Aibu to have grassed ds up to school

[Catvsworld]

So ds is in year 11 and should have nose to the grind stone so to speak

And the last couple of weeks I have noticed on a Monday and Tuesday's he has been on Facebook

I would have thought the school had it blocked I keep his phone during the week so thought he may have been on his friends phone so when he came home asked him how come he was on FB during school hours he said he used the it computer

I had told him tbh he was supposed to be doing is bloody work not networking ffs he claimed he had finished his work so I said well you should be revising told him I would be contacting the school he just shrugged his shoulders so I bloody did



I did say that I do expect the school to have a better handle on this but do expect my son to get on with his work and not be jeffing about on Facebook I have told them to make sure they punish him in line with the school rules on this he's gonna hate me but I want him to do his work and get good results and FB will not help him achieve this

[coldcanary]

Janus oh I do the same - not with his phone or FB as he doesn't really do social media (just gaming) it's just that there's a real discrepancy on here about 16 year olds. Sometimes they are children and must abide by the rules or be protected and sometimes they are practically adults who can't be disciplined at all. It's odd.
DS is happy to give us access to his phone whenever he remembers to charge it, turn it on or pick up his messages , a couple of years ago he was subjected to pretty awful online bullying and rumours that led to a bad time for him in school so he is very wary of anything to do with SM. That's probably why I'm a bit more on top of it and admittedly protective when it comes to things like this.

[coldcanary]

Janus oh I do the same - not with his phone or FB as he doesn't really do social media (just gaming) it's just that there's a real discrepancy on here about 16 year olds. Sometimes they are children and must abide by the rules or be protected and sometimes they are practically adults who can't be disciplined at all. It's odd.
DS is happy to give us access to his phone whenever he remembers to charge it, turn it on or pick up his messages , a couple of years ago he was subjected to pretty awful online bullying and rumours that led to a bad time for him in school so he is very wary of anything to do with SM. That's probably why I'm a bit more on top of it and admittedly protective when it comes to things like this.

[missymayhemsmum]

YANBU, GCSE student sons need their arses kicking (supportively) on a regular basis, imhe, and noticing he is on facebook in classtime and calling him on it is appropriate. Asking the school why kids can be tempted onto facebook in school when they are supposed to be revising is also appropriate.
Asking the school to punish him is OTT though.

[ApocalypseSlough]

I Facebook message my dcs at school.

[Tartsamazeballs]

OP I can't help but notice you posted this at 9.45 am. Surely at that time you should either be at a job or doing housework, and not messing about on social media? Do I need to confiscate your device? 😎

[YouTheCat]

Blimey! I can just imagine me trying to take my dd's phone off her at that age and the hollow laughter as I told her she couldn't go on Tumblr or Facebook.

[pointythings]

I think there's a balance to be struck between being lax and being a helicopter parent. OP needs to ensure her rotors are in good working order.

[BoneyBackJefferson]

Newtobecomingamum
The school should have adequate systems in place so this didn't happen and I'm sure he probably wasn't the only one.

Do you have any idea of how many ways there are to get around internet security?

[Janus]

coldcanary, I certainly do discipline my (nearly) 16 year old WHEN APPROPRIATE. Going on FB for 15 minutes during a school day is not really what I would choose to take up with my child or school. I think most people are saying that a 16 year old can have a little bit of 'down time' during the school day (assuming though that they are not in the middle of a Maths practice paper or something). At most I might bring it up and check what they should have been doing at the time but I wouldn't rant or go to the school. And what 16 year old doesn't/shouldn't have their phone during the week when they may just need to contact home to discuss something? Believe me, I can certainly tell mine off when she needs it !!

[mrgrouper]

My mum wanted me to study hard. She would not allow friends or boyfriends and did not even tell me my granddad was dying as it was in May and the upset had the potential to damage my exam results.
I got 10 As at GCSE and 5 As at A level......
and I fucking hated her and the day she dropped dead was not a sad day for me.

[VenusRising]

Well I think it's good the school know what kind of relationship you and he have.
You do sound quite batshitcrazy unkind and vengeful.

They'll be able to offer pastoral care to him.

Seriously, op you need to get a large grip.

(Are you Madonna?)

[charlestonchaplin]

Oh, and being very studious and socially awkward I should have been a prime candidate for bullying. But I wasn't, because we didn't have that bullying culture, whereas when I attended a British primary school I was picked on by secondary students from the local state school on my way home. I guess they didn't like the look of me because I didn't know them and they didn't know me.

[charlestonchaplin]

My school wasn't a state school. People paid handsomely for the privilege of attending. If its ethos didn't suit there were many others available. But it was a popular school and only took 75 students in the first year, every year. Some students did the first year twice, once in another school in order to attend. They and their parents thought it was worth it.

Whilst I feel the short hair thing was in part designed to suppress our femininity and make a mixed-sex boarding school easier to manage, our school was a good school. I saw it then, and when I arrived in the U.K. I really realised how good. It was ahead of its time in some ways. There is currently a clamour for financial education in schools. We had a school bank, with accounts done by student bankers on Saturday mornings when the rest of us did our chores. Each student had a cheque book which we used to pay for stuff.

And there were no sexual shenanigans. Relationships, yes. Shenanigans, no, and definitely no teenage pregnancies. The way the school was ordered didn't allow for anything other than the quickest fumble, and there was also probably peer group pressure in the opposite direction. You may think that made us production line clones. I think it made for a very successful school though we had a lot of grumbles at the time.

[TurtleNeckJumper]

YABU

[LogicalThinking]

We weren't even allowed to have long hair as juniors as it was considered that its care would be too time consuming and distracting
Nothing like the removal of any sense of autonomy and individuality to increase compliance. It must have been a very effective production line.

[bloodyteenagers]

Mylocal
Mine were the same. Facebook and YouTube and whatever else was around. But mainly Facebook. They came away with fantastic grades. We also had the marathon movie nights or games
Night on a Friday that went well beyond the 2 hour screen time.

[charlestonchaplin]

My boarding school was in the middle of nowhere, well not exactly, there was a town, but there was no point going there for entertainment. In any case you'd have to make your way through the bush where snakes and scorpions and what-have-you lived.

I chose the school. It was a new school, as close to a British school as I could get, or so I thought. My mother wanted me to be a day student at a school in my home city. My dad just wanted me to be happy. I wanted a good education and I thought it would be like Mallory Towers, with the British head. It wasn't really how I imagined it would be, but we did realise that we were getting a good education. In the developing world it is much more difficult to have a decent standard of living without good qualifications, and we were well aware of that.

[albertcampionscat]

The Harry Potter novels got me through finals. I did alright. Seriously, let go. YABU.

[coldcanary]

I'm at all the horror about an adult daring to discipline a 16 year old - do all of you stop parenting when your children get taller than you then?
OP telling the school to punish him was a bit ott but I can understand keeping hold of his phone. He's 16 and not an adult. On any other type of post he would be acknowledged as still a child ffs

[MummyBtothree]

My Mum was all for tough love...you can be too tough though sometimes and it becomes controlling.

[MrsSteptoe]

MyLocal I find that very comforting! (Though not necessarily any guarantee that DS would get the same outcome...!)

[Oliversmumsarmy]

Charleston, I too went to boarding school. Parents thought among other reasons I I would be studying harder and longer if I was at school 24/7.
Bed was by 7.30pm even at 16. Result meant I was out of the window and down the fire escape and out on the town with my non boarding school friend (dps put me to board 2 miles from where I lived). and her bf who had a car. My parents had decided my future. I had other ideas. In the end I passed no O Levels.

[MyLocal]

Oh dear, mine were on FB, Twitter, Instagram and Tumbler whilst doing GCSEs, ALevels and Uni Finals. They got their grades. A little light relief is good for anyone, if only to share that they are fed up of revising!