Can't sleep worrying about y6 WhatsApp drama!

[Quokkafeet]

My daughter turns 11 in August, off to secondary in September.

We've always been quite firmly against getting her a smartphone. She does have a Nokia phone for texting, keeping in touch with us and friends.

She has never really asked for a smartphone in earnest. Mentioned a couple of times in the last few months. She's generally a happy girl, nice friends. Loves school.

One of her friends (friend A) has older siblings and always had a lot of freedom with tech. Apple watch, iPhone, tablet from young age. I've explained different families do things differently and DD has accepted that. Recently another of her lovely friends (friend B) who she has been friends with since reception got a smartphone and it was like an overnight change in the way this girl interacted with my DD. Odd, snide comments, telling her other people were calling her annoying. Regularly telling her how late she was up video calling other members of the class and that they would have called DD but she didn't have a phone. Often friend B and A would text DD in the evening telling her they were on a video call together and it was "so funny" etc. I could tell DD was starting to feel left out but more than that, hurt by the fact they were quite obviously intending for her to feel that way.

Anyway she's come home the other night and cried, actually saying thank you for not letting me have a smartphone. Apparently there have been huge fall outs on a class WhatsApp group that I didn't even realise existed because DD obviously isn't in it. Multiple kids sent to head in their last couple of days of y6. Mainly because they were bitching about children that weren't on it and then a couple of kids screenshot the conversation and showed it to the children concerned. It wasn't DD that was targeted in this bit of meanness, but what has happened is one of the targeted children asked to join the group and changed her name on WhatsApp to my DD's name. She then joined the conversation, impersonating my DD, and told the group she has a crush on one of the boys.

DD is devastated and I've no idea where to take this. School has finished. I don't know the parents. Mainly DD is just completely freaked out that someone can pretend to be her and she has no idea it's even happening. I asked if it made her want to join the group so she felt in control of what was being said and she said no, she wants absolutely nothing to do with it and now doesn't ever want a smartphone at all.

Parents of y6/ 7 kids.... Is any of this normal? How the hell are you parenting your way through this? It's clear these kids in DD's class are in no way ready for WhatsApp and their behaviour has become unhinged as a result.

Also, I feel DD is being left out because she isn't on nightly 'calls' with her mates but I don't want her facetiming random groups of classmates late into the night and she doesn't really want to do that either but at the same time, she's out of it.

I'd particularly love to hear from any parents of kids who don't have WhatsApp/ smartphones and how their kids are navigating y7!

You can set up parent managed WhatsApp on your child’s phone, my DH did on our middle ones phone before he gave it to him, he can manage his entire phone through his own device. I’m not tech savvy at all but he set up both of our children’s that have them.

Can anyone tell me how to do this?! Me and DH have tried to set one up for DS without success. I then read that they don't exist in UK as WhatsApp are waiting to see what social media bans are brought in.

DD got a brick the summer after yr6, until she was 13 (so, about half-way through yr8). She survived without WhatsApp until then. And TBH I wish I'd held out for longer, because I didn't know about the WhatsApp status update thing, which is akin to social media, and does her head in. She has no other social media. We were lucky though that the group of friends she went up to secondary with had like-minded parents and all but one of them had a brick.

We gave in is because bricks only work if you're on the mobile network, and we and most people in our village (i.e. her friends) have crap mobile signal and rely on wifi. And emojis! Sounds trivial, but they're such a huge means of communication for them and you can't do emojis on bricks. And I like being able to video chat her directly if we're apart. So there have been lots of advantages, and not many disadvantages, to giving her a smart phone. But I'm glad we waited until she was 13 and there's not a way in hell she'd have social media, even if she did want it, at this age.

Have you tried doing it recently?
I’m not sure how he did it but it’s only been in the last few weeks the 11 year old has a phone.
Edited, just had a quick google and found this
faq.whatsapp.com/875902238256170/?cms_platform=iphone

It is just what kids do these days fuelled by useless parents of course, who themselves promote the bitchiness. Me and my child stayed out of it and are very happy doing our own thing

Minimum age for WhatsApp is 13. Every single one of those parents lied when setting up an account for their children. Shame on them.

Please can I ask what she is using for these chats if not on whatts app.

My daughter has just finished year 5 and has no interest in social media, but wants to be able to chat with her mates online during the school holidays. She doesn't have a phone yet but we are considering the best way to move forward on this, and whether it's better for her to start using one in the relative safety of her small village school where most parents know each other vs waiting until secondary

Yes, about 2 weeks ago. I found the info you attached & followed it but it wouldn't work. Will try again though, thanks.

This happened to my daughter in year 5 (someone impersonating her) and she still doesn’t have a phone in year 9. I think it shows that year 5/6/7 kids are just not developmentally aware enough to understand another person’s perspective/consequences when they do stuff like this and so they shouldn’t have smartphones at all. A Timed journo was famously prank called by her daughter’s year 6 friends to say her child was seriously ill causing enormous stress. I don’t think it happens in year 8/9/10 really.

Won’t she need a smart phone for things like online banking?

Sorry I can’t be of more help, im
literally the least tech savvy person I know, if the kids had to rely on me setting their phones they would still have nokia bricks with no internet 😂
They had their Nokias up until the last few weeks of primary school and then they get a refurbished iPhone to head to secondary. Neither of their secondary schools allow them phone access, they have to be locked into specific pouches so if it wasn’t for the fact of e-tickets for buses etc I would have happily stuck with the Nokias!

Yes it is normal that this would happen my daughter is going through drama in her group and what I said to her is to just ignore it even though it must be really hard if you ignore it and act like you don’t care that will piss them off and it might be hard but it does get better

Loads of our pastoral time at school is spent unlocking drama that isn’t even happening in school. Bullying, AI images of each other/staff and hacking SM accounts are all weekly issues. I hope this ban actually manages to achieve something.

Yes normal
Things were so bad when my ds was in y6 the school had the police come in to do An assembly on cyber bullying
We also had to get police involved when the little sociopath my ds had tolerated Verbal and physical violence from throughout y5 moved his behaviour on line culminating in death threats which were received when he was at a sports club and the leaders reported it as a safeguarding issue.
It's disgusting and reiterates that a lot of these children are not ready for phones

@Bushmillsbabe she has an old iPhone of mine and uses FaceTime.

Im not saying she’s perfect but we were quite strict to begin with, it’s just for calls, messages with people I know. I didn’t really want her to have one but I find the Findmy so useful after late sports matches. I check it daily, often randomly read her messages. It’s also never in her bedroom, always used for a short time period for a reason. Eg I won’t let her have it on a long journey, she can read a book or listen to music (which to be fair she does cos he phone now!) or audiobooks.

Can I massively overstep and miss the entire point of your OP for just a sec?
My birthday is August 30th. I was the youngest in every single year group and whilst I know every child matures at different rates, I was categorically not ready for high school. I cried every day, all day, mon-fri.
Turns out, my parents had been offered the chance for me to stay another year in year 6 but they had firmly refused because academically I was on target and even ahead in some subjects. My issues were with the social aspect and the big change even though I’m not Autistic; it was just the fact that I had only been 10 years old a matter of days before starting high school….
I don’t know if they still do offer this for younger kids in year 6 but the reason I’m mentioning this, is I’m getting the impression from your post that she is struggling in similar ways (minus the tech! This was 1995 for me!) to how I did.
Sorry if I’ve misunderstood. If my DD had been in the younger half of the year, I definitely would’ve kept her back a year if I could, as she struggles to keep socially at times.

As a primary teacher, I've seen and heard things you wouldn't believe from year 5 and 6s relating to WhatsApp groups - there is a new drama with every cohort ranging from inappropriate photos to bullying to harassing staff. We've had to intervene as a school and police have been involved more than once. I would now never even consider giving my own kids a smart phone until they are much older, a brick for calling us in emergencies will do them fine!

@QuokkafeetWith regards to what you’ve actually asked about, my DD is in Y6 and about to start Y7 after I had to remove her from her primary (for reasons I won’t go into) about 3 months ago. She doesn’t have a smartphone but does have an iPad and a regular basic Barbie phone that can call & text although she rarely touches it. What she does use, is JustTalk Kids on her iPad and I have to approve the adding of friends on there and any video calls. I can also view her chats and nothing can be deleted. Sadly her bestie ‘dumped’ her shortly before she left school so she doesn’t chat to her on there anymore but uses it to stay in touch with a neighbour friend who moved back to America.
I have absolutely no idea what to expect from Y7 with regards to tech etc. I doubt she’ll want to take her Barbie phone to high school with her but I’ll need to stay in touch with her somehow but she is categorically not having a smartphone! I signed North Yorkshire council’s pact for ‘No smartphone until Y9’ and I intend to stick to it (for as long as I’m able to, anyway).
I will NOT be allowing her to download the WhatsApp messenger for iPad. Thank you for the warning about that!

OP, I’m sorry this has happened to your DD. I have DD13 and DD12, both have brick phones, they have good friendships at school. You probably know about the Smartphone Free Childhood group, which is v supportive. I would add that they each have an iPad with suitable controls and they use this for messaging a few friends.

My youngest is 11 and has just got my old iPhone. He’s not allowed social media. Most of his class have access to Snapchat and something happened over 6 times with this and girls befriending a known groomer, bullying and kids having their snap maps on and being followed. Loads of awful stuff. I work in a school and the amount of training and talks I’ve had from police condemning these apps makes your hair curl as an adult. Beggars belief that parents allow their kids free rein on devices and don’t monitor their usage.

Sorry I do think you've missed the point!
DD is young for the year but if anything she's more mature than the rest of these kids. She was horrified by the impersonation, saying she couldn't understand why they thought it was ok. She would never behave towards other kids this way - surely that doesn't mean she's immature, just that she's sensible and decent.

I don't think another year of growth would make her any better able to cope with this behaviour, some of it would upset me as an adult!

She isn't autistic either (my son is, I have no concerns about her), and socially is fine. She's also working at greater depth. Basically, she'd be more than ready for school if other kids behaved properly!

Proves the point that children this age are not mature enough to be on social media.

Not sure if this helps, @Quokkafeet but my DD (just finished Y8, so obviously slightly older) has been allowed a smart phone and WhatsApp since Y7. It seems mainly benign at her school (I keep an eye on it) and she uses it primarily to check what she needs to remember each day. I know there are some splinter WA groups that are far less benign (one was apparently used to cheat in some end of term exams) but she’s not part of that. I do think it depends a lot on the school/cohort — and it might be that we’ve been really lucky.

My DD is just finishing yr10 now, and had a very similar experience to this in a WA group in yr6. It rumbled on for the final few months of school, and because some of it happened at school, the head intervened and at various points there were threats on the residential/leavers hoodies/leavers treats being cancelled.

DD does have a smart phone, but in a funny way that whole experience was a bit of a blessing, as it completely put her off it, and using group chats - she talks to her friends, but beyond that, immediately leaves any groups that people join her to, and has a very limited interest in SM.

https://www.smartphonefreechildhood.org/