Vile text

He's too young to have a phone.
You say it's for his safety for playing out, but he still doesn't need access to what's app. He could have an old Nokia with only your number in. Or only be given the smartphone when playing out with just your number in there and no apps like this downloaded.

Had your son had any falling out with this boy previous to this?
So strange that he would message your son this if they are good friends and haven’t had a fall out.
I wonder if he is just being really silly and thinking of it as a joke, not understanding the consequences of sending such things and will be mortified when his mum finds out.
I would defo mention to the school so that they can have a good talk with the children about phone safety and appropriate behaviour around phones.

I said this further up. Nobody knows who sent the text.

Young people who take their lives do so because of a coalescence of factors, including a campaign of harassment or bullying.

OP’s son had received a text, which he immediately told his parents about. This incident, that we’re talking about, isn’t what you refer to. It isn’t a serious crime. It’s a 10yo boy who’s made a mistake that needs correction.

Each year my DCs’ school expels children (places them elsewhere), and fires a coach or faculty member for some type of online activity, and it seems like every other year there is at least one case of serious sexual abuse (the most recent of which has resulted in incarceration). I’m not immune to this issue. No parent with a child at school in the western world is.

Jumping to alert the school, which has legal and regulatory obligations, before talking to the child and parents involved is disproportionate imo. It’s unnecessary and knee-jerk. Primary responsibility for the children lies with the parents. We can agree to disagree.

As it stands, you don't know that it was the boy who composed and sent the text. Has he got an older brother?

You need to tell school. It is not for your child to give permission for you to do this. You are the adult and they are not aware of the bigger picture that this may be a piece of.
This is a massive safe guarding issue. And safe guarding is everyone’s responsibility.

Sending abusive texts is not appropriate and the child who sent them obviously needs some help. No year 6 child should know those sexualised things - this is a safe guarding issue. They could be being abused themselves, shown indecent images etc you just don’t know what goes on behind closed doors. Please help protect them.

This isn’t enough. The body of the text was abusive and it mentioned suicide. That’s a police matter in the first instance, even if it’s only to scare the shit out of the boy who sent it.

Yep. Immediately she saw the message.

I agree. A friend of mine was on a dating site and the bloke she was talking to was clearly a scammer. He spent a long time trying to convince her to come off the dating site, where conversations were monitored and moderated, and onto WhatsApp where they’re neither. Once she did, he started to ask her for money. It definitely is a problem.

I'd mention it to the school - DD1 in Y8 had this with texts and the school was really good putting a stop to it - spoke to all the girls.

Change in leadership since they've said they won't deal with on-line phone issue at school nor intervene in fight even just outside school doors - so I'd still mention it to them but expect they'd do fuck all and just tell DC to block the number.

I think you could tell the school and ask them for discretion ie. Not singling out the boys involved and simply doing a reminder for all on phone behaviour and safety.

Well done to your son for sharing it with you - that’s the absolute most important thing here. I would be offering him some serious reward for that! x

OMG yes tell the school. Horrific and worrying.

I disagree and view your approach as possibly ill-informed or minimising?

Here are the stats:

Online bullying is a contributing factor for many young people having thoughts of suicide.

Over 200 schoolchildren die by suicide every year in the UK. We need everyone to be aware of the impact that online bullying can have on children and young people’s mental health.

https://www.papyrus-uk.org/bedtime-stories/#:~:text=Online%20bullying%20is%20a%20contributing,and%20young%20people's%20mental%20health.

Involve the professionals (not parents) who can investigate this serious crime appropriately and sensitively for the safeguarding of both children involved as the consquences are potentially devastating for for hundreds of families. Have a read up on the families and communities deeply impacted by this dangerous and unnecessary behaviour.

What happens when one of the kids sends another a beheading video or graphic porn. Is that an opportunity for learning? What are they learning in that instance? Why shouldn’t we shield them from abuse and graphic content at 10, 11, 12. Even older.

WhatsApp IS a problem.

Of course no-one is going to put a ten year old in jail for five years, but that doesn’t detract from the fact that it’s very serious. The nature of the text is bullying and the boy killing himself is mentioned. My immediate gut reaction is police first for advice. It’s not emotional or dramatic when you realise how many kids have been bullied into suicide, or that this child also has access to an SEN friend who may be seriously affected by something like this.

A half-decent school would do work with all the children about online safety and cyber bullying. You’d have to be prepared, though, for the boy's mother not to be happy about it, assuming you tell them who it was and that they make it clear to him that they know.

Firstly I think you have to be 13 to access WhatsApp so not sure what’s happening there. Secondly I would be taking this very seriously since there’s been vile abusive language and reference to him killing himself. The safeguarding lead at school needs to be informed and to be honest I would be inclined to bypass mum and contact the police for advice. I know he’s only ten but how many times have we heard of young children being bullied into suicide - even worse is the thought that this child could send the same kind of message to a friend with SEN.

I think from now on you need to limit the phone for his own protection.

I would highly recommend a watch phone like space talk. My son has one and I can request he send a feeling of how he’s going and monitor where he is and he can only chat to certain people & message & phone certain people. The friend chats can be moderated and I can view on my device.

I will not be allowing a phone for this reason or social media. In Australia one of our top private schools has banned social media and phones until age 13/14. This comes after the suicide if a 12 year old girl who was bullied via social media and or her phone.

Thank god your son is close to you and went to you immediately.

For me the difference between a written note and text is the sense of safety. A note can only happen in school so at least a child can go home and feel safe knowing they can't be bullied but a phone means they can be accessed anywhere so nowhere is safe.

for the OP it’s not relevant - or rather not the point- no.

But in a bigger picture sense it’s highly relevant. Schools aren’t dealing with thousands of kids sending hate speech, requests for nudes, exhortations to peers to kill themselves etc on paper are they? I’m sure it happens, but nowhere near as often as it does on phones / social media. And kids (for now) have just as much access to pens and paper as they do
phones.

speaking socially, the tech is very much the issue.

Even if you’re right that this “up to 5 years in prison” is applicable to a 10yo, a juvenile offender, don’t you think you’re jumping the gun somewhat? You don’t think there’s any value in acting like a responsible adult yourself rather than delegating that function to the boys’ teachers, in finding out what happened, talking to the other parents, talking to the boys, and deciding at that point what to do?

Being officious, emotional, dramatic - none of this will help either boy.

Only on MN can someone post “should I tell me school about a vile text my son received?” and be met with “definitely, the boy is a criminal whose act is punishable by 5 years in jail”.

whatsapp is not an issue here. the message could have been text or voicemail or just a note on paper. the content is an issue.

I'd forward the message to school and get my DS to confront the bullying little twat in person on Monday. Need to nip this in the bud.