Tuesday 30 June 2009

Disengagement - in action

Well I've had my first taste of a situation that required me to disengage.

Today, I found out that SD has registered on Facebook, with her real first name but her best friend's surname, and a fake date of birth. However, she used her real email address and also kept the month and day of her DOB the same, so it wasn't hard to tell it was her!

I didn't do anything - I rang DP, and I told him what I'd found out. He asked me, as he won't be home for a while, to please report it to facebook, as he wants them notified asap. He then said he was furious and also very worried about SD because of this. I said "well if you want to talk about it I'm here, but she's your child so you need to decide how best to deal with it". DP is thinking that he is going to ban her from the internet while she is here, for a while. What he is most upset about is the dishonesty, he's had a talk to her not so long ago about Facebook, and how people on the internet are not always who they seem to be etc, and she said some of her friends went on it with fake dates of birth. She told him she wasn't on it though, and DP said good, I would not be happy if you were because you are too young.

If she was my child she'd be banned from the internet for a LONG time, and seriously supervised when allowed back on. But in SD's case, BM has probably permitted it, so it's one of those cases where it's difficult, and slightly unfair on her if she's got one parent saying yes and one no. But it's one of those "not in my house" scenarios - if BM is fine with her on social networking sites at ten, then there's not much DP can do about it, but he won't enable her to do it on his time and on his computers. I don't feel that optimistic that DP will be able to keep up the ban for very long, but for the first time, I feel that it doesn't really affect me if he doesn't. He will be the one who has to deal with it if, God forbid, SD encounters an internet predator, and it will be he and BM who have to wonder why on earth were they not stricter and more vigilant about her activities online. Of course I do not WANT that to happen to my stepdaughter, but if her parents will not ensure that her internet use is age appropriate, they are the ones taking that risk, not me.

2 comments:

  1. Well done Wicked steppie. Did you find it hard to disengage? Did you still have to fight the urge to get involved?

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  2. Oh yes, I fought the urge....but I have largely stayed out of it and said to DP it's his choice how he deals with it. We will see tonight when SD comes over....

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