My daughter is 11 and I discovered that she had a Facebook account and a personal email account. These were two things my wife and I had told her she wasn't allowed to have. I felt she was still too young. When she was caught, she obviously offered up a bunch of lies and denials, and for this I have to ground her. My question is what happens after the grounding?
I work in IT, so I am not new to this kind of media or unaware of the dangers and issues it presents. I have full knowledge in how to lock down her devices and put content filtering in place or a whitelist of allowed services, but let's be honest, I can no more stop her than I could stop a tidal wave. I can restrict her access, lock down the computers, search her devices periodically, but there are still friends' houses and a multitude of other ways she could and will access this stuff. I would like to believe otherwise but it's just too prevalent in our society, and everyone she knows is doing the same.
I have to ask myself not what I would feel better about, but what is better for her personal development? Truth be told, the only thing I can really do is try and educate her on the dangers and allow the services. This seems to be the only real solution. Other solutions would only force her to be more secretive, and for us to be more draconian, and for what? How would that help her develop into a better person/adult?
Looking for some insight or suggestions on how to approach this issue from. How should I go about this? Again she will be grounded, harshly for lying and sneaking behind our backs, and it's not going to be enjoyable for her. However after the punishment I need a plan on what's best moving forward.