Vile text

School will take action.
As pp have said, it's safeguarding. Offensive, threatening and sexualised language needs to be investigated and the parents included in this.

It facilities it, makes it easier, more immediate, more threatening, more personal. If it's WhatsApp others can join in, pictures can be shared, stuff posted on line in different forums.
It's absolutely toxic and I have no idea why people let 10 year olds have smart phones.

I think you did the right thing. This is not a school issue. It didn't happen on school grounds, using school equipment or have any relation to school.

The boys just happen to have met at school.

That's not too say you shouldn't mention it to school, in case the boy is sending messages to other children, or behaving strangely to your DC in school. But I wouldn't expect school to take any action towards the child.

For what it's worth, KYS / kill yourself is these days quite normalised on WhatsApp and other social channels sadly as a way of dissing a friend. Awful I know, but seemingly common. Your 13 yo is v lucky not to have encountered this.

I wonder if this boy has seen or received similar messages, they made him feel awful, and is "testing" them out on your DC for some reason.

How's your DC feeling and what will you do now?

When this happened to my granddaughter, we reported it to the school, but they just said they weren't interested as it was outside school hours.

If you can, best sort it out with mum.

I would report to school - however lovely mum is, why is a 10 year old using such language, what does he have access to / witnessing. You don't know if he has done this to other children or if there is something else going on which can help build a picture. Also a teacher needs to be aware incase there is fallout from this or something is said so they are prepared to deal with.

But did the mum say why? Had they had a fall out? Why would he just send that out id the blue?

It is about safeguarding.

no phone and this would not have happened. - yes, he could have put an anonymous note in his schoolbag instead, like was done in good old days, way better /s
The issue really isn't phone or whatsapp here.

I think this is a serious enough situation where the professionals need to be involved. It's not for us to decide if this is serious enough to be dealt with just by the parents or not. In law, it is for the police etc to decide if something needs doing. In child protection it is for social services to decide if investigations are needed. This 100% needs reporting and the fact the mum is nice, is irrelevant.

As far as 'keeping an eye on how the friendship is going' that wouldn't happen.My child would be banned from mixing with him. I would also stop mixing with his mother regardless of how lovely she is. I would report the behaviour to the school & social services & leave it to the professionals. I would deem this to be a very seroius issue outwith my control no matter how much I wanted to help this child.

Following on from the fact there may be comments about taking your own life, or even a suicidal child - it would be good if all parents could have a talk with their children along the lines of 'Who would you talk to if ....?'

Now obviously we all would hope that out children would name us, their parents (as this child did) but it doesn't hurt to let them consider other helpful, trusted people. Grandparent? Family friend? Teacher? Older sibling?

We had a conversation with ours about this and it was very interesting - one grandparent, who was absolutely loved, was not deemed suitable as 'she wouldn't believe me'. One child immediately said us, one hesitated and then said maybe us, one said maybe my (Wilfrida's) best friend.

Back up support is always worth discussing - don't just assume your children will a) choose you and b) know who else they could go to. Get them considering it before any crisis.

IMO you did this completely the wrong way round.Tell school do not engage directly with parents over issue like this it never ends well.

I would probably log in with both the school and the police. I would be livid

Sadly, this sort of thing happens, usually with older children which makes me wonder whether someone else wrote it/ fuelled it. I think that's the concern some people have with WhatsApp. Obviously the same message could have been communicated through other media: it's just that there's a minimum age limit on WhatsApp which means most young people who use it are teenagers. Of course it may simply be that this friend of the same age is allowed to use WhatsApp too but it does make me query it

Great minds @CustardySergeant !

I understand that you like this Mum....but what is she DOING about the text?

Have you had an explanation as well as an apology? I'd want to know why this boy sent this vile text, especially as you regarded him as a friend to your son.

Sorry, but an apology isn’t enough here. I would want an explanation for why he did it.

I would tell the school, say what has happened, and please can teachers keep an eye on DS. Hopefully they will also check on the other boy to see what he is experiencing to make him behave like this.

It's not about telling the school to expect them to sanction the child, it's about letting them know of a serious incident of bullying so the situation can be monitored in school. One of the schools I work in has a Monday staff briefing and will occasionally reference safeguarding concerns that have happened in the community over the weekend as it could well impact the working day. Plus, as others have mentioned, it may be to help support both children in the aftermath given the OP has said the child who sent the message has always come across as a nice child.

My DC had a similar incident at the same age, at the bottom of it was a huge amount of jealousy and rage from the "friend", the parents being in a crisis point with their marriage and finances. Our messages included some details that only could have come from the friends parents as we had never told our DC so it was clear the underlying problem came at least partially from the parents. So, make sure things between you and your friend are really as good as they seem on the surface despite how lovely they seem.

I also wonder what's going to make the rage go away for the child? While we got apologies from parents and the friend, the issues carried on through the rest of primary school and got progressively worse in some ways (less direct, more sneaky undermining with friends), and didnt get better until they were split up in secondary school. I'd be having a strong discussion with your DC about what a friend actually is.

What on earth has it to do with the school? Can't believe the number of people on here who think it has anything to do with it. People shoving responsibility onto others
It's not about passing responsibility. In cases like this there could be something going on in a child's life but nobody knows the whole story. Other people may have bits of information but until it is put together like a jigsaw you won't see the full picture. Of course it could be nothing and be a one off, or it could be a phone pirate just causing trouble between mates, we don't know but school needs information to help safeguard children.

Not really- on a brick phone if people have to send a direct text message they know they can’t go back and delete it (as you can with WhatsApp) plus it can’t receive pictures. Plus if your son were tempted to respond (or if the bully had also had a brick phone) it would take him about half an hour to write a vaguely rude message with old style text writing. WhatsApp just makes it so easy and tempting to send abuse/ inappropriate content to massive amounts of people all at once.

That’s on top of the other evidence that smartphones are terrible for concentration, muggings, awareness of surroundings etc.

I think that people are absolutely mad full stop to hand their kids a smart phone at this age, then give access to apps which are legally not open to them (how did he even get WhatsApp at all?) and then be surprised when things go pear shaped. And yes I do have 2 kids above 10 with no smart phone at all yet- they have access to a brick phone (they are completely disinterested) and may be allowed access to a smart phone once they are 14. Obviously they watch a decent amount of you tube and other rubbish but as yet no social media/ messaging at all.