Some advice please

My youngest daughters, 16 and 17, came home from school today and told me about some friends of theirs. They snuck out of the house at 10:30 at night, left and were planning on driving 45 miles to meet some guy they talked to on the internet a week ago.
Fortunately their parents saw the vehicle missing, called the girls and they came home as they had been caught.

My girls don't think this is a big deal.
How do I talk to them about how dangerous it could have been?
Is there any articles, etc, online I could give them to read about how dangerous it is?

Gal

PS Any and all advice would be appreciated. From all ages.

 

I don't know if these articles help you or are relevant to where you are:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/chatguide/
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/4248113.stm

At 16 and 17 do they have the same rights of adults where you live or are they still minors?

 

The fact they didn't tell their parents is rather suspicious... if it was a perfectly safe meeting they wouldn't mind letting their parents know.

Also going out at 10:30pm doesn't bode well either. Being 17 I would never, EVER do that for any reason.

 

Here is a pretty good site, though you can find more specific horror stories if you want -- this is more of an informative site on protecting yourself:

http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/children/kidpred.mspx

Unfortuantely, the cliches about teens are often true -- they feel like they know everything they need to know, and are invincible (I know I did my fair of stupid things at that age). So even giving them the information they need to know to make decisions is often not enough. My wife and I don't have children that age yet, but it scares me to death that I will one day. It seems the best thing to do is be as involved in their lives as you can, be vigilant about sneaking out etc, and then just hope that you have raised them in the best way possible so that they can make good decisions when you aren't looking.

Good Luck,
Publius

 

If you really are having a hard time of getting the safety message understood, maybe contact your local police station.....I'm sure they will be more than happy to talk to your girls about this and show them the very real dangers of just taking off to meet someone alone. Meeting people from the internet can be great fun, don't get me wrong, I've met loads all over the world, but it has to be done in a way that is safe, and when this person is especially a minor/female then some form of adult supervision is a wise precaution.

Maybe you can also help them to understand that people can be anything to anyone behind the safety of a computer monitor and lying is so easy if they are that way inclined. Once you meet the person and realise they aren't 15 (as they claimed to be) but 35 it is too late......you are in danger. If your daughters felt they ever had to hide something from you...felt they wouldn't tell you what they are up to in meeting someone, they need to ask themselves why they won't tell you.....is it because they know in their conscience that it is wrong/dangerous/etc

HTH

 

Thanks for the advice and the articles.
My girls are still minors until they are 18.

I am hoping being they told me about what these others did, they would never try it themselves. They were very open about it, but very nonchalent.
I did contact the police and ask them for info., but because we live in rural Mn, they didn't have anything on hand. The only advice they gave me was to keep tabs on my kids and talk to them.........Which I have tried to do.
I guess it just really bothers me that they thought it was no big deal. It scared me.
These other two had just met the person online in a site for kids in school. He supposedly was 19, who knows for sure? They exchanged phone numbers and called each other for a day or two before deciding to meet.

Gal
PS. Finding out more from my kids lol

 

Most of the articles out there are fairly generic. This one is a bit more pointed.

http://www.bradenton.com/mld/bradenton/news/local/11479334.htm

What I would tell you daughters, is that predators are out there, they succeed by being convincing liars, and a girl only has to guess wrong one time to end up being r@ped and/or dead. ANYBODY that wants to meet secretly, after hours, is highly suspicious and potentially deadly dangerous. Their safe, peaceful little world can be shattered in an instant. And they are in Minnesota and every other state.

Try to make them realize that you parents are the good guys, and want to meet anybody they're going out with, for their own safety, not just to make things hard on them.

 

Fortunately, I havent had to experience that with my son (now 24).
I've read news articles, seen shows on TV About things like that happening where kids go off to meet someone they talk to online.

Of course what you see on TV are the bad things that HAS happened to these kids. I've heard of these kids getting raped, molested,beaten up and left to die in some deserted place, kidnapped, and yes-even brought to some place to be sex slaves! I'm sure you've told this to your daughters. If not, tell them!

Maybe take them to a **** center, I'm sure there would be some girls there that have gone out to meet someone online and got raped.

Some advice they give is to supervise their time on the computer, Put the computer in your living room or where your family spends a lot of time so when you walk by you can see who they're talking to.If you dont know who they are. maybe dont let them speak to those they dont know personally. Put some kind of code on your computer that they cant go on until you put them on, (my sis does that with her daughter). Most of all, If they have cell phones, a lot of them have instant messaging.so they can message whoever they want. If they must have cell phones get the kind that doesnt have aim.

I'm rambling again, I know...hope there's something in this you can use! I know at that age I thought nothing bad could happen to me, I know it'll be hard to convince your daughters! just keep at them!

Good Luck to you!

 

Hi,
My daughter is now 20 but I have the following opinion.
It's a very fine line between offering advice and being seen by your kids as "interfering".
The best thing you can do is make them aware of what can "potentially" happen.
If you say "don't do it" then they might just do it in order to spite or rebel against you.
I say make them aware of the dangers by illustrating cases where this kinda thing has gone wrong but try to do it in a casual (ok it's manipulative!) way. That way they don't think you're specifically getting at them.
On a personal level I think the previous advice of having the family pc in a common room is a good thing.
Hell I do it with my partner so I can monitor him!!!