AITAH/Raising a sneaky 12 y/o daughter.
Before summer break my daughter was playing Roblox & at the time I had no idea that she could message strangers on there (I know 🤦🏽♀️). Occasionally I would go through her phone for security reasons to make sure she was being safe & doing age appropriate things. I found many chats with her messaging strangers from Roblox & talking about inappropriate things, even being in a “online relationship” with someone on there. Then I found out that she gave her number to a man from Roblox & sent a picture of herself to him (It was just a picture of her outfit, covering her face in the school mirror). I flipped out & couldn’t control my anger, especially since I’ve warned her about stranger danger since she was little. I was screaming at her while crying, asking her why the fk she would do something that could put her in danger & that she had no business messaging men, let alone giving out her number. Her dad & I had a long talk with her that ended with her crying & apologizing. I erased her whole phone & put it away for about 2 months. I also kicked her out of her room & told her she didn’t deserve privacy since she wanted to be grown & sneaky.
She got her room back not too long ago & I recently gave her the phone back under certain conditions:
She cannot download or play Roblox.
The phone is not just hers, she’s sharing with her brother since they attend the same school.
She’s not allowed to give their number to anyone, not even friends.
After questioning suspicious things that didn’t add up & catching her in lies, she admitted that she gave her “crush” her phone number & has been deleting their messages. She also deleted them from the deleted so I have no idea what they talked about. Then she asked me “why can’t I just be normal?” , I responded “why can’t you just stop lying about things & being sneaky, you’re just a child & you lie so much”. I guess I am just wondering what I am doing wrong, why is my daughter so sneaky & why does she lie so much ? Am I too strict is that why ?