This article could also be titled: “”Why Your Kid is Can’t Make Good Choices, So You Have to do it For Them.””

Earlier this year, I got a call from Janet. She found some concerning text messages on her 12-year-old daughter’s phone. She talked to her daughter, Paige, about her concerns. Janet was met by a confused and resistant child. Paige claimed she was being alarmist and out of touch. Janet asked if she could bring Paige to my office to talk about it.

A couple days later, Paige and her mother were in my office. Paige looked noticeably uncomfortable sitting across the table from me. Janet explained that she looked on Paige’s smartphone and saw several text messages from an individual unknown to her. The person texting her was a male, possibly adult, living in Los Angeles, only an hours drive from their home. The text conversation was about possibly meeting in person, somewhere near their home.  The text messages had not progressed past the planning stages, but the meeting seemed inevitable based on the conversation. It was just a matter of time.

Paige was able to fill in some context. Paige was a quiet, awkward, but intelligent 7th grader. She really liked the boy band, One Direction. Unfortunately, none of her friends did. In fact, her friends made fun of her. Alienated by her friends, Paige looked for others that could understand her, she went to a One Direction fan page on Instagram. On that fan page she connected with others, boys and girls, that shared her love on One Direction. These people understood her. They didn’t reject her. They were her friends. They were total strangers. These “friends” on Instagram played to Paige’s need to be excepted, understood, valued, and loved. She was the perfect victim of an online predator.

Paige refused to see her “friends” on Instagram as potential predators. I talked to Paige about how predators use these types of sites to meet kids and develo ...