it's just a tough situation...teenagers are starting earlier and earlier...

freshman girls are as mature as senior guys...Senior guys are looking for one thing.

so you're ****ed if you have a young daughter, and feel bad for that 14 year old son you have who looks like he's still 10 and is having a hard time because of it...

I'm not a parent, but I hope to be one someday...my parents are divorced and have lived in different states since I was very young...despite what many think on this site I think they did a pretty good job...but they were different

my dad being strict (and 2 states away) and my mom being too lenient...

anyways I've decided my primary role as a parent is caretaker...I'd love to be able to provide for my children in the best way possible and give them all of the advantages my parents gave me...but I also think my role as a parent is to guide my children...try and set them up to make GOOD decisions...but realize at the end of the day...once they hit that certain age (maybe it's 13, 15...whatever)...it's their decision to make and it's their decision they'll have to live with...some will be good, some will bad...hopefully a lesson will always be learned.

I'd say give the phone back but talk to her about it. I also don't get the no texting thing. Why is that there?

But yeah, talk to her. Tell her what you're okay with and not okay with and let her go from there.

Cassel sucks

Only thing I'd say is try not to be too cautious about making your daughter mad. She is a teenager and regardless of what you do, she will eventually hate you regardless.

Choice comes down to having her hate you because you didn't take any shit, or hating you because she felt you were somehow responsible for getting knocked up as a teen and now has no future.

This is easily one of the most frightening threads on ChiefsPlanet.

To this point, it's also a great illustration that we're not always assholes to our own, as almost all of the responses have been very respectful.

This. I'm not a parent, but I'd think if the problem is "girl is too young for sex" the answer is not "take away her phone". You will have to sit down and have a discussion with her (either parent, or both, whatever you think will work better) about sex and waiting and specifically that boys are horny uncaring little bastards who only want to get girls naked. The hard part will be revealing that you invaded her privacy by looking at her phone, but unfortunately the cold truth of it is: when you're a 13-year-old girl, and you're using a phone that you didn't pay for, you don't HAVE any right to privacy. And this situation is the perfect example: kids think they know best, but they don't.

Sorry fathers, todays 13 does not = 13 of yesteryear.

Chances are pretty good that this young woman is right in her peer group when it comes to sexual exploration. MOF, some are way more advanced. Like losing their virginity.

How to treat her sexuality and how you treat her technological intelligence are two seperate things. She needs to be informed about privacy, safety, and risk involved in participating in Skype, Facebook, etc. She needs to learn these bumps early so that by the time she is 16 or 18 she is not posting pictures of herself in a bikini or sexting.

The natural inclination here is to reign in her usage and control what she's exposed to. I think this is a mistake. You and your wife should monitor her more closely but still allow her to learn the ropes while you still are able to have some sort of control over her behavior. By 16 they know ways around firewalls, webmail, fake screennames in order to avoid parental monitoring. You should make it quite clear to her that this is going to be the case and is part of her accepting a cell phone. It will not be done in private or without her knowledge.

As far as her sexuality, you learned that information by invading her privacy. Thus YOU should have no say in this particular matter. You have vioated her trust. Your wife, OTOH, should start to talk to her about age appropriate limits and stages.

This is not about you or what you think your daughter should be doing sexually. Fact is she is a sexual being and is going to experinent with that fact. Your part in this is to teach her that boys (or girls FTM) are not always going to treat her with her best interest at heart. Thus, she needs to be very careful who she gives herself to...in all ways and always.

Last bit of advice, sign up for Facebook and help her set up her page. Set one up yourself and friend her. Set it up with all the privacy restrictions and keep the password. This will allow her to be learning about FB early vs. later when she has no idea how to handle her personal matters in a public forum.

It is these kinds of scenarios that make me glad I have a boy. That comes with a whole different type of baggage.

Wut I feel for you man.

I find this attitude so frustrating and completely ignorant. Sorry.

She has every right to expect privacy at 13. The problem is she FORFEITS that right when she decides to share personal information with STRANGERS or others who are not concerned with her privacy.

Telling her she has no privacy will GUARANTEE she will sneak around and lie. Rather, tell her she has the right to exepct privacy but it's hers to LOSE if she does not handle herself appropriately.

Worse yet, the lesson she hears and learns is if she has no expecation or right to privacy and boundaries from her parents then who does she have it from? Do you really want your daughter out in the world not understanding or valuing her personal privacy or boundaries?

Frankly, "yesteryear" wasn't much better. Unless you grew up in the 1950s, I'm pretty sure the age of sexual experimentation has always been a lot lower than parents like to think. When they were kids, they probably did it between 10 and 15, but when they become parents they become naturally defensive of their children and suddenly their brain tells them it was really 18-20 that they did that stuff at.

I think parents have a natural tendency to make hard-line boundaries and take stuff away, and forget that it has the exact opposite effect. I know, when I was a kid, the one way to get me to do something was to make it taboo or illegal. Say "don't do..." and a kid will spend every waking moment trying to do it.

When I was around nine, my dad was smoking. I tugged on his jacket and pointed at the cig. He said, "What, you want to try this?" I nodded eagerly. He handed it to me. I took a drag and choked, and spent the next half-hour coughing. He laughed his ass off. I never wanted to smoke cigarettes again. Around the same age, he would buy me little nips of blackberry brandy to try. While other kids were grousing about their parents not letting them drink, I was bragging that my dad bought me nips of blackberry brandy. Obviously I was only sipping on them occasionally, but the simple fact that it was not "off limits" to me made me not want to do it more. He also said, "If you want to get shitfaced, I'll go out and buy you all the beer you want, and you can get shitfaced right here in the house. If you try to go out and do it, I'll beat the crap out of you." And, of course, because that was more of a hard-ass line, I crossed it repeatedly, especially between 17 and 21 (drinking illegally at heavy metal concerts, driving while buzzed, etc.,.). But as soon as I hit 21, my drinking fell off to almost nothing. So I guess my dad did something right. (But I know, in today's world, you could never buy your kid nips of blackberry brandy. They'd take your kids away and throw you in jail.)

One thing you could do.

Yes, but it's expensive to buy so many of them and put them on all the boys in the neighborhood.

I see where your going with this

http://www.westracbelize.com/dynamic...ntifreeze3.jpg

http://www.thedailygreen.com/cm/thed...DG-IGYN-fb.jpg

You could get two boys at a time with these.

Taking the phone away would be a big mistake IMO. Not because it was a gift, you can invade her privacy or any of the other BS. It's a fricking electronic leash. There's not a whole lot better ways to keep track of her.
I don't know that I honestly buy off on the whole no boys thing, but if it's a set of rules you installed so be it. Though mine wasn't the least bit interested in boys until about 15 (I wonder if that was why I started losing my hair about that time).

Everyone parents differently, and often each child needs to be parented differently.