DD used the phrase "KYS" and has been suspended for 3 days?!

[olayjer]

DD is 13 and said sent the phrase "KYS" to a boy in her year after he sent her an email saying "type X into the school internet" (the X is the name of a porn star that wouldn't seem like a porn star name if you see what I mean). She replied "KYS" back on the same email. The school have said the boy will be punished for the initial email but he clearly hasn't been punished as much as DD has. 3 days exclusion!?

Well we haven't said anything that supports what the boy did.

The girl also didn't say drop dead.

I do find the school's response a bit odd - 3 day exclusion for saying that seems, in my experience, a bit heavy handed. But we have no way of why the school have done this.

The school might have an issue with students and a culture of mocking mental health issues. They might have warned students that this will be dealt with harshly.

This might not be an isolated incident.

There might be more to this incident than just "he sent this so she said that".

We only know what the OP has told us. We don't know any other background.

The OP should ask the school to explain. Maybe one member of staff has been heavy handed and it might be over turned on review.

The boy was wrong for what he did.
The girl should have reported it to a teacher.

I'm also wondering if being told to KYS is reserved solely for boys harassing girls?

No chance that there's a culture of students saying it for less offensive reasons? Especially given that it seems so "normal" to some people.

I think it's awful telling someone to go kill themselves is so normal and is getting dismissed as banter.
Yes, I also think that a boy inciting someone to google porn is awful too before someone starts.
Both are.
We don't know any background other than what OP has said.

I'm not saying it is normal or okay, but a stupid flippant one off comment doesn't warrant a three day suspension from school, that sort of punishment should be reserved for actual serious cyber bullying.

We have no idea of the culture of the school, whether this is a pattern of behaviour, or if the OPs DD has been involved in bullying before this. I have no problem with schools taking a hard line approach to 13 year olds with mobile phones that are using them to bully other students (whether it be male or female).

I've got a student out on suspension at the moment. He called another child the n word (and knew very well what it meant). Dad said it was 'just boys being boys' and because he is Indian he can't be racist, but he's just one of a large group of students who think that racial bullying is 'banter' and we're taking a zero tolerance approach to stamp it out across the school.

If any male tries to sexually harass or abuse any of my three dd I really wouldn’t care if they said that to them.

I agree with this completely. The only thing I’d be teaching my daughters would be to be smarter about their retaliation.

To me, to say "KYS" in an offhand way, (a phrase that she's been desensitised to on Fortnite,) in response to a boy sexually harassing her, isn't much different to her saying "Oh fuck off you perv," or "go diaf, perv."
I'm pretty sure a boy who can try to trick a girl into looking at porn, can handle said girl saying "KYS" tbh.
I can see why the school excluded her though - I guess they have to have a hard line on these kinds of phrases.
I wouldn't punish my daughter for doing that though. Good on her.

I think both should have received a harsh punishment, neither of their behaviour is acceptable and people should not minimise either

if the boy has been punished less harshly that's not fair, but in the end OP, you have to be concerned wiht your daughter's behaviour

KYS - kill yourself? Fucking vile. She deserved what she got.

Both were horrible things to say and do! Let's hope they both got the same punishment...but a boy trying to get a girl to look at porn us disgusting.

My dd commented on a youtube video recently, she was empathizing with the poster of the video whose dog had to be PTS. We had to do the same very recently and she she explained that to the poster of the video and sent condolences. Someone who doesn't know my daughter said "I'm glad your dog is dead. KYS". She asked what KYS meant, they told her.

She is 10. And autistic. She thinks KYS means kill yourself, because that is what it says. There is no black and white with her. That night she asked if she should actually kill herself just because that person said it

So you all keep thinking that words don't hurt, don't harm. That one incident of KYS doesn't penetrate enough to upset, and cause distress. Thankfully we saw her psychologist the following day who helped me navigate her out of it. But she still keeps going back to it.

I am not saying for one minute this is the effect that this had on the lad in this case. What he did was vile enough on it's own. I'm saying that one incident of KYS can and does impact.

I thinks it's really good that school recognised what it meant. My school would have had no idea.

Thinking it through, I agree with the punishment.

At the moment, there has been a lot of bullying in schools across the UK with vulnerable children bullied to the point of suicide and telling someone to kill themselves, even as a flippant comment is awful!

Hopefully your DD learns from it and doesn't do it again.

I'm not saying it is normal or okay, but a stupid flippant one off comment doesn't warrant a three day suspension from school, that sort of punishment should be reserved for actual serious cyber bullying.

Yes, if they suspend for 3 days for this, how they deal with actual serious behaviour! If I was the teacher I’d tell the girl that i understood why she was so angry with what she’d been asked to do, but tell her sternly that responding with KYS is never appropriate and that If she used it again there would be serious consequences. That would be a proportionate and appropriate response. Context is everything here.

I’d be far more angry with the boy.... he attempted to trick a young girl into watching porn. He deserved an acerbic response... it’s just that the 13 yo girl’s response (yes, 13 ffs, not 33!) wasn’t well judged.

@differentnameforthis but your daughter wasn't being a nasty fucker, trying to trick someone into looking at pornography, was she? She didn't at all deserve to be told that. The little arse who can send a girl to look at porn I'm sure can handle a "KYS" and if he can't, maybe he shouldn't try to get his female peers to look at porn.

I'm glad your daughter is okay, btw. YouTube comments are a cesspit - I've taught my kids to never comment, or look.

Good. This stuff needs to be cracked down on.

Thelaststand I agree with you, it is a feminist issue. I agree that it is also a mental health issue, in so far as KYS (and I did not know what it meant) is being bandied around as an equivalent to fuck off, or however it is meant.

In other words, the school has two issues - pornography and lack of awareness around mental health issues. They have dealt with one. And not even particularly well, unless there is a general move to educate pupils about why such insults are deeply problematic as well as suspending one child.

Sexual harassment? Really? There are a lot of hard of reading people here.

He was trying to get the OP’s daughter in trouble by typing something inappropriate into the school internet. It was A NAME to be typed into GOOGLE on the SCHOOL internet.

And if the OP’s daughter had been dumb enough to type it, which it sounds like she wasn’t, the search would have been blocked by the firewall.

It is the kind of thing Year 8s and 9s do, very silly and worth a detention and a good talking to, nothing more. Ditto the OP’s daughter’s reaction, altthough given that she was provoked, a talking to would probably have sufficed.

School is for learning (both intellectually and ethically). If you judge young teens by adult standards I would wager half the year would be suspended if their conversation was policed to this extent.

Is this really still going?

And a school that does not have the nous to contextualise, and punishes based on a superficial consideration of the offence, is precisely one where bullying is more likely to thrive....

Bullies will pick up on this and attempt to goad their hapless victims into behaviour that will lead to a sanction being applied by the school, knowing that the school will not be interested in the context, just the behaviour in isolation. I’ve seen this... a bully prods and needles a vulnerable person, under the radar and doing nothing in isolation is particularly terrible, only for the bullied person to snap and respond in some inappropriate way.

I’m ashamed to admit it but when I was at school there was one boy whose mannerisms were a bit odd and i took delight in mimicing them when with I was with him, causing amusement to others... One day the boy poured a cup of water over me. Theoretically this action by the boy could have been the last straw that caused me to kill myself having sustained similar humiliations previously. Of course, it wasn’t.... It made me realise I was being out of order, and frankly I deserved it! If the boy had been more severely punished for this “assault” and I had only had a ticking off that would have been an injustice. A decent teacher would have recognised the context and reserved the punishment for me!

@larrygrylls
Did you rtft? I don’t think you did. Because the firewall wasn’t blocking this person at all. That’s the whole point of this thread is that ops dd would have been able to / did google the person’s name and not see a generic this is blocked message. Ergo links to graphic images.

Just think it’s bizzare that posters prefer a 13 year old girl, a child, being exposed to phonographic acts is preferable to a boy being told drop dead in response.

This.

What she said was relatively tame in response to some kid who a) tried to get her to watch porn and b) clearly wanted to drop her in the shit.

@ButchyRestingFace both things are just as bad as each other.

The school have also punished the boy, but OPs daughter needs to realise that telling someone to kill them self isn't a flippant comment or an appropriate reaction.

Mummy,

Apologies, having gone back there is an (unclear) message from the op saying it was not blocked.

However, of course a name and surname cannot be blocked and there may have been a Wikipedia entry saying X, pornstar.

That does not mean she was exposed to inappropriate images or that she could have clicked further.

If porn is openly available on a school internet, I would be shocked and the OP’s issue is with the school, not the boy.

this thread

mind=blown

@ButchyRestingFace both things are just as bad as each other.

No they fucking aren’t. If someone tried to get me to look at pornographic material as an adult, they’d get a lot worse than ‘KYS’. Don’t see why it should be any different for a 13 year old.

Butchy,

If someone said google x and you google it, you will get a choice of sites. If you consciously click further, then you are choosing to view porn. No one has ‘exposed you’ to porn!

Of course they are children and slightly different standards apply but if you want to apply adult rules, no one would ever be convicted of anything by sending an e mail ‘google X’.