Overheard my DS on the phone. I feel sick.

[NameChangeCentral]

I've just been having a lie down in my room with a headache. 14yo (nearly 15yo) DS1 is on his phone to a friend.
I have picked up from the conversation the following -
"But she's only 12. She told me on snapchat she was 15. She asked me out and we were going to, but I backed out at the last minute. Shes blocked me now so I cant screenshot the messages. She lied and now I'm being called a paedo for something I didn't know. I asked her before how old she was - she had told me shes 15 and doing exams.
Her pals have told my pals I'm a paedo. I'm fuming..."

For purposes of full disclosure and not drip feeding, he has aspergers. I have no clue if his literal/straight to the point way of dealing with this is relevant or not, as I haven't spoken with him yet.
I believe totally what hes saying, ie he asked her age etc.
But any advice about how to deal with this before I vomit?

@NameChangeCentral don't hesitate to contact the school for support or if it looks as if your DS is being victimised in any way.

At your leisure, NameChangeCentral. I want you to calm down and see this in proportion but no one can rush that.

I can't help thinking that any one of us could be or have been in the op's position. That is scary. She needs our support as her son needs hers.

@NameChangeCentral don't mind those who are being rude, nitpicking and telling you you need to grow up etc. They are typical SM trolls, bullies. Perhaps they are frustrated, unhappy people in real life and being rude to people behind the anonymity of a computer/phone screen helps them work through their issues. Or making others feel like shit makes them feel a bit better, temporarily. Who knows. Who cares. It's pathetic.

You've done what you thought was best, thought about how you want to handle things with your son and come on here to ask the opinion of your peers to try and weigh up if you were seeing things clearly through your upset. We all know how teens overreact to things, especially on SM and you're right to be worried. The parenting that I would be worried about is from those saying grow up, as that would seem to imply that they thought nothing needs to be done after hearing their kid clearly worried sick over things that are being posted about him on SM. What kind of parent doesn't worry about stuff like that??

I would sit down and talk to your son. Keep it light, but also let him know that you are always there if he wants go talk about anything. No doubt he'll be embarrassed but he needs to know that you're there. Also have the obvious talk about the dangers of SM, which I'm sure he now knows of. I would also suggest to him a break from SM. If he is worried about his friends asking him why he has taken a break from it, he can just give them the excuse that mum has banned him from it as he is spending too much time and she thinks its impacting on his school work.

Good luck although I'm sure you don't need it, you sound like a good mum. And these things with teenagers are over before they started most of the time.

@DecemberSnow he's 14

more to this....so I suspect there was indeed a sexual nature to the communications, in which case the police can become involved, the age of criminal responsibility is 10 in England, is it not?

@overnightangel you didn't, but you said no 12 year old looks like a 15 year old & I'm comparing kids who are only year older than 12 but who easily look 3 or 4 years older thank their age. So pretty much the same as a 12 year old looking like a 15 year old. Sadly most girls of that age look way older than they are, especially in pictures which are filtered beyond all recognition.

I have teens and I can understand the horror and stress they can cause xx

It's certainly used as a casual insult nowadays.

However it needs to be stopped. It's totally inappropriate and causes all sorts of issues because actually a convicted peadofile has committed an offence and often caused untold and life long damage to their victims.

I can also understand your concerns adding in the asd as my son is on the spectrum. This leaves them vulnerable. They often don't have the language skills or social awareness to deal with these situations and will try and reason with logic (which can inflame the situation) rather than the brush off ignoring tactic which means it disappears or stops.

If people are posting things online about him being a 'peado' then I'd get screenshots and go to the police. This is cyber bullying.

And he's, 12yo girls are often in the age bracket where they love to create drama. But that doesn't mean it's ok at the expense of someone else's mental health and reputation.

@Ireallydontcare I'd prefer you not to start airing what you "suspect" is the bigger story here. You have no idea what it is yet jumped to a conclusion.
I stated "And in any case, it turns out there's a different/mainly unrelated story here that we've uncovered and is very concerning." Yet you've decided it's totally related 🤬

@DecemberSnow

Yes?

What do you mean by 'his 14'?

It makes no sense unless there are some missing words which were supposed to follow those.

So, to update. He asked us for a chat, which I'm relieved about.
To briefly address some of the points on here -

No, they did not meet face to face - ever.
He checked her age in a few places and saw no reason to disbelieve her.
I have removed Snapchat from him.
I had his phone all of yesterday evening and overnight, and he almost seemed relieved that he didn't need to be involved with any online stuff at all.
He got a few messages last night asking about it, but nothing threatening and nothing awful.
I do check his phone regularly. But Snapchat doesn't save messages/photos, so there was never anything of concern on there when I checked.
@UpToonGirl - that's exactly it. I feel like he was biting back in some situations, which fuelled the fire and caused even more issues for him. There are a lot of scary people at his school, and I'm concerned at how any of this could blow up.
@Nowlook - still have no idea what your post means. What does half-term have to do with any of this??
@february08baby - I know I half replied to you last night. But no, they didn't meet, and he has told me that he hasn't kissed anyone - so for both those reasons I can confirm they didn't have sex.
@Ireallydontcare - I totally understand what you're saying re it being no defence. But the pp had implied that he had knowingly behaved badly to a 12yo, and I was trying to clarify that no, what he did was with regards to a 15yo - ie not the same angle that was being suggested. However I do now understand the ramifications of "not knowing" - which I didn't previously know re minors. It was far from me "not seeing a problem". Again, it is odd that some people said I was totally overreacting, yet others saying I didn't seem to see a problem (despite coming on here panicking about what I had heard and wondering how to deal with it).
"Literally no 12 year old looks 15." Well, you must have very different kids in your area than I do. My FB friend's daughter is 12, and she posts filtered photos of her on FB. She is so heavily amended and filtered that she easily looks 18. I think it's very naive to think that 12yo girls all look young and have pigtails and "look 12". Also, a nearly 13yo is quite far apart from someone who is turning 12 today.
@mathanxiety, thanks for the link. I'll look at that later today.
Thanks to all the posters who gave great advice, it helped a lot.
One thing that came out of all this is that I was clearly very naive about how sexually mature some of the kids his age are. Worryingly so.

The subsequent unrelated story that came out as a result of our chat was also very worrying. I will not add any details about it, for various reasons, but I am seeking advice.

You can still screenshot Snapchat messages even if the person has blocked you.
What’s the 12 year old girl going to do? Go to the police and admit she lied about her age? I’m sure she’ll be way too embarrassed to want to share what she’s done with her family let alone the police

Hope the second story involves other kids and not your son. Such a worrying age, so much pressure on kids.

I hope you are all okay.

You can still screenshot Snapchat messages even if the person has blocked you. Yes, I know - and as I said, there was nothing that concerned me on it any time I have checked.

@Itwasntme1 it partially involves him. We're OK, thank you.

Meant to post at the end of that - sorry!

Sorry, to clarify, I was troll-hunting. That's not allowed, but I had an unguarded moment. I'll report my post to MNHQ.

Ah I see. I thought it was aimed at me.

Or maybe it was. I still dont really understand what it means 🙈