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!?

Of schools have to take a zero tolerance approach to students telling each other to KYS.

Given the current state of mh and suicide due to online bullying.

Why wouldn’t you want this stamped out. For both girls and boys

Of course

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’.

Who’s talking about conviction? I’m talking about telling someone to do the equivalent of fuck off/drop dead. Ain’t nobody going to be convicted of that either.

As an adult, I would not expect to be getting texts/emails telling me to google names that are going to lead to pornographic material. OP’s daughter is entitled to the same.

God forbid that anyone tell a harrasser to KYS.

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.

If anything it’s far worse to get a 13 yo child to look at it than an adult!

Schools don’t ‘have to’ take a zero tolerance approach to anything. The SLT and pastoral team will discuss it and formulate a policy.

Bullying is generally regarded as a pattern of behaviour. An adolescent using a naughty phrase is no way worth a 3 day suspension (which will remain on her record for years).

Using an awful phrase like that repeatedly against a victim would deserve a suspension. Responding to provocation on a one off basis to someone is just not the same thing.

The only lesson either of them will learn is, if you wNt to be nasty, do it face to face, what every bullying adult boss now knows.

He instigated it and he committed an actual crime. Sexual harassment is a crime. Responding to that harassment with a tasteless slang acronym is not. Op, if I was you I'd be straight back to the school and asking them how they plan on dealing with the boy who sexually harassed your daughter and telling them legal action would be coming forthwith if they don't deal with it satisfactorily. And I wouldn't let it go. A girl was sexually harassed and they punished her for standing up to her harasser.
This in spades.

Yes, she used an unfortunate phrase, probably without knowing just how bad it was, and hereafter she will know better. But I think that if they made an example of her, they should made an example of him. If he did indeed get a lesser punishment, then I think the school picked on her as an easy target; it's easier to prove that she did something wrong; whereas to punish him would mean admitting their firewalls were not up to it.

He should have been punished at least as much; before he contacted her, she was just minding her own business. He set out to cause trouble, he started it, he deliberately wound her up, and he should have been banned from sending school emails for a week, or three, or preferably banned from the school computer system altogether, and too bad if that means he can't do his homework. After all, too bad if the girl misses three days of school, for something she didn't start? I don't "get" suspension; what's the point of disrupting someone's education like that?

I think that what the school does now is critical. It's very likely that these two will now have the knives out for each other; she because she feels hard done by, and will have lost respect for authority (I would have done at that age if I felt I'd been punished for defending myself), and he because he feels that he's been handed a licence on a plate to keep causing trouble; if he hasn't had much of a punishment, he's basically been told that he can deliberately wind up girls and get them suspended for retaliating. How long before he does it again, or starts spreading rumours in the girl's absence?

If anything it’s far worse to get a 13 yo child to look at it than an adult!

Well, yes. And if the sender had been an adult, I would have said just the above. The fact that he’s a child himself is obv some mitigation.

Had the sender been over 16, would all these telling-someone-to-KYS-and-in-mental-health-week-too types still think her KYS was too harsh and in need of punishing?

He is not sexually harassing her; the only way she will see any porn is if she both does the google search and decides to click further (in the very unlikely event this were possible at a school).

She is not trying to get him to kill himself, she is telling him to duck off.

People have lost all perspective....

Disagree Larry on allowing one offs.

But I do agree that the op should take up safeguarding in the school and get them to assess their own practices.

Had the sender been over 16, would all these telling-someone-to-KYS-and-in-mental-health-week-too types still think her KYS was too harsh and in need of punishing?

No, I wouldn’t. But then if he was over 16 and she was a child that would markedly change things wouldn’t it?

I’ve said all along that his behaviour is abhorrent and needs to be harshly punished, not once have I said it doesn’t.

But the ignoring of the almost pandemic levels of teenage suicides at the moment is pretty shit.

OPs DD needs to find another way of expressing herself, that doesn’t perpetuate a phrase which has been used to drive people to suicide.

The boy needs to learn that his behaviour is threatening, intimidating and perverted and that he has to change his attitudes towards girls and women.

To be clear, it’s the use of that phrase I object to, given my own experiences. NOT that she robustly answered back a pervert.

If she’d used the N word to tell him to fuck off would that have been acceptable?

Or the R word?

No, because language matters, as it should.

If she’d said fuck off you pervert I wouldn’t have batted an eyelid.

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!

OK, Googling isn’t going to bring back hardcore images to her screen - but it would bring back links with highly explicit descriptions of what she could expect were she to follow those links, which is something no 13 year old should be exposed to! So, yes, he was sexually harassing her.

Agree YeTalk

Women and girls should be nice and appropriate at all times. They should know their place.

Even (and especially) when they are the victims of sexual harassment.

Exactly yetalkshit

The boy needs to learn that his behaviour is threatening, intimidating and perverted and that he has to change his attitudes towards girls and women.

And if he does that, then his poor little fragile feelings won’t get hurt by people telling him to KYC/FO.

I have no issues with OP’s daughter responding in this way on this occasion. If she was using this response more generally, that’s a different matter.

I’ve heard “go take a long walk off a short pier”, “go play with traffic”, etc, etc, many a time. So not only are people here telling someone to kill themselves - what else is going to happen when you play with cars on the M6? - they are actually suggesting the very method by which to do it.

Do people think OP’s daughter should/would have been punished had she responded, “go take a long walk off a short pier.”?

ButchyRestingFace it’s not a race to the bottom.

Women and girls should be nice and appropriate at all times. They should know their place.

Even (and especially) when they are the victims of sexual harassment

This. Kid must be loving this. Not only does he get to send creepy messages to girls, but when they tell him to KYS/DD/GFY, he gets to act all hurt and triggered and girl gets suspended.

Give me strength.

By that I mean none of the examples you give would be right.

Maybe if people stopped justifying using horrid and threatening language, kids wouldn’t be so keen to use it eh?

Wouldn’t that be lovely, problem solved.

But no, let’s gloss over teen suicide eh? Instead of teaching our children acceptable and decent behaviour.

There’s a funeral in my town next week for a girl driven to suicide by such comments. Will I go and tell her Mum that they’re ok?

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

Astounding piece of victim blaming there

This. Kid must be loving this. Not only does he get to send creepy messages to girls, but when they tell him to KYS/DD/GFY, he gets to act all hurt and triggered and girl gets suspended.

OP said he’d been punished and that she didn’t know how. Given her own ability to minimise and twist the situation, I’m not entirely sure she’s telling the truth.

He should have been suspended immediately. We don’t know that he wasn’t.

ButchyRestingFace it’s not a race to the bottom

I don’t even know what that means in this context or what part of post you’re replying to, I’m afraid.

I am shocked by the way people are talking about a 13 year old CHILD: a pervert, a little shit etc. Would you like this standard to be applied to your sons if they behaved like that once?

He did what teenage boys have done for eons, only pre internet there would have been no permanent record.

He may not be nice but he may be a lovely kid subjected to all the peer pressure that swirls around boys at that age.

Both kids made mistakes and hopefully will learn and grow up to be useful members of society. They may also be best mates having a row, which has been blown out of proportion by adults. We have so little info here about either of the children.

This is getting very close to encouraging a very dangerous “man up” mentality.

We have a massive crisis in this country with young people’s mental health and so it is vital to ensure that young people realise the impact that their words can have.

Both parties where wrong. Both should be punished. Two wrongs don’t make a right.

Would you like this standard to be applied to your sons if they behaved like that once?

If either of my sons did something so disgusting and intimidating I would come down on them like a ton of bricks and they’d be left in absolutely no doubt that not only was their behaviour appalling and wrong, they’d know exactly why too.