I have always been fairly liberal in my parenting. Midnight bedtimes on weekends, PG-13 movies/shows under 13, unsupervised trips to the mall with friends and unfettered internet access... Perhaps this has been my downfall, but none of this has come without at least an attempt to mindfully educate my children on the difference between fantasy and reality in movies, and the danger of strangers on the internet.

Allowing her to hang out with her friends alone is relatively a new thing, and began with the usual letting them go to the movies alone together, and over the past year has moved on to hours long mall trips and recently a theme park trip. This however has just come to a screeching halt.

Sadly, this recently took a turn for the worse when I discovered that my 13yo daughter not only had been interacting with a few 17yo local boys online, but she had also been online "dating" one of them, and had arranged a few meetings with them over a weekend. Once in the mall where we had dropped her and her friend off for a few hours, and once at a theme park for a day with the same friend the following day.

This information came to us from a family friend who has a son who introduced them. They also met online, and to this day, the only person who has actually met them in person is my 13yo child and her 13yo friend. The reality is, nobody even knows who these guys actually are. the only "evidence" we even have that they are teenagers, is my daughter saying that she has heard one of their moms come into the room and tell him to do his homework while voice chatting.

Discovering this of course led to an hours long sit-down with my daughter, explaining further the dangers and implications of meeting strangers from the internet, especially at her age. Of course, she insisted that they were simply friends who share the same interests in games and anime, and that it didn't go any farther than that, pleading that I not cut her off from speaking to them. using the typical childish arguments "So, what, I'm not allowed to have friends?!". I told her that I won't let her talk to them until I can speak to and possibly meet their parents.

And then we found the chat logs... Nothing extraordinarily explicit, but it turned out pretty much the way I had imagined it would. The 17yo "boyfriend" talking about how much he loves her, how much he wants to cuddle with her, and then ultimately insinuating that he would like to have sex with her "haha just kidding... Unless you want to...".

I lost it there, voices were raised and demands to never speak to them again were made. She has now lost the privilege of going out alone with her friends along with a concert that she wanted to attend (with my wife) and has had her time playing games and using her phone limited. She seems however fairly unaffected by any of it. She put up a bit of a fuss, but other than that, the past few days she has been seemingly content and unfazed.

My wife prodded a bit because of this, and learned that she is indeed still speaking to them... FFS.

I don't want to have to take her phone and computer away from her permanently. A good portion of her social life revolves around gaming with and communicating with her real life school friends online... But now there are, what I perceive to be predators coming after her, and she is opening her arms to them and fighting me for it with everything she has.

I feel like I am just sitting here waiting for the day she sneaks out in the middle of the night, never to be seen or heard from again, or in the very least ending up preagnant.

I just don't know what to do at this point... I would appreciate any advice that anyone may have to offer.

Thanks.
Stressed Dad