It sounds like you need to set up some time to have a calm discussion with your daughter rather than communicating in a reactionary way. Explain your concerns about the time she’s spending online, the apparent secrecy, and that you’re worried about her safety because you’ve read about the risks of teenagers talking to strangers online. She probably won’t want to talk about it, but explain to her anyway that it’s your job as her mom to protect her.

Get with her grandmother and establish some ground rules for your daughter’s Internet use. They can include no communicating with people you don’t know; no meetings offline with people she doesn’t know in person; certain times it’s allowed (after homework, before dinner); etc. Make sure she uses the Internet in a high-traffic area of the home, and set limits on the number of hours she can spend online. Talk to her (again, in a matter-of-fact, non-confrontational way) about the consequences if she doesn’t comply.

Simply banning the Internet rarely works because she can access it in so many places beyond the home, and it’s harder to monitor her activity if she just chooses to use the Internet someplace else. There are several good monitoring programs on the market that will track her online activities (Check out the searchable database of parental-control tools at GetNetWise.org). We feel it's best for parents to be up front about monitoring, but if you feel that telling her you're monitoring her online activity will send her "underground," then you might not want to tell her.

And hang in there - I'm sure she'll thank you one day.

Good luck and all the best,

Maureen

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Maureen Kochan
ConnectSafely forum manager