To have gone to the school about this

[notmywords]

I've shopped my own son.

I periodically check his messages and there were some horrible ones in group chat, some from others. It was. It language I would expect him to know, let alone use.

I spoke to him at length about it. He says the worst of the messages weren't him, but a friend who was round to play.

He also said the the others were because I felt like he had to join in.

I am mortified. I took all of the messages to the school, told them the action we have taken and asked them to speak to the whole group about appropriate online behaviour. He has had his iPad confiscated.

I still feel terrible. On the one hand I feel awful that my son would do such a thing, and what that says about me as a parent.

On the other I worry that I've voluntarily raised issues about him which might stay on his record.

Can you hold my hand please?

Was there bullying involved? Your posts are a bit vague 'trash talk' 'bad language'. Was this a school group?

Schools will get involved and discipline for this sort of thing, and some pupils were suspended in one incident (though it was rather serious, obviously I'm not able to give details). It all rather depends.

I went into school as my DS told me about a game they were playing at school that was very inapproriate.. I did deal with My DS part of it, to be honest it was children just getting something very wrong rather than mallicious..

The head had them all in the office and spoke to them to help them understand. I was thanked by the head simply without the info I had given the game would of continued. They didn't understand why it was so wrong. It has never been played since to my knowledge.

So yes sometimes things are far better dealt with in school. I did feel the same as you OP..Am I just getting my DS in trouble however some things are bigger than just you dealing with it.

Social Services may also come knocking ..... to complete the lesson for today..

Don't be ridiculous . It's scaremongering like this that leads parents to keep quiet about issues they may have with their children. It's perfectly normal for kids to push the boundaries, and it's ok to inform the school so they can be collectively reminded to respect other people and learn the consequences of their actions. It takes a village and all that...

Yanbu. It's good to teach your son about being responsible for his actions and behaviours. You may find the other boy's parents might not be as responsible as you.

bonny really good parenting is often done by working with school and vice versa so that these problems can be sorted out effectively. Working with a school doesn't mean you are a weak parent.

It is possible, Edmund. I have heard of this happening (ex teacher) though it depends very much on the circumstances. I still think the OP has been vague, so much that I couldn't comment on what action the school might take.

It's a class message group with lots of members so I do consider it a school issue.

I had also spoken to a couple of the parents about it but don't know all the parents involved.

windypolar, I'm will never be one to sing Ss or teachers praises (sorry), but I doubt Ss will care to follow up 11 year olds teasing each other. Unless something said was highly inappropriate of course. Even a teacher couldn't be too trigger happy to ring SS over school yard bullying, surely.

Well done you! I don't think this is the kind of thing that can be solved individually: the group dynamic is at fault, and one child not participating can lead to horrible bullying scenarios. The school needs to have a word.

It's highly unlikely that social services will "come knocking"

Great parenting, well done you.

Well done, it can't be easy. You did the right thing. These issues often too easily come in to school and I've had children upset in class because of issues going on through messaging and social media etc - we need to know if theres anything happening at home that may affect the children at school. We want to know to worl with parents and the children to help! You absolutely did the right thing.

notmywords re the trash talk, it might be worth highlighting the difference between acceptable spoken language and acceptable written language.

As daily demonstrated on here written language can often be misinterpreted because tone and facial expression is missing and as a result be much more hurtful.

My rule for my DC, is never write down anything in electronic form that you wouldn't be happy to have on a billboard in the town square.

Email, Facebook, WhatsApp etc are in no way private.

Well, when you say 'trash talk', do you just mean they were swearing? Can you give an example?

Scarlett that's exactly the conversation we had.

And also there is no way of knowing what anyone is feeling at a particular point in time and whether they are feeling vulnerable, so always stick to nice messages.

Can anyone give a vague example of "trash talk" ?

You did the right thing, because this involved several children within the school from what I can gather schools WILL deal with it. It is not about passing responsibility on to the school for discipline it is about making them aware of something which is most likely to spill over into the school yard too.

It also means that the school are able to make the parents of ALL those involved aware in a way that the op cannot really do.

I think you did the right ting. It may well be that your DS felt he was just talking as "everyone does" and there was no harm in it. It's for the adults around him to show him that actually that isn't the case.

There was a 'go f**k yourself' which came after a lot of 'get a life' back and forth between them.

He did include the asterix but even so! He's my baby

Ok, I understand being shocked at swearing - but from the context, did you take that as quite serious or more the way I sometimes tell my DP to eff off out if it - etc?

Oh I see. Quite normal, I'm afraid.

You did the right thing, we'll done. for you.

There were a couple of others which I think were mean, but he didn't really understand why they were.

My main reason for bringing it up was that he said that this was the way he was 'expected' to speak with his friends.

He would have been punished
I would have taken the phone from him for 3 months

I would not have gone to the school. My child doing something outside of school one something I bought him. My responsibility.