On this week’s Parenting segment, one mother struggles between anger that her daughter set up a dating profile and concerns for her self-esteem.
“Over Christmas we found out that our daughter had signed up for a dating app - she is 16, and is under the age restriction of the app,” she told Moncrieff.
“When I contacted the app in question, they were very quick to close down her profile.
“In the stress of finding and closing down the account, I haven’t really had the opportunity to deal with my daughter.
“I want to punish her for doing something so dangerous and irresponsible, however I don’t want to go to hard and get a push-back response from her.”
Her daughter later explained she set up a dating profile because “she was the only one out of all her friends that didn’t have a boyfriend”.
“I need to explain to her how dangerous what she did was, but I also want to educate her about dating,” she said.
Child psychotherapist Joanna Fortune said the mother has taken the right steps to get rid of the dating profile, but now it’s time to approach the problem “in a gentle yet firm way”.
“You really need to keep kindness and empathy at the core,” she said. “When you say you want to punish her, I just want to catch that.
“When you look at effective discipline, no matter how old they are, it should always aim to teach what you want to see rather than punishing what you don’t want to see.
“If you go in to with punishing there’s no lesson learned, you're just offloading your anger on to child who may not understand the nature of that anger and think you're utterly out of touch.”
Parenting with 'facts and feelings'
Joanna said it would help to fully put herself in the shoes of an isolated 16-year-old girl who made a rash decision.
“Stick with facts and feelings,” she advised. “For example, you're too young you lied about your age to get on this app, that’s a fact.
“The feeling is, ‘I fear something bad could have happened to you – I got scared and I got angry’.
“If you can tell the story you tell yourself and the story she tells herself, you're meeting in the middle.”
Joanna said the parent should be “firm” in telling the daughter she can never have a dating profile while underage – but offer alternatives and support.
“Focus on her self-esteem and focus on telling her meeting anyone is not the same as meeting someone,” she said.
“Giving her alternative ways of meeting new people that are healthy and age appropriate.”
Even though most dating apps are banned for those under 18, it is estimated 7% of Tinder users are between the ages of 13 and 17.
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