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Posted by Carla on 7/8/2008, 10:13 am
84.12.93.106
I wonder if anyone can help me...I hope so! I am a 34 year old single mum with a 15 year old daughter. Naturally, I love her dearly and am always concerned for her safety and well being. Generally she is very responsible for her age and isn't usually the type of person who would do anything stupid. However, although I hate the fact that I feel like this, I have recently become suspicious that she is doing things that I would prefer her not to on her computer.
I know she uses MSN messenger a lot to chat with her friends, and I have no problem with that...it's a great way for her to stay in touch, especially with her friends who don't live locally. My suspicions were first aroused about 3 months ago - it just so happened that both of us were at home at the same time, with neither of us realising the other was there; she had been going out with friends (apparently she changed her mind about going) and I was supposed to be at a hair appointment, but it got cancelled. Anyway, I walked into her room to collect laundry - obviously we both jumped as neither of us was expecting to see the other, but she made a sudden seemingly panicked jab at her keyboard and whatever it was that was on the screen suddenly disappeared. The screen wasn't directly viewable from where I was standing, but I could see it from an angle, and I'm sure there was webcam of a guy on her screen. The only reason I recognised it as a webcam was because I've seen her other friends chatting to her on there with webcams. I asked her who it was and she immediately denied that she'd been chatting with anyone - got quite heated and accused me of being suspicious. She's never said that to me before so I was a little surprised. But I gave her the benefit of the doubt and tried to think nothing more of it (easier said than done!).
The first thing I noticed after that, which again raised my suspicion, was that she moved her computer so that the screen wasn't viewable from the doorway; I mentioned that I'd noticed she'd re-arranged slightly, and again I got quite an aggresive response....basically along the lines of "so what if I have? Am I not allowed to move things in my own room?".
I realise I've gone on a long time already so I'll try and summarise a little now! Over the last few weeks I've noticed several things that concern me and I'm getting really worried. Things I've noticed are:
- she's become a lot more argumentative towards me and VERY defensive
- she seems to be spending a lot more time on her PC than she used to
- I'm certain she's been using it late at night, as he computer chair creaks slightly and I've heard it as late a 2 and 3am some nights
- she denies using the computer late at night
There are other things, but those are the main ones. The biggest thing that has really panicked me is that she was supposed to be going out with her friends a week ago - she got dressed up and went out of the house (didn't say goodbye, which is unsual for her) and got back about 11:30am (which was later than we'd agreed). I asked her how she got on and she was very vague and didn't give any detail at all - and when I pressed her a bit about where they'd gone, what they'd done, etc she once again flared up and accused me of prying. Quite by chance, I bumped into the mother of one of her friends who she'd apparently gone out with - and she immediately asked if my daughter was better now. I was a little surprised at this as my daughter wasn't ill, but it turns out that she'd phoned the firends she was going out with to say she wouldn't be able to make it as she was ill. Obviously this concerned me greatly and I confronted her when I got home - she got very angry and accused me of spying on her again. The only explanation I got out of her was that she just didn't feel like going out with them and had made arrangements to go out with different friends instead. She refused point blank to give me the names of any of the "other" friends and just said they were from school and I didn't know them.
The long and the short of all this is that I'm REALLY worried that she's met a guy on the internet and is arranging covert meetings with him. I asked her this directly but again it just ended up in an argument with her furiously denying anything. For all I know she could have been sweet-talked by some weirdo who's grooming her. I'm desperate to make sure she's OK and it's really affecting me badly - I'm having trouble sleeping and I'm not eating properly I'm that worried.
Of course, I do realise that maybe I'm just being hyper-sensitive and there's nothing to worry about and it's just teenage angst, etc. But until I can find out for certain, I'm going to be a nervous wreck.
What I'm wondering is, is there any way that I can find out who she's been talking to online? Half of me feels dreadful for even thinking about doing something sneaky like this behind her back, but if I don't get to the bottom of this I'm going to worry myself into an early grave. My trouble is that I'm not hugely savvy when it comes the computers and software - I can do email and surf the web OK, but outside that I'm not so hot! Can anyone offer any suggestions on how I could find out what she's been up to? Is it possible to "record" (I'm not sure if that's the right term or not!) what she's been typing, who she's been talking to and what they've been saying? I do have an account on her PC so I can log on, but once I'm on I have no idea what to do - plus she's far more PC aware than I am, so I'm sure if she wanted to hide stuff from me, she could do so very easily.
I've spoken to a couple of friends about this and they've told me it is possible to get software that lets you see what people are up to on your computer - but apparently it can be quite expensive? I don't have a lot of money to throw around (single mum and all that!) so if there is anything that's free or very cheap then that would be great. I don't want something hugely complex with all kinds of weird and wonderful functionality, I just want something that lets me see who she's been talking to and what they've been typing.
Sorry for the overlong post...I'm just hoping someone can give me a little help and guidance!
Thanks
Carla
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