I think it's a difficult one. My friend had nightmares with her daughter and mobile phones. She did not give her a phone but found out later it had been bought for her by a family member (who should have known better).
She had no idea what her daughter was accessing because she did not know about the phone and her daughter concealed it (11yr old at the time).
Once she found out all hell broke loose, she replaced the smartphone with a Nokia so she could send texts and make calls.
I think parents mean well when these phones are given, quite often it's as they start senior school. However, I work occasionally with internet safety people and they say that quite often parents have not kept up with technology or the plethora of social media apps out there. I attended an event where tow police officers from the child abuse investigation team listed several messaging apps - half the room had never heard of them. The two officers said they could go into any Y4/5/6 class and most of the kids would be familiar with them.
They then showed an awful clip from GTA5 (prostitute giving a BJ to a character). People were horrified, one parent actually had the game in her bag as she'd just bought it for her 14yr old son - she said she was taking it straight back.
My son (I am proud to say) was "the only kid in the class without GTA5 Mum", I relented at 17.5yrs.
All his class mates seemed to have the game and me pointing out that "if I was their Mum they wouldn't have it" cut no ice.
You're right, it's really hard. Personally I tried to foster a more open and honest relationship with my daughter over set rules, so I did give her a certain degree of trust when it came to her mobile and online activity. I think you're completely right with how fast apps are developing, and I'm under the belief that kids will find a way to access what they want nowadays, either through friends or otherwise. I preferred to let my daughter feel she could trust me 100% to come to me with issues, whatever she saw or experienced and that I wouldn't judge her. I honestly think that's the only way to keep young people safe these days, because stopping access to 'dangerous' materials is almost impossible.
The problem is Holly never had any interest in this. She was overly dependent on him and the image she wanted to create of him as a good-looking bruiser and mum's best friend. He was 12 years old and when he spent the weekend with his dad, called his mum constantly to make sure she was ok. I think that says a lot about the horrific amount of responsibility she placed on his shoulders, emotionally. And he clearly wasn't coping, evident from his behaviour in and out of school. Maybe she realises this and has now spun this story of a challenge gone wrong to delude herself. I don't think he saw a thing on TikTok (they found no evidence of it), I think he was overburdened in being an emotional carer for his mother and didn't see another way out. The saddest part is, even though he's passed, Holly is still holding him up on this pedestal and using him as an emotional crutch.
