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?

I disagree that pressing 'like' to a nasty comment is not bullying - it says very clearly to the object of the comment that the person 'liking' it agrees with the sentiments therein. In essence it is like one person saying something horrible to another person, and the group round them saying 'yeah' and 'I agree'.

That is going to make the person who's the object of the remark feel excluded and picked on and - yes - bullied. Excluding someone from the group can be a form of bullying - I know, it happened to me.

StayingDavidTennantsGirl... It happened to me also. I would imagine, if you do a straw poll on MN or with whatever group of people you are with, they can ALL give you some incidences from their school days of nasty behaviour towards them. Should we just call every comment 'bullying' and save argument? The word itself would completely lose credibility.

I don't know how you tackled your incident at school but I remember asking another group of girls if I could hang out with them instead and I was accepted into their group. They were a different type of girl, lots of interests and no desire to put others down. I was lucky, I know, but that was not the only incident. School days can be difficult as children discover new prejudices but don't understand that they need to apply the 'brakes' and think about their comments and impacts. They hopefully learn that when they're adults, but again, not always.

LyingWitch - my incident lasted the full 5 years I was at that school. I tried to tell my mum about it, but she dismissed me, and I never dared raise it again, so she thought it had stopped. I was suicidal by age 14, and am still suffering from depression as a result. I didn't tell the school because I was afraid of reprisals and didn't dare face that possibility without my parents' support, which I felt I didn't have - plus, if my mum didn't care enough to do anything about it, why would the teachers care about me any more - that was at the back of my mind, I think.

I had almost no friends at all - I honestly feel pretty much every kid in my year was part of the group excluding me - because I was different - an incomer to the area, wrong accent, liked reading, worked hard at school, didn't swear.

Maybe some were afraid of being targetted by the bullies too - I don't know.
No, I don't think every single nasty comment is bullying - but a group of people ganging up on one person looks very much like bullying to me - and that, to my way of thinking, is what happens when a group of people endorse one nasty person's nasty comment.

WantToReadTheWholeThreadBeforeAddingTiggaxx

I know a parent from school who's teenage daughter tried to hang herself because of bullying by other girls at her school.

I think if the police have been called in there is more to it than the op is telling. The bullying must have been sustained and nasty.

OP - these are the links I share with parents at my school in order to support them as parents in teaching their children how to stay safe and behave responsibily and appropriately online. I hope some of them are of some use to you. Many have places where you could also go for some further advice from trained professionals should you need it. I would still advise you to be wary about banning internet/social networking/fb use in the long run - it is practically impossible to do and therefore you are closing channels of communication. As a shorter fixed term ban though that is slightly different.

ThinkUKnow

Kidsmart

ChildNet

GetNetWise

Internet Safety Zone

NSPCC

DirectGov - Click Clever, Click Safe

Bullying.co.uk

this sounds like a silly argument between friends but in some ways I think those pressing 'like' (of course this can be a form of bullying) are just as at fault, if not more so than the OP's daughter (where it was just between the 2 of them)- taking that how she described the incident is accurate.

At least it will make everyone think twice about casual, throw away remarks on things like FB.

Don't agree there has to be more to it for the police to be called in - they have to respond to any complaint from the public.

Witch"It's the unbearable smugness of some of the posters on this thread, berating the OP, that I couldn't understand. Children can be horrible, spiteful and unthinking, with a tendency to 'gang up' an find 'easy targets'. Much of the time their comments are just ignored. As soon as somebody shouts 'bullying', those comments previously ignored will be given a different label... and it can happen to any parent at any time that their child will have the 'bully' label attached."

To a large extend I do agree with you (involvement of the 'victims' parents in the control of their dd internet activities is) but absolutely not the above sentiment.

Children are products of our upbringing and based largely (especially in their early years) on the moral compass that their parents install in them. Later, they come under increasing influences of their peers and the original compass settings can or will be altered. It is the parents' responsibility to guide the youngster throughout and help them to stand up to the wrong influences even if they are the influences of the majority.

OP and you mention the 'popolarity' of the OP dd. I do not know OP, her dd or her victim so nothing personally intended. However, in place of OP I would be questioning the basis of her dd popularity. We all know school popularity is not an indication of moral integrity or right values and should not be relied upon as such.

As I earlier said, this situation is not as simple as removing FB account or patting oneself on the back (or it is just a spat between the 'popular' girl and some jealous sod). This is not just a short sharp shock for the girl in question, but also for her parents and whether they have a daughter that is a model child they always assumed her to be. It is not late now to correct if she lost her way. BTW I am also not excluding that the other side is in the wrong, but we are not talking to the victims parents here, are we?

If you belittle the situation, you will loose in the long run, do you really want this? I would say that there is no smoke without fire, forget the other party and lets work out what IF anything we have done wrong and take it from there. That will make the OP dd stronger in the long run.

Bemybebe.. I don't know the OP, she mentioned her DD's popularity in a later post. Who knows what makes somebody popular or not? It's neither here nor there in terms of worthiness, but it seems to make a difference in the way (mostly) girls treat each other.

I've already said (earlier in the thread), what I would do if I got wind of my daughter treating others in a spiteful way. In my experience, some - not all - but certainly some mothers feel very proud to hear that their daughters are either in or leading the 'in crowd'. It flatters their own egos and blinds them to the realisation that being a bitch is nothing to feel special about. The same applies to some dads at having a 'real man' for a son, but perhaps not so much and I'd say that boys are just not as bitchy or spiteful as girls can be.

I would be very sad were my daughter to be either bullied or a bully herself. I hope that unlike StayingDavidTennantsGirl's mum, I'd immediately find out what happened and take action as necessary with the involvement of the other parents, but wouldn't call the police, I really don't think it's appropriate, not for this.

If I were the parent of the 'victim', having found out that she participated, I would remove her FB priviledges also. In fact, at her age she wouldn't have them. If more parents would stop their children accessing FB, any cases of actual bullying would be more visible, out in the open, and more easily dealt with by the school and/or parent(s). It would be hard though... it's going against the tide and who wants to do that in this day and age?

I'm at a loss to think what the school is supposed to do either to stem this kind of behaviour. The school has very few powers to punish and none to exclude. A poster earlier in the thread commented on the difficulties. Therefore, it has to be up to the parents to be vigilant and punitive where necessary.

What generally astounds me is that, given the number of us who experienced bullying when we were at school, it hasn't been stamped out. I guess it's the same for our own parents who were either from the 'old school', believing the 'sticks and stones' principle, or who were blissfully unaware. I feel desperately sorry for the children who were bullied and have faced much of their adult years with depression and and inability to move on from those awful times. :(

We really can't speculate on whether there was more to this incident because we only have what the OP has posted. It's an interesting topic though and so appropriate just now.

You've already got the wrong attitude. Instead of worrying about whether the Police "have enough criminals to catch", perhaps work on ensuring that your daughter stops bullying. That way, the Police WILL have more time to catch more serious criminals. I highly doubt whether they necessarily enjoy wasting time on nasty little girls, but it's got to be done because sometimes bullying ends in tragedy. I'm sure if it were your daughter being bullied, you'd be all for the Police getting involved!

One good that can come out of this is that if all of us with teenage or soon to be teenage children talk about this with them.

I talked about this problem with DH last night and with DCs this morning. The thing we most often talk about is that commenting on facebook is the same as printing a leaflet and distributing it to your friends plus sticking some more up on lamp posts in your town. It is publishing, it isnt private. A nasty comment in the playground is ultimately lost in the ether. A nasty comment on facebook has permanence.

Web communication is a whole new world and our children need to learn to live in it with other people. Some of whom they like and some they dont.

LyingWitchInTheWardrobe agree with your last post, however I was trying to make clear my view on 'popularity' does not constitute 'integrity' and if the child was involved in something that involved another child feeling hurt the least that should happen is some serious soul searching. Maybe it will lead to nothing, maybe another child was in the wrong, we do not know, but the situation warranted some serious actions and should not be dismissed as "oh, well, onwards and upwards".

Removing FB achieves nothing, they can access FB from the local library or Apple Store or from their friends computer. By all means, ban it at home but explain why it is done and when the ban will be lifted. However if the underlying issue of thoughtlessness, peer pressure, etc mixed with anger at the parents and mistrust for 'unfairly' banning FB, this is a dead end solution.

Gosh, I wish it was easier!

Maybe that's the key, bemybebe... teaching children about integrity and what it means, really drumming the message in? How it's alright to stand away from a crowd and not be a follower if a child believes that something is wrong. That would be an excellent thing - it should be on the curriculum - all the points you've raised - thoughtlessness, peer pressure and so on.

It is difficult though, it's all about nuance and what's banter one week is not banter the following week. So many politics, and that's just in school.

Lyingwitch - I was interested in your point about why bullying hasnt been stamped out over time as many parents also experienced it to a greater or lesser extent. I read an article last week theorising that the behaviour of many teenage girls of this age (ranging from mild falling out with friends to serious bullying) is actually an in built developmental stage. I think there must be some truth to this hence why its so endemic and happens generation after generation.

Thank you, witch.

This is a bit off topic now, but if you are really paranoid and want to catch out any fake accounts maybe think about installing a keylogger on your own computer - that way you will be able to capture all pages visited, screenshots of them and any text (eg usernames and passwords) that have been input.

If you have a compyter savvy friend they will probably be able to recommend one and help install it...

Kerala... You could be right there. When I read your post it brought to mind something that the trainers used to say about group dynamics... I think it's 'Forming, Storming, Norming and Performing', perhaps you know of it? Anyway it's about how a group shuffles about to form a structure before it settles down and is recognisable as a group.

I was talking to my Mum yesterday about some of the teachers I had at high school (1980-85). There was one deputy headteacher who used to stamp about and cane pupils if they so much as looked at him. He was most definitely a bully and whilst he struck fear into everybody, he didn't have anybody's respect. I also recall our swimming teacher who used to push people into the pool if she thought they wouldn't go in themselves. She was terrifying.

I know this has drifted off the topic a bit but my point is that the pendulum has swung too far - from fear of the teachers to almost complete disdain nowadays. Teachers did used to break up groups of girls sometimes, it seemed for no reason, but I suspect it was a question of too much power in one particular group. Some groups did feel that they 'ruled the school' and you were very brave or daft to stand against them. Perhaps the same types of groups exist now... only there are no teachers able to break them up for fear of being disciplined themselves by intervening interfering parents.

I personally think that the best thing that could happen is that powers of discipline are restored to teachers - and parents back up the teachers and take an active interest in what's happening at school. Teachers could probably tell parents quite a few interesting facts about the children they teach, if the balanced parent/teacher relationship was there and the kids knew that there was a united front and expected form of behaviour.... I do live in cloud cuckoo land, but it would be nice.

Before I change back to my usual nn, I thought I'd just wrap this up.

Everone is in agreement that police involvement was an over-reaction (tbf the other parents thought it might have been some wierdo making those comments). School have asked that a PCSO comes in and talks to the year group about such issues though.

As I said before dd is not allowed to use the pc except for homework, and is grounded, for a month. After that she will have access but only for an hour a day when I am sat next to her. She understands she needs to earn our trust back. I do not want to go down the blanket ban route as this only serves to encourage secrecy. She has apologised in person and in writing the other girl and we have sent a written apology to the parents via school.

Having denied it to her friends she will have a lot to do to earn the trust of her friends back too - I suspect this will be particularly hard for the next couple of weeks.

I am fairly confident she has learned her lesson.

Thank you to everyone who posted - I have read the whole thread and it has been extremely useful, particular thanks to lyingwitch for her (or his!) incisive and thoughtful comments.

Teenage girls are a minefield, and trying to steer a route between integrity and the avoidance of social isolation is particularly difficult - for adults so even more so for teens. There is a certain amount of 'storming' going on at the moment (new school), so hopefully they'll be 'norming' next year. Interesting point kerala makes about this being a developmental stage...

Anyway, I have learned not to be so smug (!), dd has learnt her lesson, and hopefully others will be helped too.

The world our teens inhabit today is so very different from the one we lived in, with social media and it's permanence, and it's just so easy for a spiteful little remark (obviously dd's were much more serious than this) to get blown up out of all proportion. I won't contribute anymore to this thread, but obviously others are free to do so if they want to discuss these sorts of issues - there's an interesting debate to be had.

Glad you seem to be sorting things out. Good luck.