Teen Nudes Drama

[TeensAreCruelAndStupid]

Picked 14 yr old son up from school today and he got in the car and burst into tears. He informed me that a girl had friended him on Snapchat and they have been talking for a couple of weeks and she had asked for nude pictures which he sent (we are addressing this as hugely disappointed) turns out this girl was another boy in his school who had created a fake profile and has now been sharing these nude pictures around school. Thankfully someone who was sent the picture told my son who reported to a teacher who has now taken it to the safeguarding lead who will do an investigation. The school have rung and informed us of his disclosure and they will be investigating. Feel really upset about the whole thing, firstly for my son being so stupid to send nude pictures, but also furious that this other boy would go to such depths to obtain these pictures, simply to cause distress for my son by circulating them. My son and this other boy have fallen out recently and don’t speak.
I know there will be consequences for my son for making and sending these pictures to ‘this girl’ which we will rightly support as well as punishments we will put in at home, he will not be using his phone out of sight of a parent for some time. But surely the police should be called on the boy who effectively catfished my son, persistently asking for photos, to then use them to cause such distress, it just seems so cruel and intentional.
Anyone have any idea on how the school should be handling this, will they contact police, what punishments should we expect for my son and the other boy? Should we contact police or for now let the school Safeguarding Lead do what they need to do?

Tell him to say they are AI.

How was he coerced. I.e forced or compelled? He wasn’t. He believed it to be a girl the same age as him. As both are 14 he is sending an indecent image (albeit of himself) to a child under the age of 16. He has inadvertently ended up as the victim as the image has been shared but the buck stops with him
as he voluntarily sent a
Nude image of himself to a 14 year old
child.

Contact the police, it’s illegal to share nudes so the boy will get in trouble.

Precisely. It is illegal to share images. He should not have sent the original photo.

How on earth are you so certain that the boy was not coerced? The OP herself has used the word and she’s the only one here who has all the information. If he felt pressured to do something that he wasn’t entirely comfortable with then he was coerced. The OP has told us this was after weeks of pressure. This child was coerced.

You seem intent on reminding everyone that this fictional girl was a child, whilst glazing over the fact that the actual victim is a child himself…and yes, he would’ve been a victim regardless of the sex of the perpetrator.

Explain how a girl would’ve been less to blame for weeks of pestering a child for indecent images, than anyone else doing the same. Whatever way you look at this, OPs child has been targeted with weeks of coercion resulting in his sending images of himself that he wouldn’t have otherwise done.

I know this, he knows this and the police know this, I have not once tried to to hide how disappointed I am that he fell for this. And if you read my posts by me reporting to the police now means he also has a case open for making the image, but this also means that the catfisher/school boy will be dealt with as well. But this account was made to entice him into doing unfortunately what he ended up doing, he’s a teenager and made an awful judgment call, and it’s something we will deal with. However he’s also a 14 year old boy who is having his nude picture sent around his school amongst his peers, I would say a lesson has been learnt an incredibly hard way.

Of course schools talk about this. But since when do teenagers take any notice?

Terrible advice. You can work out if an image was AI generated by the metadata within said image. Lying to the police isn’t going to make anything better.

OP I wanted to come on here and say that you’ve handled this brilliantly. I really hope that this ends with NFA for your son. I’m only 30 and remember what it was like being a teenager in the smartphone era. Hormones raging everywhere, you don’t have a place of your own to experiment, the phone becomes the place to do that. I look back at that time (especially now having DCs of my own) and shudder at what a fucking terrible space that was. I totally agree with the laws surrounding this, but I can also see why teenagers do it so I have a lot of sympathy for your boy. Wishing you luck.

The police actually suggested we make something that he could throw back at anyone that comments or says something which I am sure he will face many times for the next few weeks, until the next scandal at school!

You know she was talking about the spiteful shit who coerced OPs son, so what are you getting out of deliberately twisting it to stick the boot in?
OPs son already knows he shouldn’t have sent it, he’s suffering the consequences right now.

I wonder, would you be this cold towards a teenaged girl who had been pestered for weeks by a 14 year old boy into sending indecent photos of herself…after all, that poor hypothetical underage boy would’ve been on the receiving end of those indecent photos.

Speaking to the police today I know this is happening all day every day by teenagers and thousands of parents will never be aware of what their child has sent or received (maybe even some of the incredible judgmental perfect parents on mumsnet!)

Thank You. I same as you agree with the laws, even now faced with a ‘case’ opened against my son, which was a consequence of reporting what has happened.

I am so sorry that this has happened to your son. You have all been so strong in dealing with it. It has been a harsh lesson but hopefully will hold him in good stead moving forwards. 14 is a tricky age for them and made even more so by social media, chat groups etc. there have been so many terrible stories of what has happened to teenage boys and girls who have been tricked into sending images. I am glad your DS was brave enough to be able tell someone what was happening.

I work in a school. You are right. Dick pics and nudes are a daily occurrence. And it seems to becoming more and more normalised….

Has the OP not spoken to their child about sharing images online when they gave them a smartphone?
Some schools report this to the police, some deal with it in house.

Im sure she has, in the same way you talk to teenagers about not smoking / vaping, trying alcohol, running over the road, rolling their skirt up, wearing too much make up etc etc etc etc. Teenagers are teenagers, they make mistakes, they take risks and often think they know best.

I completely understand what you’re saying and I’m not judging the op at all, you would be amazed how many parents don’t have the conversation about sharing images with their children though because they think they’re too young to worry about it but the children getting tricked or blackmailed into sharing pictures are getting younger.

Perhaps a bit cruel of me to hope that that boys current suffering / humiliation is now much more than the suffering he intended on your son. He fucked around, now he’s finding out.

Definitely justified in this one going to the police, other kid sounds like a piece of work and some people are going on too much about your son being at fault as there’s a big difference between sending unsolicited nudes and I assume in this case being most likely repeatedly asked to send.

Very odd plan from the kid abusing your son - the South Park episode Cartman Sucks will explain why, and you mention ‘The police actually suggested we make something that he could throw back at anyone that comments or says something’ - a meme from this episode in reply to any commenters on phone/socials will quickly flip the humiliation on to the abuser.

@bikiniwaxlyrical of course he was coerced. He was being messaged by someone whose sole aim was to get him to send nude photos. It doesn’t matter that he thought it was a girl of his own age - because it wasn’t. It was someone who had a plan to get him to send nudes and succeeded in it.

@TeensAreCruelAndStupid I hope everything goes ok for him at school tomorrow.

@TeensAreCruelAndStupid ive been thinking about your son, I hope the last few days at school have been ok for him.