Help - dd is a FB bully

[01march2011]

Have name changed. Posted here cos it's busy...

What do I do. DD is just 13 and has been cyber bullying a girl who was her friend. School now involved and police too apparetnly. Going to see them tomorrow. Don't know what to expect.

DDs emails indicate she knows police and school involved but we knew nothing of this till a phone call from school this morning.

Am sat here in tears not knowing where the hell we went wrong, or what to expect from the meeting tomorrow, or why on earth she turned out like this. She's normally a model child, friendly, hard working, bright, mature....

Any words of wisdom?

There was a fantastic series on Radio Four in 2007

www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/bullyingcom/pip/5sqj8/

The last programme included an interview with a girl who explained very movingly why facebook bullying was so horrible to be on the receivin end of.

If you cant find a clip let me know, I have it on disc somewhere. I would let her listen to this BEFORE she decides what she should do next.

Please do not have her apologise on FB.

People need to start reclaiming some dignity when it comes to Facebook, and that involves not airing one's dirty laundry to the world. Two important life lessons learnt, hopefully.

It's time for her to step away from FB completely.

I am a secondary school teacher with responsibility for e-safety. Not having seen exactly what has gone on, it is difficult to comment on what the school and police will do. From what you have described I would guess the police may just have a stern word about the seriousness of her actions and how this could lead to her getting in serious trouble with the police in the future. If this happened at our school the student bullying would probably get a fixed term exclusion and we would work with both students to try and resolve the issue that has arisen.

I would visit [www.bullying.co.uk] for further advice - they are set up both to support victims of bullies as well as parents of or bullies themselves and I imagine they would be the best people to give you advice in this situation.

I would be wary of simply 'banning' internet and fb entirely - more often than not this leads to children doing things in a more secretive fashion. All the research suggests that far more children are on social networking sites than their parents think they are. We often have parents at school saying they 'don't allow' their children to use fb, although we know full well that their child is using it frequently. Perhaps instead ask for her password and agree to look through it with her every day/week or something similar?

I would also say that the students we consider to be some of the nicest at our school do end up becoming involved in this because they simply do not think of the consequences of their actions. Before internet, this might manifest itself in teasing of a pupil for whatever reason - lots of students doing the teasing think that person being teased thinks it is funny or isn't upset by it when of course they are terribly hurt by it all. This translates exactly the same onto social networking/instand messaging etc.... Again using some of the links and websites suggested so far you hopefully will be able to sit down and have a conversation where you can ensure your DD can put herself in the shoes of others and understand how hurtful these actions can be.

as the mother of a child who wanted to kill himself because some vile little shit bullied him I ended up having the child arrested.
There is nothing more soul destroying then seeing your child hurt over and over again, the school were bloody useless even after DS1 was held under water at a swimming lesson .

The police are investigating a crime, and I hope your Daughter is big enough to except she has done wrong, although I doubt it as most bullies are cowards.

My dd thinks that fb is a good way of talkin 2 friends but she has knows some people who had a fight over facebook and it escalated into a 'i hate you ' thing that carried on at school.

If your elderly parent was being mugged in the street and the police's response was 'Oh sorry we're too busy sorting out some silly teenage girls' bullying' you'd wonder on their priorities too

erm believe it or not they do rate scales of crimes being committed and investigate accordingly, otherwise no work would ever be done just in case something happened that was more important and they had to attend. Just because they have a complaint made, they dont rush round with sirens blaring regardless.

to be frank, if you dont take this seriously, nor will your kid.

My best friend at school was bullied mercilessly by a bunch of "clever, wholesome, nice in all respects" girls 1213yo. I know the effects it can have on people for the rest of their lives (we are both in our late 30s), those effects can be even more devastating than other crimes which are taken more seriously (gbh).

I am glad your are trying to help your daughter, but am I right to get an impression that you are more concerned with police involvement then with what she had actually done? Also, I do not agree with the posts suggesting that at 13 it is no longer your responsibility as your dd should know better. Your dd is the product of your upbringing including how you prepare her for the world outside, if she behaves the way she does under the influence of others it is also largely because you did teach her how to say "no".

Rather than seeking the ways to punish her, I would be trying to get to the bottom of why she thinks her behaviour is acceptable and if she does not so, why she does it, how to make her more resilient to the influences of the crowd. Removing FB privilege addresses nothing, although I do not like it.

Not being smug here at all but why havnt you been checking her face book account befor all this started . My ds had an early FB account on the proviso I knew passwords and could check anytime I wanted to which I do on a regular basis . On a lighter note I do so wish that if they were going to swear please could they do it in context and spell it correctly .

I have her password etc and check her account several times a week. A second account seems to have been set up. This was my proviso too. Warning to others - this isn't enough.

Great post, Mrs HerculeP.

bloody hell sneeky moo . So she wasnt just passing a bitchy comment she deliberatly set up another account to bully the other child , Wow that was sure thought out . That says to me that she meant everything in her will power to hurt someone and try and cover her tracks and not get caught . You must feel devistaed that the child you thought she was isnt so innocent . You poor thing I really feel for you . What a shock . I dont know what I would do now if I were you . I would be so emberassed in front of the other parents . I think the first thing would be a letter of apology to the the other poor child . . I hope you manage to get through this i one piece .

My friend has her 14 year olds notifications all sent to her inbox - a PITA but the only way to keep an eye on what is going one. Once or twice a week isn't enough IMO as things can be deleted.

Ban FB asap, also her mobile if she has internet access from it. I'd come down HARD on this behaviour so it never has the chance to happen again.

Not your fault - kids are shocking sometimes however you parent them. The fact you are upset by shows shows you are a good parent :)

I would listen to Mrs P, OP - she knows what she is talking about. There might be a similar person at DD's school you can talk to.

Seriously, you don't know that she 'deliberately set up another account to bully the other child'. My DSS has a second account and I don't know whether his mum knows about it now I come to think about it. It is probably common practice amongst teens who know their parent is monitoring the known account. Sneaky. We are way behind out kids when it comes to the internet.

I dread my DCs growing up in this freaky cyber-world we now occupy. I took DS to the library yesterday. Naively, I thought we were going to a building full of books. Was more like an internet cafe, with rows and rows of teens (and pre-teens) gorping slack-jawed at Facebook. I felt rather quaint picking up an actual book. What are they doing on there? Don't they see most of their FB "friends" all day at school anyway? I find it really sad...how we have become obsessed with communication, without really communicating properly at all.

I am praying FB has died a death by the time mine are at that stage.

Good luck OP.

"Sneaky. We are way behind out kids when it comes to the internet."
Exactly, that is why I strongly believe banning accounts or relying exclusively on checking them every now and then does not work. One has to have a proper relationship with the child and this is not something to be achieved overnight.

OP if I were you I would be seeking a good child psychologist (not for her, but for you) who can explain to you how to bring trust in your relationship with dd. Antibullying organizations will probably help you to find appropriate contacts.

Does she know about people like Phoebe Prince and Megan Meier? Because if not, she should.

I go with what everyone else said...no FB account, etc. If that doesn't do it you could try this

I was joking about that, before I get flamed :)

OP do you know what your DD actually wrote on FB to the girl?

My DSis was cyberbullied for a year at school (on school computers ). She was threatening with being knifed. The parents of the girl in question refused to believe that their precious darling could do something like this. Something like that isn't silly; my sister was actually afraid to walk home alone because she thought she might be followed and stabbed. This was at a nice middle-class grammar school in an exclusive suburb, not Tower Hamlets....

Do you know what she actually said? Because it might (forgive me) shake you out of your complacency a bit.

When I read what that girl had said to my sister, I wanted to kill her. Really.

Facebook isn't for kids anyway. It's easy to see why kids are bowing to peer pressure to join when there are so many parents who let them set up accounts. I hate it, it takes away family time and isolates children from their families.

When I read the OP, I didn't think she was being complace, complicit or in any way accepting of what her DD had done. I think she's in shock, hence the comment about the police - this kind of thing would never have been a police matter ten or twenty years ago. I think that excluding the genuine cases of bullying whereby real (not imagined) damage is being done, including the threat of physical violence, any of us parents might find ourselves in the OP's position at any time. Nobody is immune from this.

There are so many calls of 'bullying', possibly every single child in every single class could give an example of where they've been bullied. Whether or not it's taken further depends on the sensibilities of the child and the will of the parents.

There are too many smug people who would be in the OP's shoes but for the grace of circumstance. Can anybody here honestly put their hand on their heart and say that their child has never said anything upsetting or mean to any other child? That's all it can take.

Could you just talk to her and ask what she thinks should happen next?

My friend and I were the 'nice girls' in school, but got into the habit of teasing a classmate in 1 class for a few months (we were 13 or 14). We thought it was hilarious and were beyond shocked when we got called into head of years office and told that this girl was going home and crying every night and had finally told her parents it was because of us. We were mortfied, went and apologised and became friends with her after that.

Your DD may be shocked and scared that the police and school are taking it so seriously. She may be very willing to talk to you about it and if you can talk to her non-judgmentally about what she has done and the possible ramifications for the other child then perhaps she would be able to open up to you in the future.

Just a thought, but its easy to get carried away. Not excusing what she's done, but if you, school and police all come down on her so heavily then she'll have no-one to turn to except (sympathetic?) friends and perhaps she'll feel she's being punished/blamed so much that she may as well do something really bad - may as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb, type feeling?

Lying, I guess that's why I'm asking what was said on FB. Because ime for the police to be involved and so swiftly, it may well be that the OP'ss DD in fact DID threaten physical violence.

LyingWitchInTheWardrobe I understand your sentiment, but the "hey ho" comment from OP later in the thread indicated to me that she is not really thinking as seriously about it as I probably would.

Bullying is very different from saying mean things in the heat of the moment and I think we are all able to fall back onto our own experiences of child- or, indeed, adulthood to recognize it. It can happen to anyone and for that reason alone I am watching this thread carefully. I have helped raising 4 kids as my stepkids (all absolutely fantastic) and I am now pregnant with my own, so it is super important to me.

I have read through this thread and have seen many references to 'the school was crap'.

As a secondary school teacher can I just add that if the bullying is occuring on fb/msn there is not a lot that the school can do to stop it other than try to get the parties together to discuss issues etc. As a head of year I have had parents on the phone shouting at me about issues that I HAVE NO CONTROL of as it occurs outside of school.

In terms of punishments for bullying, it doesn't help when for example my LA have laid down a strict no exclusion policy and expect all schools within the LA not to exclude for any reason..........