My DS is globally delayed - not significantly but enough to make him often act without thinking through possible consequences and that’s led to some hard times at secondary as you can imagine. But nothing I’ve not managed to help him through.
It all kicked off this week in a Snapchat (?) with lots of kids from his year and the year above. I think he knows most of them but not all. For some reason, he let 2 friends borrow his phone and one of them pulled up a picture of a girl in their year who had posted of her in a bikini on a recently holiday. My son isn’t sure but thinks the photo came from her Facebook which is open to all. Said “friends” posted the Picture on Snapchat with no comment but obviously this bikini picture was seen by many.
the girl‘s mum contacted school to complain and it took me about an hour of listening to understand all I’ve tried to summarise above (I’m an older mum in late 50’s and without sounding like I’m in the Archers I do find the online world of social media confusing). The head was nice and said she fully believes there was no malicious intent, but that my son should be careful in future about who he lets borrow his phone, and that provocative photos shouldn’t be shared without the person’s explicit consent. My son’s friends parents were also present as
they admitted from the start they posted it from my son’s phone, but they argued politely that the fact the girl chooses to have an open profile with lots of photos of her on the beach / going out / etc means they did nothing wrong posting it on Snapchat. I stayed quiet as frankly felt out my depth but apologised to the school and girl’s parents as did my son and assured them it won’t happen again. Have also had conversation with my son about not allowing friends/
peers to use his phone.
the problem is that his friend’s parents refused to apologise, said if they don’t want the girl in a bikini splashed around they should talk to her about her inappropriate content on open Facebook, and it all got heated, ending with the girl’s mum saying she was going to the police to report my son and his friends for explicitly posting illegal pictures of her daughter ☹️
i am terrified as this was done on my son’s phone. What should / can I do next? I feel utterly out of my depth and my son is terrified as didn’t even know it had happened until someone messaged him to ask why he’d done it. Any advice so welcome. Thank you. Not sure what my AIBU is, but don’t know where to post it as I’m not good with online forums either!