To have a go at ex for calling 11 yr old a bully?

[JonSnowsWhore]

For what it's worth I thought this was quite the pathetic disagreement but he made it sound as if I was being out of order so thought I'd ask opinions.

The other day my 4 year old got my 11 yr olds make up bag when she wasn't in the room & helped himself to a bit of mascara & lipstick. When she found him he panicked & started crying probably thinking he was going to get told off- he didn't, we all had a laugh & said he looked like the joker from batman, she took a quick pic of him before we put him in the bath to wash it off.

Last night my ex phoned up in a panic (spoke to 11 yr old first, then me) saying he'd just seen something 'really fucking terrible that he thinks I should know about, daughter had put that pic up of 4 yr old with make up on crying as her whatsapp profile picture. Before he spoke to me he'd told her off & told her it was bullying & a horrible thing to do etc & to take it down. Now she loves her 2 little brothers & often uses pics of them together on whatsapp, & I genuinely believe she just thought of it as a funny pic of her brother, not bullying at all. If I'd seen it I probably would have just tutted & said oh that's a horrible pic of your brother crying, change it to a nice one, not gone on a rant at her calling her a bully etc. To top it off it was her first day at secondary school yesterday & after him telling her off he didn't even ask her how it went!! She was in her room crying afterwards for the way he spoke to her.

I did send a text saying that I thought it was all a massive over reaction on his part & a simple message to her asking to change the pic would have done, and the he was out of order not even asking how her first day at secondary school went. Was IBU or was he? As I said, such a stupid disagreement but just got my back up a bit, calling up in in such a huff & calling her a bully like that

Taking pic of crying brother to take the mick out of him: normal kid behaviour, to be brought into check.
Uploading said pic as profile pic: as another poster said, i find that weird. Its just on a fundamental level, it seems odd and misspirited. I wouldnt have called her a bully, but neither would i have laughed it off.

Not necessarily anger issues, I can't think of the way to describe him. I didn't want to say takes things too seriously because he's great at being silly & having a laugh with them most of the time but that's the only way I can think to describe it. Like if if they're messing around & one accidentally gets hurt or it's time to stop etc, where I'll just say right that's enough now, time to tidy up, or, see one of you have been hurt, time to stop being silly now, he'll turn all authoritative and 'do you think that's acceptable behaviour!' And she'll get a whole lecture about something that doesn't need it. Does that make sense?
Sorry that's an awful way of explaining it, basically he just drones on & on and gets worked up over stuff that doesn't require it

Splendid nowhere did I say I laughed it off, I think in my first post I said had I seen it first I would have asked her to take it down and said it wasn't nice.
Granny sign of the times I'm afraid. She was one of the last of her friends to even own any, and she acquired some awful colours that she started to put on & looked way over the top, so instead I got a few understated bits that look much nicer. If she's goi to wear it I'd rather it looked toned down & suited her, but I'll be prepared to take the flaming for that one, I was the same at her age

Your ex was panicking because his son was on social media in makeup.

I bet THAT'S what bothered him most. Sounds an idiot to me.

I'd had a falling out with a friend & we weren't speaking, nothing more than that, but she went to the head teacher who publicly called me out as a bully

The word "bully" has lost its meaning. Bullying is relentless intimidation of one child by one or group of kids over an extended period of time. A fight among (more or less) social equals is not "bullying". Now it's whoever is the first to cry "bully" gets to be the "victim" and all the sympathy when in fact she has just victimized the other kid by calling her a "bully".

Putting a picture of a four year old crying because he thinks he's going to get into trouble As a profile picture is horrible behaviour and I would hit the roof. I might not shout per se but I would want to know in no uncertain terms what she thought she would gain for doing that. Let's face it, the people looking at the picture don't know the detail, all they see is a profile picture which looks like an upset child.

Oh, and whatsapp isn't only visible to family and friends, once you become part of a group anyone else can be added to that group by any of the members regardless of whether you know them or not. At eleven she shouldn't be in random whatsapp groups.

Op, I teach and social media is one of the biggest banes of my life.

Some of the responses on here - it sounds hilarious, it's just a photo, she did nothing wrong and so on - might be what you want to hear but I promise you that you are doing your dd a disservice, and storing up trouble for yourself later on, if that is the approach you demonstrate to your dd.

There really is something a bit mean about taking the photo and then making it as public as possible by making it her pp; one day that unkindness, thoughtlessness, naïveté, whatever you want to call it may be directed at the wrong person and unleash all sorts of unpleasant consequences.

I'm sure she's lovely so let her learn this important lesson now, where there is no real harm done. Personally I would've told her I agreed with her dad then text him to say you'd reinforced the message but could he please call back to soften the blow and ask about her first day. He would also do well to remember that he will be able to do a better job of policing her social media if he doesn't provoke her into furiously blocking him on every platform.

Hold on where do I say she's in random whatsapp groups??

Rainy once again, I never said she did nothing wrong, as I've pointed out several times, I WOULD HAVE ASKED HER TO CHANGE THE PICTURE HAD I SEEN IT FIRST. But I wasn't going to lie to her & say I agreed with him, because I did not. I did not agree with him that she was a bully, & I wasn't prepared to let her think that I thought she was. When she's old enough to have proper social media like Facebook etc I definitely will be having conversations with her about how to behave on there.

Most people have agreed that she needed talking to about the photo but he came on too strong about it, which is what I thought. I don't think I'll ever agree with hitting the roof & calling her a bully about it though

I think it was a really mean thing to do and as an 11 year old, she probably knew at the time. Yes, it was bullying.

How did I know that he would be called a twat, tosser etc before even reading the post?

If one photo of her little brother is classed as bullying the. As misshelena says, the word bully has definitely lost its meaning!

She didn't think. She thought it was a cute/funny pic of her little brother. She missed the mark though & it wasn't a particularly nice pic to have online. That does not make her a bully

If she's in whatsapp groups with friends then she's in a random whatsapp group because she has no control over who adds who to the group. And then your picture, mobile number, everything becomes public property.

And let's be honest, if that picture was of another crying eleven year old whose parents had taken exception then she could well have been in a lot more trouble than being called a bully.

It's not cute just because it's a sibling. If it would be unacceptable to use any other picture then it's unacceptable to do it with her brother.

And you need to be having the safety talk before she gets facebook, instagram etc because chances are she may well end up signing up to these things without your knowledge before the time you think it's appropriate.

But she didn't do it to another 11 year old did she, it was her brother, and as I said, I knew the picture existed. And once again, the part is being missed where I've said it wasn't acceptable. I give up

Wow bullying? ?? Really? It's a funny photo of her brother.

Way over the top reaction and comments on here.
"Remove the photo love" would do.

Not asking her about secondary was wrong. It'll give her the idea that he'll only show interest in her life if she behaves to his standards.

But she's at an age now where she does need to start thinking about her actions online. Before she posts a photo of anyone else, she needs to consider how they'd feel about it being shared.

11 year old in mascara sounds grim.

That's a very fair assessment of it tie I agree, I didn't go into it very deeply last night, as I said she was sobbing about the way he'd spoken to her (the way he always talks to her apparently) so it wasn't the time for a lecture. But I'll definitely go into it a bit more.

It's a weird one, when letting her have whatsapp, amongst don't talk to strangers & all that, I guess I didn't think to add 'and don't post pictures of your brother crying'

Oh beep, it's you again....

This part of your post stood out to me OP:

Before he spoke to me he'd told her off

Is it possible that you think he has overstepped his authority and that he shouldn't discipline her without first okaying it with you?

No I don't think that he's not allowed to discipline her, I just meant that he spoke to her on the phone, and then she came in the room & handed the phone to me where he said he'd just seen something 'really fucking bad' in a panicked voice. So I had no idea what had gone on. Just laying it out in the order it happened that's all

I think what I mean is, she brought the phone in to me, he said all that, told me he'd called her a bully, said he had to go, then she's sitting in her room sobbing, and I'm here thinking what the fuck has just happened?? Slar

OP, so it wouldn't be ok if it was someone else's eleven year old but because it's her brother it's ok? How does that work then? Would you be happy for her friends to have copied that picture and now be distributing it via instagram/snapchat/twitter etc, because once it leaves her phone she has no control over what happens to it, and I guarantee a proportion of those eleven year olds will have public accounts on the above platforms.

For her dad to say that he'd seen something terrible and to have called her a bully was perhaps a tad too far in the other direction. But she does need to be definitively read the riot act and told in no uncertain terms that uploading such pictures is out of order on every level. If she's not mature enough to know why uploading a picture of a crying child to the internet is not a good idea then she's not mature enough to have access to social media, any social media.

Putting a picture of a four year old crying because he thinks he's going to get into trouble as a profile picture is horrible behaviour and I would hit the roof.

This^

There’s nothing funny about a picture of a young child crying.
I don’t blame your ex for getting a bit overprotective. He wasn’t there and didn’t see the situation, only the resulting picture your DD put on Whatsapp. It really does come across as mean-spirited.

Anyone circulating that pic would be no different to someone circulating any pic of him in my eyes, because there wasn't that much wrong with it. Yes I would have told her to take it down because he was crying, it wasn't his finest moment, but other than that, it's not exactly some kind of safe guarding issue. It's just a picture of a kid. I may have more laid back views to some people but I won't apologise for that. Some people won't agree with me & some will. That's the way the world works

And FWIW they carry on learning these lessons for some years to come and you will need to partially keep on top of what they're doing online for some time. But pictures do need to be the first port of call in terms of understanding what is and what isn't acceptable to upload and who does and who doesn't have access to it.

I have a fifteen year old who I've had to pull up about the language he's used on social media for instance. Nothing horrific but certainly not the kind of thing I would want to be reading online from a then fourteen year old. Instruction was given to take it down, and reason given why.

But do bear in mind that it's actually illegal to distribute any picture of someone under the age of eighteen so if there were ever any instances of pictures being distributed within the school (and there will be, there are always children who become involved in inappropriate distribution of pictures,) your dd could find herself in hot water for having that profile picture if e.g. Another child had distributed it or even if it's found on another child's phone by virtue of being a part of that whatsapp group iyswim.

Your ex sounds as if he did go in heavy-handed, but I also think that sometimes adults still aren't as up on these things as they should be and often react before they think, but because he has form for that kind of behaviour anyway it's made him look worse.

My ex reacted similarly to something on youtube which he looked at and assumed was genuine and looked to be someone reacting to a video my DS had put up there. As it turned out it was one of DS' mates, and the video was almost entirely made up of fake footage with fake wording over the top so it looked like someone having a rant about my DS. Ex expressed his discomfort at the rant, discomfort at DS' wish to even upload video's, discomfort at all of the above and it was all an instant reaction. I explained to him that the entire thing was fake, something which I was surprised he hadn't realised since he works in IT.

OP, were you around here during the child modelling troll days when a poster pretended to run a child modelling website and doctored pictures of children which posters (and other parents of child modelling children) sent to her site to send to paedophiles?

They believed she was running child of the week competitions and such like, meanwhile she was putting their faces on the bodies of abused children and selling them on to undesirables.