I recently became the mom of a teenager this past May, and it has already been quite a learning curve. I think from her point of view, a teenager is a teenager, meaning a 13-year-old should enjoy the same freedoms and privileges that a 17-year-old does. Within a period of only about 6 weeks, we have already had many conversations about how she is ONLY just 13, and that those freedoms and privileges still have to be age-appropriate, despite her crossing the magical threshold into her “teenage era”.
There have been a few instances over the past few weeks where she has made some really good choices, demonstrating her efforts to be more mature, and honestly have left me feeling so proud of her. We have a neighborhood pool that’s about a 4-minute walk from our house. And, of course, all she wants to do this summer is go hang out there, but I have to work during the day. So, I’ve been letting her go with her best friend for a few hours at a time.
We came up with this solution because it gives her some of the freedom she has been craving (she’s allowed to go to the pool without me), while also having some safeguards in place (she’s with a friend, I’m able to monitor her location on my phone, I’m only a few minutes away, and only those with a key fob can enter the pool area). Without me asking, she texts and checks in with me about every 60-90 minutes. Usually it’s only to let me know that “yes, she’s drinking water” and that “yes, she has reapplied sunscreen”, but when she does stuff like that on her own, it really makes me feel like I have the hang of this whole teen parenting thing.
Now let me stop myself before I get too cocky because within the same period of time, she has made some NOT so good decisions that have left me genuinely questioning where exactly I went wrong. Full disclosure, I limit the apps that my daughter has access to on her devices, have time limits on those apps, and also occasionally review her internet history. She tells me that it’s an invasion of privacy – I call it good parenting. Within the past week, I was going through her internet history, and almost all of it is definitely what I would consider age-appropriate.
But then I noticed that while her friend was over, they both decided to check out a website similar to Omegle. If you haven’t ever heard of this website, it was a platform to talk to strangers with free video chat. According to them, “Omegle (oh`meg`ull) is a great way to meet new friends. When you use Omegle, you are paired randomly with another person to talk one-on-one.” I had personally learned about Omegle a few years ago, when Office Gomez posted about it on his Facebook page. Here is part of what he shared:
Officer David Gomez is a school resource officer in Idaho, who is known for his work educating parents and children about online safety, particularly the dangers of social media and online predators. You can follow him on Facebook like I do. He shares important information and helpful advice for parents.
When I saw that my daughter and her friend had visited this type of website, I was scared, upset, and disappointed. The original Omegle platform was shut down towards the end of 2023, but so many “copycat” websites have popped up since then, and none of these websites are safe for anyone under 18.
I’m not even two months into this whole being a parent of a teen, but it definitely feels precarious, almost like balance on a tightrope high above the ground. Sometimes, I feel like I got my balance down and getting across is going to be so easy… and other times, I feel so unsteady, one second away from tumbling towards a crash landing.
