Aunt unfollows 13-year-old niece on TikTok, mom scolds her for hurting her teenage daughter's self-esteem: 'I unfollowed you because I don’t want a 13-year-old dancing on my page'

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Emmy Pratt • Writer and Editor
Nov 14, 2025 11:00 AM EST

Her delivery left little to be desired.

Children are incredibly sensitive, especially during middle school. I've lived 13 more years since I was 13, and I still remember some of the things that hurt my feelings back then. I was in a play called The Secret Life of Girls that best resembled an after-school special from the '80s. Some of the older kids at our theatre came to see what I thought was an incredibly earnest production, and they laughed at it like the ridiculous piece of art that it was. Afterwards, I came home and cried to my mom like I'd never cried before. It's remarkable that I'll forget every detail of every juicy piece of drama that happened to me in college, but I can still recall middle school wounds as if they happened yesterday. 

It's common for adults to hurt preteens' feelings just because they don't remember what it was like to be that age, so they do things that would so obviously hurt a young kid's feelings. It doesn't make them a horrible person for doing it in the first place, but they should probably at least show some remorse, especially when a kid is deeply upset about it.

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  • A group of young women standing on a road
    via A. C. (Unplash+)

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • The aunt in this story needs to realize that, regardless of her intentions, she hurt her niece's feelings by unfollowing her on Instagram. She could easily mute her niece if she wanted to curate her TikTok feed that badly, but instead, she doubled down.

  • Am I the bad guy for unfollowing my niece’s TikTok and telling her why?

    Last week I (34F) unfollowed my 13 year old niece's tiktok account. She asked me why I unfollowed her today. I guess she pays attention to her follower count or something. Anyway I told her the truth, "I unfollowed you because I don't want a 13 year dancing on my fyp". She started crying, her
    via u/Abashed-Apple
  • A close up of a young woman crying
    via Nikolay Hristov

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • mum got involved, and now she is saying that I ruined her daughter's self esteem and that I told her she couldn't dance good. I'm so over this, my eyes can't roll harder. Am I the asshole?
    via u/Abashed-Apple
  • A woman with tattoos sitting in a car with her hands on her head
    via Blake Cheek (Unsplash+)

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • Edit to clarify: the dance that made me hit unfollow with no hesitation was my 13 year old niece doing the Toni Braxton challenge. I'm good. If that makes me a bad person I don't want to be a good one.
    via u/Abashed-Apple
  • Edit 2 to clarify: The 13 year olds mother is my sister in law by marriage. She is my husband's sister. I don't go to see them all the time and we are not close. I went over there to drop off a few things and that's when my niece confronted me about it. I am not her role model. I am not her favorite aunt (she has plenty more). She does not look up to me.
    via u/Abashed-Apple
  • heyhunnies1223 Mom needs to be protecting her 13 year old! That's a bigger issue than anything else! Secondly, if one person unfollowing can make her break down like this — parents need to work with her. It's TT - get real. -
    via u/heyhunnies1223
  • Abashed-Apple OP No, for real. That's how I feel about it. I didn't think me unfollowing her when she has 800+ followers (not even a joke) would even be on her radar. I also didn't think her mom would make a big deal about it. But now I see some people take this really seriously and I've messed up her confidence because I don't want my feed flooded with this crap.
    via u/Abashed-Apple
  • heyhunnies1223 I will teach my children to take any type of disappointment and grow from it. Her self esteem isn't your responsibility. TT and all social media is getting out of hand. And she probably shouldn't even be on it.
    via u/heyhunnies1223
  • darya42 She's 13, they take social media seriously, "unfollowing" in their age is the equivalent of saying "I don't like you as a person any more" so if you do that you HAVE to explain it. OP unfollowed her for a good reason, of course, but you NEED to communicate this very gently and making sure she does not feel rejected as a person. 13-year olds are not being "overemotional" when they cry over feeling rejected as a person by a family member.
    via u/darya42
  • This could have been avoided by communication skills and tact by OP. Seriously she's my age and it's a mystery to me how someone my age can be so obtuse about the social media "meaning" of "unfollow", it was the same for us at our age. The mother is being the even bigger idiot though.
    via u/darya42
  • heyhunnies1223 She did explain why she unfollowed her. And that should have been the end of the Aunts involvement. Any disappointment or self esteem issues should have been dealt with by the parents and used as a learning opportunity. Parents need to shut down the importance of social media and 13 year olds need to be restricted more. The aunt didn't deserve to feel guilty at all.
    via u/heyhunnies1223
  • HopefulPlantain5475 If that tanked her self esteem, then it's better she learns to deal with that now. Her mother is interfering with her learning a lesson.
    via u/HopefulPlantain5475
  • Appropriate_Milk_578 It's unhealthy that your niece is that focused on her social media following. Her parents should see that as a red flag or at least be discussing healthier social media use if she's planning to be a content creator. Many people have social media, and don't have every single family member connected.
    via u/Appropriate_Milk_578
  • Any_Rent_5934 Jus delete tiktok there's genuinely no reason to have it anyway
    via u/Any_Rent_5934
  • Fit_Marionberry_3878 NTA, I wouldn't want my fyp to be full of tweens dancing around either. That's what would happen if you peaked into her page and continued to watch her content.
    via u/Fit_Marionberry_3878
  • TrekkieMae NTA. Responsible Aunt. Her mom, on the other hand...
    via u/TrekkieMae

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tiktok-video tiktoks teenager viral tiktok crazy things parents say bad parenting niece bad parents parenting raising teens tiktok trends aunt Parenting Fail parents tiktok
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