I’M SHOCKED BY MY DAUGHTER’S ONLINE PROFILE

Dear Coleen

I’M a mum of a 17-year-old girl and was horrified to find out she’d been posting sexual images of herself on social media. I’m not very tech-savvy but another parent highlighted what my daughter was up to because she was concerned.

When I confronted my daughter, she just said “everyone does it” and got really angry, and wouldn’t talk about it.

I worry about how boys will see her and also that these photos might come back to haunt her down the line. What should I do?

Coleen says

IT’S scary that young women are doing this and think it’s normal.

If I were you, I’d try to have a calm conversation with her, focusing on how these images could affect her future.

At the moment, she’s seeing you as out of touch and overprotective, so she needs to be reminded of some hard facts.

If she has public social media accounts, those photos are out there and you don’t know who’s viewed them or what they’ve done with them. There are some frightening stories of seemingly innocent pictures of underage kids being taken from social media accounts and turning up on pornographic websites.

So get some examples to show her. It could also potentially affect her career chances if an employer did a Google search. Make her think about the potential consequences.

But I don’t think lecturing or shouting is the way to go.

Remind her that you’re not trying to be mean or control her life but you love her and don’t want to see her get hurt. All it takes is for an image to get into the wrong hands and she’ll be wishing she’d listened to her mum.