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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

to feel horrified by young people and Facebook?

73 replies

whitewedding · 24/04/2011 11:28

I am a secondary school teacher and have just started maternity leave for the second time. My daughter was born in May 2009 and my next baby is due in June.

Some of the sixthformers have requester me as a friend on Facebook which I was happy to accept. But I have spent some time looking at profiles of children much lower down the school (who are friends with these older students) who mostly have open profiles where everything is visible with just one friend in common.

I feel absolutely ancient for being so shocked, but I am. Girls in particular, some of whom I always thought of as being well behaved, well mannered students have got some absolutely awful stuff on there. Things like "works at The Street Corner as Prostitute" or "Slut at Brothel." Accompanied by status updates including the word 'fuck' at as many opportunities as possible and photos of them smirking, preening, cleavage revealing.

I sound ridiculous but I've just had my daughter on my knee and held her and cried my eyes out. If it was her, I'd be horrified and more to the point, I feel stupid, I feel as though I've been tricked into liking these girls and thinking how nice they are when actually they are foul mouthed promiscuous little bullies. I can't bear the thought that my daughter and my next child would be growing up like this or that they will be friends with these sorts of children. I'm probably being hormonal but am I being unreasonable?

OP posts:

penguin73 · 24/04/2011 11:30

I think YABU for having pupils as your friends on FB tbh.

GypsyMoth · 24/04/2011 11:31

hope and pray fb has died out by then!!

my dd is 6th form,having teachers as friends isnt allowed is it? she has one on her fb......but i get the feeling he shouldnt befriend pupils on there

Goblinchild · 24/04/2011 11:32

YABU, it's the equivalent of fantasy writing in a diary. The dangerous bit is that it isn't under their mattress but on the www and available to anyone that looks.
They are unlikely to be promiscuous, and still need a sane, balanced and reasonable adult in their lives to have a relationship with. Don't give up on them.

Rosieeo · 24/04/2011 11:32

You need to de-friend them asap. Don't be friends with pupils, ever.

I totally agree with the rest of your post. It is awful; hard, grubby, nasty. I feel the same about my DC's future.

backwardpossom · 24/04/2011 11:32

Why on earth do you have current 6th form pupils as friends on FB? Asking for trouble.

worraliberty · 24/04/2011 11:32

I'm stunned your school allows you to have pupils on your list. Most schools I know have an E-Policy that prevents this.

LoopyLoopsNincompoop · 24/04/2011 11:32

I (as a secondary teacher too) seriously wouldn't accept friend requests from any students, even 6th formers.

Original poster

whitewedding · 24/04/2011 11:33

Penguin, hi, the pupils who added me as a friend were in my Year 13 class. Since I'll now be on maternity leave until March 2012 I won't get to see them now before they leave so they aren't 'my' students any more. I have checked with the Headteacher and this is all above board and okay.

I'm not 'friends' with the pupils lower down the school but can see their profiles due to their walls, photos, being open.

OP posts:

backwardpossom · 24/04/2011 11:33

Why would you even want to be friends with pupils?

Goblinchild · 24/04/2011 11:33

Oh, and as a teacher I think you are mad to have any student of yours, or in your school as a friend. No one under 18 unless a relative. That's my rule.

penguin73 · 24/04/2011 11:34

Some of my colleagues have ex-pupils as friends and that has proved to be a huge mistake as they still have friends/siblings in the school. I know in our school/LEA it is a huge no-no to have current pupils. I really can't understand the desire to anyway tbh! No matter how much I like them I think there has to be a degree of separation for professionalism's sake.

Greythorne · 24/04/2011 11:35

Yanbu
I feel the same way; my 14 yo niece asked me to be a FB friend and the conversations between her and her friends made me cringe / shocked me to the core.

I felt obliged to raise a few things with her direct (anti Semitic / racist comments, not by her, but by friends) and in one case I mentioned something to her mum (my sister). I thought it was horrible.

Yabu, though, in persisting in going FB :)

Just swear off FB. I did and feel much better (less conflicted for a start, about issues like this, not to mention more time to MN).

Spudulika · 24/04/2011 11:36

Agree that you're mad to have ANY student of yours on your FB.

My 11 year old is on f/b and I'm also saddened by the things I read on her page.

worraliberty · 24/04/2011 11:36

I feel as though I've been tricked into liking these girls and thinking how nice they are when actually they are foul mouthed promiscuous little bullies

This is why most adults don't go out clubbing with teens or hang around their bedrooms discussing their social life/sex life etc...

When you friend these people on FB, that is effectively what you are doing but just in a modern day way.

EricNorthmansMistress · 24/04/2011 11:36

They are still nice children! Just nice children who are part of a very weird youth culture. But all youth cultures are weird to older people. They may swear and make out like they are sexually experienced young women but i'm sure 95% is boasting and not true. They are the pornified generation sadly and think overtly sexual is the way to present yourself. They will grow out of it. Could you contact that organisation against online child exploitation to come and do some training or awareness raising with the school? Mostly they have no idea how vulnerable their online lives make them.

Original poster

whitewedding · 24/04/2011 11:40

I think people have misunderstood: I have three students in the current Year 13 class who I am 'friends' with on Facebook. Since they will leave this summer and I will not be going back until next spring I am not friends with any current pupils and I have checked that this is acceptable and all right and the answer was yes.

I take your point about the clubbing etc - but that usually comes at an older age. When I was 13/14 we weren't playing with dolls of course, but we weren't screeching about anal sex either. I don't know. It did just shock me so much :)

OP posts:

ihatecbeebies · 24/04/2011 11:41

YABU, I don't think it is appropriate to have pupils as friends on fb either, it has clearly already caused problems as you've been hunting through their friends profiles and have been brought to tears and you are now questioning their moral despite knowing them personally and not having a problem with them, de-friend the other pupils and just stick to having a professional relationship with them.

Icelollycraving · 24/04/2011 11:42

Yabu to be friends on facebook with students. Sounds unprofessional tbh. Delete them from your lists & have people who are in fact friends or colleagues instead.

fatfingers · 24/04/2011 11:43

YABU to call them foul mouthed promiscuous little bullies when in RL they have always been nice and well mannered. Writing the word fuck and talking about being a "slut in a brothel" doesn't mean they are actually having sex. Adults and teenagers alike talk online in a way that many would never do in RL. Unfortunately, teenagers don't consider who might be reading and what other people will think of them as a result of what they are writing.

Otoh, as someone who works in a secondary school, I know that FB and teenage girls are a disastrous combination. I regularly work with girls who are refusing to come to school because they are being bullied on FB, girls who have posted half naked pics of themselves and have now become the laughing stock of the school, etc, etc. There have been odd incidents of boys using FB to make threats to ex-gfs but these have been few and far between - it seems to be much more of a problem with teenage girls ime.

worraliberty · 24/04/2011 11:43

But YABU to want them on your list at all no matter what the Head says.

No pupils, no ex pupils and none of their parents...it's just common sense.

jojowest · 24/04/2011 11:44

its just showing off, like the people on here who swear quite offensively for absolutely no reason, extremely juvenile and just saying oooh look at me, im allowed to say naughty words!

like the kids you pass in the street, effin and blinding, its just them trying to be cool to their mates

penguin73 · 24/04/2011 11:45

But the point is WW that they will know things about you that they will share, they will have friends/relatives who are still in school and you are in a difficult position if there is any comeback over results etc if you have been teaching them. If you want to maintain contact to help with studies ec then let them e-mail you but why go any further?

purepurple · 24/04/2011 11:46

As a mother of a 14 year old I would rather that her teachers actually knew a little bit about teen culture and what teenagers are really like than were living in cloud cuckoo land where teenagers hold hands and skip off into the sunset.
Was it really that much of a shock?
Maybe it will help you to understand them a bit more.

Original poster

whitewedding · 24/04/2011 11:47

Thanks. I won't be deleting, there's certainly nothing on my profile that I need to be concerned about and as someone who has two ex teachers as friends on my own profile who I enjoy (and become jealous!) hearing from as they're now both retired I hope I can maintain that relationship. I do appreciate the advice though.

It's students lower down the school, as young as 12 or 13 who I am shocked at and it just makes me worry so much about what sort of world our children are being raised in. I know if Facebook had been around when I was at school and my mum had found me discussing things like that she wouldn't have been angry but she would have been beyond heartbroken - I couldn't have done that to her even if she wouldn't have known. Perhaps that's what shocks me about this. But I take your points that I shouldn't have looked really.

OP posts:

penguin73 · 24/04/2011 11:47

More importantly as a teacher with duty of care I'm not sure where you stand legally if you are aware of things that are illegal/putting someone at risk.

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