful at 1:10 PM on February 9

winks007: She does not see the danger of someone saying oh, we met at (wherever.)

What, exactly, is that danger, in your opinion?

FWIW, it's not uncommon for people her age on Facebook to have HUNDREDS of friends, well more than it's possible to "know" on your terms. As others have noted, social networks (and the internet in general) have completely changed the idea of what it means to "know" someone.
posted by mkultra at 1:12 PM on February 9

And not to totally piss off the whole of MeFi, but take into account your audience when reading responses here. People are a lot more pro-internet/social-networking here than if you were talking to another audience.
posted by messylissa at 1:12 PM on February 9

Okay, I will say that I am very biased when it comes to this, so that should be considered, probably. With that out of the way...

As a teenager, I ended up having many online friendships. This somewhat disturbed my parents, but I came to learn that what really concerned them was the unknown, in terms of personality facts and traits, not that I was talking to people I'd never seen. (Because, let's face it, you can talk to someone, in person, for years and still be abused by them down the road or, as is horrifically and unfortunately not too uncommon, even raped or murdered.) So, to soothe my parents' concerns, I began telling them about the people I was talking to, because, of course, I was having very normal conversations with them--nothing questionable.

Perhaps first understand what really makes you afraid of these people behind screens, and those you've not met, and then encourage your daughter to do things, like more openly discuss some things about these people, to make you feel better about it.

One thing is for sure. You can tell her not to do this. You can tell her to be careful, to the point of annoying her. You can even restrict her access. She's still going to do it, because (in the case of the computer) she is a child of this time and media and (in the case of face-to-face interactions) is just getting to that age and stage of her life where she wants to branch out. The more worried, and therefore vocal, you become about it, the more likely she is to actually do something illogical online or in person, just to rebel. So, as I said, the safest thing to do is probably to encourage her to be open about her friendships, online or otherwise. Talk about the people she's friends with, who you've not met, as if you do know them. Get involved in knowing that stuff, and she will likely tell you everything she knows.

Now, for some anecdotal evidence. I am one of those cases where the Internet, and therefore for a long time people I'd not seen face-to-face, totally changed my personal life. I was on a fiction writing website in my mid-teens, and I met an Australian guy who was a year older than I. We were good friends for a year, but it became something more. It was incredibly difficult to make my parents (and his) understand this to the point that he could visit the U.S. and, later, I could visit Australia. At 19, I ended up moving here. (Note: Not just to be with him.)

Things didn't work out between us ultimately (for mostly normal relationship reasons), but through that experience I also made some other online, Australian friends, one of whom is my best friend to this day--going on five years now. She, unfortunately, has yet to meet my family, even after all this time!

My point with this story is that yes, people are not always what they initially seem, and that works both ways. Simply because you haven't met someone that your daughter talks to or has met does not mean that they are ever going to harm her. In fact, despite what the nightly news suggests, we live in a pretty safe world (at least in the West), especially if you have a good noggin. It sounds like you have done a good job to explain the possible dangers that are out there, so, unless your daughter does something foolish to suggest you need to do otherwise, why not see how she develops in this part of her life, by using her own judgment? Coupled with the open discussion I mentioned above, this should work splendidly for all parties.

If your daughter is like most, she will move out when she is 18-20. This means she is swiftly approaching full on adulthood in more than a few ways. It would likely be better to let her do some things independently now (with your guidance) than to try to control the situation and her thinking so entirely. That may result in resentment and rebellion, and it wouldn't help her mature in the areas she needs to, prior to moving out.
posted by metalheart at 1:12 PM on February 9

Based on the title of this post and the first three sentences, I thought this question was about a 3- or 4-year-old. It's highly unlikely that something terrible will befall your daughter because of an online interaction. The more sensationally horrific something is, the less likely it is to actually happen (and the more likely it is to wind up on Dateline or 20/20). I hope that doesn't sound glib. If your daughter is familiar with the mechanics of Myspace, she is unlikely to get hurt there.
posted by tepidmonkey at 1:14 PM on February 9 [3 favorites]

We have a big problem with someone sending her a msg via myspace and reminding her of how they know her and then the phone conversations and texting starts.

But they do know her. They've met. That's more than I can say for a lot of people I know.

The world is different now than it used to be. That's just a fact. Teens socialise differently than they did, and the definition of "knowing" someone is different for a lot of people today, not just teens.

I had only "known" MeFi member Memo through email exchanges before I invited him to travel a million miles and live in our house for three months, but I felt like I knew him well enough. I got the sense that he was a smart, responsible, articulate and capable college student who wanted to see a bit of the world and was unlikely to dismember us. So far we're not dead and he's been a pleasure to have around.

I've had other exchanges with other MeFi members that didn't make me feel as comfortable so I just let those drop. I'm capable of filtering and I'm sure your kid is too.

But obviously, any single one of our experiences shouldn't be held up as truth. danah boyd just published her long-awaited dissertation on:

...I investigated how American teenagers socialize in networked publics like MySpace, Facebook, LiveJournal, Xanga and YouTube.

You'll find reassurance on virtually any page, but here are two bits you might find interesting:

While social network sites were predominantly used by teens as a peer-based social outlet, the uncharted nature of these sites generated fear among adults. This dissertation documents my 2.5-year ethnographic study of American teens’ engagement with social network sites and the ways in which their participation supported and complicated three practices—self-presentation, peer sociality, and negotiating adult society.

I want to acknowledge and thank the hundreds of teens who took the time to talk to me... It is my hope that this document will reach all of their parents, because so many of them asked me to call their parents and help them understand that what they were doing was simply normal.

Your normal to worry and she's normal to do what she's doing. Focus less on mis-trusting her judgement and more on generally safe behaviour for the long term, regardless of the source of the friends and strangers she will meet over the course of her lifetime.
posted by DarlingBri at 1:15 PM on February 9 [5 favorites]

Appropriate internet usage is important. If you've taught her not to put naughty pictures of herself on the internet, and you've taught her not to say anything online that she wouldn't want to see reproduced on the front page of the New York Times, then you've done all you can do. You've given her access to the technology. Now you just need to accept that either she will choose to use it appropriately or not.
posted by greekphilosophy at 1:15 PM on February 9

Sorry; danah's dissertation is here.
posted by DarlingBri at 1:15 PM on February 9 [4 favorites]

I would caution you very much against making her feel that this behavior (which is now the norm in her peer group) is something she needs to hide from you, because she can and she will if you push her too far. I was able to do it without social networks and password-protected accounts, and I wound up in situations where I felt I could not call my parents for help because I'd be in more trouble with them than I might get into with sketchy sort-of-friends.

Don't be that parent.

The fact of the matter is that this is how kids get to know each other nowadays, online instead of in person. There might not be anything you can do about it, and in fact, it might not be all that bad. I got to know one of my best friends in the world by sending those stupid surveys back and forth for a summer after I met him in person once or twice through friends of friends. Email was all new to us then, but that's how it was already going.

Make sure your daughter understands how (and why) to protect her own privacy, how to end dialogue that she's not comfortable with or doesn't want to continue, and keep the conversation open between the two of you. Don't make her feel like her online friends are any less real than her meatspace friends, because they're not necessarily.
posted by peanut_mcgillicuty at 1:15 PM on February 9 [1 favorite]

How can we teach our daughter that people are not always what they initially seem?

If you tell her that you trust her judgment but then refuse to let her exercise it, you'll have taught her that her parents aren't what THEY seem.
posted by hermitosis at 1:19 PM on February 9 [6 favorites]

She's 16. In two years, there's a good chance she'll be at college and further (possibly much further) away from your advice and support. She needs to learn how to tell when a situation or person is trustworthy. The way you learn these things is by making mistakes. Hopefully, in a supportive and watchful environment, those mistakes will be minor and lead to brief aggravation. It could be a lot worse. The truth is that online environments are much safer places to explore these questions than the typical school/party/college/church-retreat/football game environment.

I have lots of (friend's) horror stories but none of them start with meeting someone online. They start with "I had been dating this guy for several weeks," or "I was at this party," or "Someone I thought was my friend," or "So I was working as a stripper."

Also, you are her parents. You may know that someone is not right for her or bad news or whatever, but if she really wants to be with them, she's not going to listen to you. One of my major life lessons at age 21 was that my mom had been right about every guy I ever dated, but I always thought she was wrong. I learned my lessons early and without major physical and only temporary psychological trauma, so I was lucky. Some people never learn.
posted by threeturtles at 1:22 PM on February 9 [1 favorite]

To go against the fray, a 16 year-old does not possess the cognitive capacity to have "good enough judgment to know." The frontal lobe is not developed enough to understand the consequences of behavior in the way an adult's is. They know just enough to be dangerous.

And the frontal lobe doesn't stop developing until the mid twenties. When, exactly, is she supposed to stop asking mom & dad for permission? Because her cognitive capacity isn't going to be magically fully developed in two years, when she's away at college.

Another alternative is to encourage her involvement in activities where she is engaging with people you believe to be trustworthy, or at least where they're supervised (e.g. HS sports, church, choir, band, other clubs).

Ha! Do you really think kids are any safer at band camp? And that there's less "bad" behavior going on?!

Look, the best thing you can do--the thing that's going to keep your kid safest and stop her from rebelling against you--is to tell her that she can call you for help or a ride at any time, in any situation, no questions asked or judgments made. And tell her that if she does need questions answered, or if she needs someone to talk to, she can talk to you. Judging her friends (by any definition of "friend") isn't going to make her stop interacting with these people--it's just going to make her hide these interactions.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 1:26 PM on February 9 [5 favorites]

To us, (her mom and pop) a friend is someone who we've met...

You want to know why your daughter thinks she already knows people she's met only once?
She gets it from her parents.

Seriously, you're not telling her that nobody can know someone enough to trust them until they've met them on multiple occasions (which would be a good rule, I daresay); you're telling her that she can't know someone enough to trust them until she's met them on multiple occasions, but you can suss out bad lots at once because you have Magic Parent Powers. If you really think her judgement is just much worse than yours (and it may be; she's only 16), then tell her so. If you really think this is a generally wise principle to act by, act by it. But don't tell her things when your actions - hell, the things you tell her immediately afterwards - make it clear you don't believe them.
posted by Acheman at 1:28 PM on February 9 [4 favorites]

Have her watch the various To Catch a Predator shows, which are played ad nauseum on MSNBC on the weekends. There she'll see an endless parade of 60-year-old pervs who claimed in chatrooms and on MySpace to be 18-year-old high school students.
posted by coolguymichael at 1:29 PM on February 9

I was just looking at your last askme question, and noticed a fine answer which could equally well apply here. It's the same (understandable) overprotective instinct kicking in.

You can't prescreen her friends. And as several people here have pointed out, even if you could it wouldn't necessarily help.

Now's when you have to start trusting her to make her own mistakes. Which she will. If you play it right, she'll come to you for help when she does. If you're overprotective, she'll try to hide it from you when there's a real problem.
posted by ook at 1:30 PM on February 9

Echoing peanut_mcgillicuty. In high school, one of my friends had a Dad she could call when she got herself into the absurd jams that teenagers get themselves into. He didn't lecture, or punish, at least not that we knew. I know they would talk about stuff later, kind of a post-game review to see where she might make different choices next time, but she had this great resource in a Dad she could call for help when she realized she was in over her head, to keep a bad situation from getting worse. At 16, that's the kind of parent your daughter needs.
posted by ambrosia at 1:44 PM on February 9 [1 favorite]

Seconding that you don't want this to become something she hides from you. However, there are tons of stories of people losing jobs, friends, good reputations, or facing punishment at school after posting confessional blog entries or inappropriate photos* that were discovered by an employer, school, or other people the poster had not anticipated seeing/reading. You should definitely be talking to her about those things. I think teenagers now are so immersed in facebook, MySpace, blogging, and all of the other ways of online socializing and social networking, that they sometimes forget to protect (or simply don’t value) their privacy as they would if they were sharing the same information and having the same interactions in real life with live peers (and in sight of live authorities).

I think it would also help if you changed your vocabulary around this. When you say "since she's met someone once, she assumes that she knows them" I think you need to let her think of them as people she "knows"--don't fight her on that, but set out clear guidelines for what she can do with people she doesn't know well. Even though she's 16, you still get a say in where she goes and what she does (even if it's tougher to enforce with an older teen, and even if older teens do deserve a large measure of independence). It doesn't much matter if the two of you see eye to eye on the definition of "friend," you’re still the mom. I don't mean you should set arbitrary strict rules she'll rebel against, I just think you might have better luck taking the tack of accepting her vocabulary (if you’ve met a person, you "know" him/her) but enforcing your own rules (if she only "knows" someone from MySpace and wants to spend time with him/her, she needs to make arrangements to go to a public place like a mall or a movie theatre, not the person’s house or car--something like that).


*sometimes not even inappropriate--a while back there was a teacher who was fired for photos of her holding a red Solo cup at a party that ended up on MySpace (she was not clearly drunk in the photos, not in any state of undress, just holding a brand of plastic cup that is typically used at parties for alcohol)
posted by Meg_Murry at 1:45 PM on February 9

Ok, I see some pretty good responses here. As a side note, she talks about the friends we know, nonstop, it's the ones that she's quiet about that makes us worry.
posted by winks007 at 1:48 PM on February 9

In your question, you didn´t mention restricting her but rather try to provide her with more information or stories about someone who isn´t who you thought they were. In reality, everytime this has happened to me from the online perspective has been in a positive way. I formed friendships with someone I normally wouldn´t have because through the internet or chats I learned more about them and opened up. That said, it could have gone the opposite way.

Your post made it sound like she talks to people online she has actually met before. As long as she's met them "(wherever)", she's taking nearly the same risk anyone takes when they decide to keep getting to know someone. I would have found it silly for my parents to discourage that, however, although perhaps reacting stubbornly, I'd understand their concern if I hadn't ever met the person in real life.

And like a couple of the others I'd remind you to trust her judgement and remember that just because you've met them doesn't mean they're great kids. My parents absolutely loved all my friends that weren't great influences and had no idea, and set very strict boundaries for my sober friends, who they never trusted just from never having met them.(Sometimes I felt that at 16 I was probably more likely to unknowingly get permission to go off with friends to a frat party than play video games hyped up on Mountain Dew). But she, like me, will probably not say much about that out of pure principle that you should be trusting her judgment.

To answer your question though, DO tell her the anecdotes. Any that involve opening up too much too early. Make sure to point out all the things in the media that involve problem situations, in a "oh wow, did you see that?" rather than "this is why I tell you not to talk to those people" way. She's smart, so she'll understand and start to perhaps realize its not as completely far from reality as she thought, and hopefully be more cautious without any actual intervention on your part.
posted by nzydarkxj at 1:51 PM on February 9

do you wonder if she's quiet about the others because she already knows your disapproval? engage her in conversations about them - be utterly nonjudgmental - be accepting of them as legitimate friends. if i were a teenager in your house, and i kept a circle of friends that you treated me like a 4 year old over (like others, until i got to the meat of your question i thought we were talking about a toddler) i would keep from talking about them as well.

don't listen to the fear mongering of to catch a predator and dr phil and people like messylissa - almost all rapes/molestations are done by people known, and known well, by the victim. we hear about the abducted from the sleeping bedroom stories by a crazed maniac who followed clues on the myspace because it sells, not because it's an accurate sample.
posted by nadawi at 1:54 PM on February 9

I met some pretty sketchy people and got into some not-ideal situations when I was 16 and none of it involved the internet (it was 1982ish).

I learned that sometimes people aren't what they seem, that sometimes friends you trusted shouldn't have been trusted, and most of this happened with people my mom had met.

Some stuff she's going to learn the hard way because that's the only way to learn it. Whether it happens over myspace or in the cafeteria, it's still going to suck.

The bottom line is, could the hive please provide some anecdotes that we could get her to read in regards to someone not being who you thought they were?

Just because you met someone online doesn't mean they're not trustworthy. Just because you met someone at church or on your sports team doesn't mean they are trustworthy.

Keep good communication with her. Give her room to talk to you where you don't offer advice or judgement or admonishment.
posted by rtha at 1:55 PM on February 9

also - say what you just said to us to her "hey - i know social circles are changing and you feel like mom and dad aren't keeping up. to us, you creating deep friendships with people you only exchange words with is very scary. you assure us we're overreacting, but we're going to need you to hold our hands a little on this. we've noticed that you talk about jenny from cheerleading and julie from honors chemistry - but we only know about joe from three towns over because he's listed as a friend on your myspace. what is he like?" the trick is to really mean it and not be looking for ways to discredit him as a friend.
posted by nadawi at 1:58 PM on February 9

I don´t understand why the texting and talking on the phone would be a problem. These are appropriate ways to get to know someone better.

Teach her about meeting people that one does not know well, and from knowing them in person in public, safe places.

could the hive please provide some anecdotes that we could get her to read in regards to someone not being who you thought they were?

People aren´t always what they seem to be after you´ve known them for a few years either, and people that you have met or who she knows from school could turn out to be very scary indeed. So you should always use your head, pay attention, and have a plan for some other way to get home/stay safe/not be stuck in the middle of the desert in case the person you are with has not invited anyone else to their ¨party¨/invited only scary people over/turns out to be dangerously insane/ditches you in the middle of nowhere. This can happen even if you know a lot of people who think, or seem to think, that the person is nice/popular/kind/spiritual/whatever, and you feel like you have known the person for years and they would never hurt you.

There seems to be an unstated assumption in your question that people your daughter knows from school or that you have met will be safe for her to be around. They aren´t, necessarily. It´s very difficult to really know someone, but over time I´d like to think I´ve gotten better at knowing who I should stay away from.

This should in no way be construed to mean that your daughter should avoid getting out and exploring the world, going places by herself where others fear to tread, etc. I hope your daughter grows up into a strong woman who will one day be warning you about people you should not trust just because you have known them for a time.
posted by yohko at 2:08 PM on February 9

In an internet age, things like the following should be screened as public service announcements in school:
YouTube - A Beginners Guide To Faking Your Death On The Internet

Then there's that Mom that drove a 13 year old to suicide.

Basically, just make sure she knows that there are many many screwed up people, and attention whores online.
There's entire communities devoted to fake deaths, stalking, and 'fanwank' - just google. A bit of familiarity may actually help her stay clear of as much of that drama as possible. You start to spot the patterns after only a few encounters.

The only really lame things I had to deal with at that age, weresay, talking to someone from another country, occasionally online for about a year or two, enough to think that they weren't creepy - and then they announced they had a webcam, and directed me to it. Dick shot.
Instant ban. If only real life were so easy.

There was never any internet drama as great as the petty high-school drama that was happening at the time, and I met quite a few people via the internet, and know many of them still.
posted by Elysum at 2:09 PM on February 9

Part of why she may talk about "in-person" friends more is that the activities they engage in are easier to describe at a dinner table. "Me and Jenny and Tom went to the diner, and you remember that awesome manager we had that one time? He comped Tom a burger!" is easy. "Um, last night I spent like two hours sending pictures of lolcats to John over myspace" doesn't flow as casually for a 16-year-old talking to her parents.

Also, nthing that you having met someone means nothing. I've lost count of the number of parents I've seen having a good opinion of someone on account of them being, say, respectful and well-spoken, when that friend is also the one who knew great hookups for pot, or got into fights regularly, or $OTHERBADTHING. For that matter, even back when I told my parents a lot more about my life (eg, when I was younger), there was a lot of filtering going on. "Yeah, me and Becca and Eric and Kim hung out and watched movies," and we did, but neglecting to mention that the movie-watching was less important than, say, making out with "Kim" or raiding Eric's dad's liquor cabinet.

This isn't to say you should be terrified of her friends - but your personal judgement about any of her friends is inevitably based on insufficient data, because you're not in the environment they socialize in. If you trust her to have good judgement in general, and you make sure she knows she can come to you with her problems without being lambasted and grounded for them, you've done what you can. One of the hard things about kids getting to their teens is recognizing that you're moving from actively managing your kids' lives to an "aim and fire and pray" model, where your ability to provide direct influence is limited, but what matters is those many, many years of being a good parent and teaching her good habits.
posted by Tomorrowful at 2:14 PM on February 9

Ok, I see some pretty good responses here. As a side note, she talks about the friends we know, nonstop, it's the ones that she's quiet about that makes us worry.

Do you worry because she's quiet, or is she quiet because you might have overreacted once before? (to you, it's worrying, to her, it's OMG my parents are so ANNOYING and they don't TRUST me! I'm never telling them ANYTHING EVER AGAIN!)

Because if it's the second, you need to start building back her trust in order to get her to talk about them.
posted by peanut_mcgillicuty at 2:34 PM on February 9 [2 favorites]

"the activities they engage in are easier to describe at a dinner table."

Exactly. To quote from this thread:

This is really fucking awkward because I want to like..tell people about this shit but I can't exactly call up my friends and go "HOLY SHIT WE WON A SPACE WAR" because what the fuck.

Compound this with how inane teenage chatter can be, I imagine she chats with her online friends about almost -literally- nothing.
posted by yeti at 2:59 PM on February 9

How can I convince my daughter that she really doesn't know someone?

Hahahahahahahhaa! You have to realize that to your daughter, you're more or less an idiot right now, you're not going to convince her of much. She's separating from you and doing things that you don't know about and won't know about until she's 30 and wants to tell you a humorous story

Let her go, keep the lines of communication open and tell her you love her and that you're there for her. Remind her that actions have consequences and to be careful, but otherwise, let her do her thing. It's all part of growing up.

-Father of a 17year old girl
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 3:17 PM on February 9 [4 favorites]

Frankly, you need to make a decision. Are you going to tell your daughter that she has permission to do X, and/or Y, and/or Z, and at what age. Don't be ambiguous. Make your decisions.

One suggestion to consider is that until 18 she can never meet any male privately or with friends without explicit permission from you, and that you always require the male to present himself at your house before ever going out with her. (And if you're not comfortable, just say, "Not approved yet, he can come back again later if he wants.)

I'm not saying that's the best choice, but it's just one to consider.
posted by peter_meta_kbd at 3:51 PM on February 9

Is this somewhat an issue of semantics? She's calling people "friends" who are the people you understand to be her friends in real life, but also probably calling people "friends" who are online acquaintances. She's using one word for multiple types of relationships, and it's making you doubt her common sense?

Well, this is what we do when we're teenagers, don't we? Use language in a way that infuriates our folks and try out decision-making to see how it works. If you feel like you've raised a smart kid who makes good decisions, try to remember that she's got to test her wings a little bit. Better that she do it now, when you're still right there to rescue her if she needs you to. (I'm a big fan of the emergency "come get me" policy with no-yelling-right-away and we'll-talk-about-it-in-the-morning provisions.)

Way before MySpace and the internet and chatrooms (I'm in my mid-thirties), I had this argument with my parents, too. Church friends were better than school friends, but school friends were better than friends-of-friends. Didn't you have some sort of struggle with your parents? Didn't you have to work through some of this stuff when you started using BBSs and the internet? That said, I don't think it's unreasonable to expect some basic safety precautions -- meeting in public is okay, going to their house alone is not.

Yeah, she's your baby and you want to protect her. But the answer to "How can we teach our daughter that people are not always what they initially seem?" is this:

* You already have.
* To some extent, you can't.
posted by desuetude at 7:02 PM on February 9

I grew up in the suburbs of a very large international city. My mother told me early on in my life all these pretty gruesome stories about what she had seen herself growing up. Honestly, I don't think half the stories were really things she witnessed, but just heard about.

I would say that telling her stories of all the things that can happen and have happened might be the way to make her a little more cautious, but when I think more about it, it's actually made me far more reserved with and suspicious of people I don't know than I wish I was.

I think, to some extent, she's probably already finished taking your advice. Sixteen years old seems to be the stage where you stop taking advice from parents and stop telling them things.

So I think if you just explained your fears, you might be better off than trying to tell her something that may come off as your teaching her a lesson because you're older and wiser than she is.
posted by anniecat at 8:15 PM on February 9

As people have said. It doesn't matter if you know them, if she knows them. It doesn't matter how well either of you know them. Danger is everywhere. She needs the skills to deal with bad situations. She is going to take stupid risks, so she is also going to need the support for when things might go wrong.

Mostly, you need to relax. If you are making it clear to her what behaviour is acceptable and she knows how to be assertive when she is uncomfortable, she will be fine. Be the parent who will help her make decisions for herself.
posted by Gor-ella at 10:30 AM on February 10

Based on the title of this post and the first three sentences, I thought this question was about a 3- or 4-year-old.

I wanted to highlight this because I had the same initial reaction to your post. Of course, it's pretty normal to keep seeing your teenager as a little kid, but, well, it's not reality. 16 years old is not really an adult, but she's not a toddler anymore and warning her about "stranger danger" is just going to make her want to roll her eyes and then get online and complain about how lame her parents are (well, Kids These Days probably say something other than "lame" but you get the idea).

Also, nthing that you cannot shield your child from emotional pain. There are some things that she really will need to learn the hard way. Obviously there are some things - like physical danger - that you are quite right to want to shield her from, but unfortunately those dangers don't come only from the internet.
posted by lunasol at 11:42 AM on February 10

Teach your daughter that she has agency. Teach her that she is able and allowed to decide where and with whom she wants to be. Teach your daughter that if she doesn't want to do something, she doesn't have to. Teach your daughter to pay careful attention when people tell her who they are. Invasion of her personal space, odd requests, and jokes about violent behavior need to be cues for her, regardless of whether the person in question is her new boss, or the voice behind a cute picture on a networking website.

This will be more valuable to her than getting her hang out with people you approve. Sure, she may pick up a joint or two, or fail some classes. She may change religions or realize she's gay (or do any number of things that some American parents decide are terrifying), no matter who she hangs out with. But if she has a nagging doubt that the guy who wants to bring her home from the movies (to save mom and dad from having to drive out to the theater after her best friend bails early) is Trouble, she needs the confidence and skill to wake you up and tell jerkface, "no thanks, maybe next time." If you're going to blow up when that call comes in, she will not make it. She will be alone in the car with jerkface. That is much worse than being at the movies with jerkface. (Trust me.)

You need to know when not to express disappointment that she's "with the wrong crowd" because if something happens to her while she's "hanging with the wrong crowd," she needs to know that you will help her and love her, no matter what. You can't protect her from a lot of these things in life, and she can't protect herself from all of them. But she can protect herself from some of them, and you can help her put back the pieces after some of them. But all of them can happen with people that seem trustworthy on the surface.
posted by bilabial at 8:13 PM on February 10 [1 favorite]