What do I do about these texts?

[hungryhippo90]

my Daughter is 10, she recently got a phone, in fact it was a Christmas present, she’s been monitored on her phone, she knows I will check whatsapp, musicly, texts and whatnot to make sure there’s no bullying going on.

DD is quite sensitive, very sweet, and I promise I’m not being biased she’s lovely, if even a bit too nice, she’s a people pleaser.

Tonight as she was going to bed, I said let me check your phone, she seemed to not want me anywhere near her phone. Ok I said, the deal is we can check your phone to make sure you aren’t being bullied or bullying if you can’t accept it, you lose it.

Her little face dropped and she sat down at the table whilst I looked.

There were texts from “a friend” from school. The texts were saying how someone else in their class said she was ugly and she couldn’t get musicly hearts or something (I don’t care about that!)
And that she had no friends.

Girl went on to say “other child” said he wants to know what would really upset you and make you cry

Dd answered I don’t know, and I don’t care.

“Friend” followed up with can I plz plz plz have a picture of you. DD sent her a picture and “friend” just said thanks.

This started on the day DD went back to school, this girl is now sat next to DD in class.

I may be being so over the top with my thinking as I was bullied as a child severely. I don’t quite think it’s bullying, but to me (as mum I’m going to see if this way!!) its fucking nasty.

Why on earth would you say those things to someone? Then ask for pictures of that person?

I’m fairly certain she wanted a picture to take the piss out of DD.

I wanted to screenshot the messages and send them in to their form tutor and ask him to keep an eye out to see if anything is happenning in school. I don’t want to make it worse.

I want to have her deleted from DDs musicly and have her blocked on DDs phone, DH tells me, what if she realises and decides to take things a step further?

I don’t know what to do. I don’t want to just let it go Incase this is the opportunity to nip it in the bud. Such nasty things to say though.

Hi again OP. Well done for taking swift action with musical.ly. We all make mistakes and parenthood is often a very steep learning curve, isn't it?! It sounds like you'll be settling down for a few chats with your DD this weekend, and I'm sure there'll be many more to come over the years ahead! Just wondering how things have gone today with school, the mum and child?

There is always a way children get round them - one instance i was told by a friend is that her DS and mates know just to delete and reinstall when required

Then your friend is foolish and isn’t setting up the technology adequately. DD cannot download any apps without a request being sent to a parent for us to either veto or accept.

I am going to go against the grain here but you said yourself you got her the phone because you didn't want her left behind her peers but are now deleting the 2 apps that the phone is intended to be used for at this age group.

I understand she lied about the age thing but by your own admission you gave her WhatsApp which is also 13. By removing them I think you will possibly alienate her.

My daughter is just turned 11 and has both these apps and Instagram and has done since she was 10 because she seemed to be the only one in her class that didn't....

Instagram and musicly are both locked down to private profiles and I routinely check all her accounts from the computer. It's all about IT with kids today but I'm a firm believer that teaching them the safety rules I.e no sending pics, having private profiles etc will benefit more than potentially making this low level bullying worse.

I wonder whether your daughter might feel penalised and apprehensive about telling you what is going on if you were to take her phone/apps. I think the route you started out on, ie strict rules regarding apps and phone use and being open with you about communication, is the better one.

Then your friend is foolish and isn’t setting up the technology adequately

Perhaps, but that’s her issue, I just won’t get myself into that situation

OP, are you going to text the child? This suggested text by black was good.

In the OP's case, I would text the child tomorrow morning: Hello X, This is X's mum here. I was checking X's phone and saw your texts. I will be contacting your mum and school, and hopefully you will not be so unkind to X again. X's mum.

Difficult. I really do think that is a bit young for a smartphone, though you do seem to have been aiming to try to have in all the safeguards you could. I'm just a bit bothered...if you take away the phone (tempting though it really is), that the lesson she might take away could be "if anything bad happens to me, mum must not find out, because I'm the one that will get punished".

Perhaps a period of confiscation, whilst you redo all the safety chats, and then a return including the stipulation that if anyone is mean to her by the phone she has to tell you, and not telling you is what would lose her the phone forever? That way you're hopefully reinforcing the need to tell you if there's trouble message...

My DDs (aged 12) class had a Skype chat group. I had been keeping a vague eye on content. Talked to DD about why I thought a boys conversation with her was not really ok. Lots of pressure on her to go out with him. To say that she loved him. Why didn't she give him compliments etc. Warned her that she needed to be careful and said I thought she was handling it well.

Got a message from school a couple of weeks later about bullying on the group. So said sorry groups finished for you.

Then all the girls got individual messages from the mother of the previously mentioned boys account saying all the girls were going to amount to nothing and were trollops.

Our school has rules that parents are not allowed to contact other students. I was very unhappy with the parent and contacted school.

Please use the school to sort this. Do not contact other parent or child.

Bullying will always be an issue in schools and smartphones are just complete poison. There is no escape and actually things actually escalate as there is no opportunity to calm down.

You are being vigilant but giving a young person a phone opens your front door to friends, enemies, strangers.

It's impossible for parents and teachers to keep on top of as developers are constantly bringing out new apps that allow communication. There's one really sinister one that looks like a calculator for example.

I have been in education for 17 years. It may be anecdotal, but - to me - there appears to has been a directly correlation between smartphone development and an increase in young people with mild to severe mental health problems. I wouldn't give a 10 year old a packet of cigarettes and a lighter, but if it was the choice between that and a smart phone...well.

The NSPCC's Netaware is a good place to start if you want to get an overview of the most popular apps and platforms: www.net-aware.org.uk

Sorry for the typos above. The irony hasn't escaped me that I've written that on my phone.

Under no circumstances should you text the child, this could seriously compromise your position. I'd go through the school and let them deal with it. I also think contacting the other parent is a bad idea as you have no idea how that conversation might pan out and she may well get very defensive.

Great post from Misknit above, even with the typos!

Chatting with one of my DC recently, we were discussing things we wished had never been invented. I said the Internet/smartphones, and especially as this DC is a teen and does use both a reasonable amount I expected them to disagree strongly - but no, they actually agreed with me. Quite a shock. We both felt that the negatives now outweigh the positives.

Speak to the child’s parents. Texting the child is weird and inappropriate. They probably don’t know and we update be horrified. Plus their daughter may also need support

It's impossible for parents and teachers to keep on top of as developers are constantly bringing out new apps that allow communication.

That’s somewhat irrelevant though. If you set up the technology correctly, children can download nothing without a parent’s permission at which point you can research the app fully before making a choice.

I think it’s important for children to learn to use tech safely and with boundaries and the sooner the better IMO so it becomes second nature.