to report DS' friend to the school (without his permission)

[jaccyjo]

In a bit of a nightmare scenario with DS. He finished his GCSEs on Friday and went to a party with his mates.
Next day he comes home and I could tell he was really panicky and not himself. It turns out when they were out they had looked up some teachers on instagram and DS' friend had messaged some teachers off my son's account ...... !!!! DS has been panicking and saying he's probably going to get banned from his prom and leavers assembly etc.

I have just had an email from his head of year asking me to come in tomorrow for a meeting. I can only imagine it's about this as DS has now effectively left. None of the teachers replied but I imagine they have reported it. DS is willing to take the flack but I feel I should report who it was that sent the messages. I know it's true that it wasn't my son as I've spoken to the lad who did it. However DS is saying he doesn't care about prom anyway and he will just go to afterparty . His friends Mum is not helping as she says she has already spent £200 on her son's suit and if he gets banned from prom it will be a waste of her money!

My DS really doesn't want me to report his friend. He says they were all drunk and he allowed it to happen. What should I do?

So glad I grew up before the age of mobile phones and social media. One could enjoy ones four bottles of Smirnoff Ice in race and quiet!!

If it was me I’d be having pike joker chant with my son about it and gently asking him to come clean to you if there is any more to this so that you can fly support him in the meeting.

Then I would go in to the meeting as the adult here, to speak to the other adults,
and say that while you understand your son didn’t actually write the messages you don’t know that for sure and are aware that you may still not have the full story.

That he is aware he acted inappropriately in even being involved and is sorry. Lead the way for him learning how to deal with these situations in the future. Ie be honest and own your part in it and apologise for any harm your actions caused.

It seems awful now but at some point in the future you will all laugh at this. Promise.

Sorry for the typos, cracked phone screen! Should say one more chat with him so that you can fully support him in the meeting! And peace and quiet obvs!!

I would really hope the ds doesn't miss out on prom etc. He was wrong but having watched my ds goes through GCSEs as well this year, I know it's a very stressful time so I hope he will be shown some leniency.!

Hope the meeting went ok op

Hope it went OK, OP

Interested to see how it went?

Hope all went ok OP

The lack of response would suggest that the OP has discovered that her son wasn’t as innocent as she thought, and neither were the messages. Hopefully she’ll correct me.

While it's not relevant to this situation - closing the gate after the horse had bolted, Pinkyyy had a point.
Teachers, social workers and medical professionals ( and a few other professions) should obscure their names on social media ( use maiden names or alternate spellings) , not use personal or family photographs as profile pictures, not use location tags and hold private accounts as well. They should also avoid commenting on any school social media accounts.
It's sensible practice, that is beginning to be taught in other countries as part of additional teacher training.

Hope is all ok OP. Fingers crossed and all that.

@Peopleshouldread why should teachers and other professionals have to hide their names and personal photos on social media? Obviously, some professional standards apply but why should I not have my name and a picture of me on my profile? I want certain other people to be able to find me..

The person at fault here is the child who has sent the messages..

iKnowWhoYouAreSir
Quite.

Interestingly, nobody has come back and confirmed that staff shouldn't be involved in local sport where students are known to be at events just in case someone wanted to hurl abuse (probably because that's nonsensical advice and ridiculous).

Also, nobody's come back to confirm that all my colleagues who live in catchment should wear disguises when out and about because whilst a child egging their car would be bad, the teacher should have done more to ensure that no child saw them getting into their car at any point and they shouldn't have been seen driving round local streets (again because it's stupid logic).

But somehow teachers having a social media account that's private but searchable is horrendous and just asking for teenagers to send you inappropriate and flirty messages when drunk.

IKnowwhoyouaresir and Lolasmiles.
I reiterate that per this situation it is after the fact. These teenagers still behaved like twunts and deserve their punishments.
Once a private account is located, DM's are easily sent. If you can't find such an account in the first place.......

It is not only the people who want you want to find you that will find you.
Without a private account the more information you provide, the easier it is to locate your residence, your family, your school and your children's school , their activities , your husbands work and any activity you may regularly pursue. Much of this can be found even with private accounts by searching other social media sources and any images/dialogue on school social media. Reverse image searches on some of the more advanced apps are simply done and open a number of doors to further breaching your privacy. Open friends lists on an otherwise secure FB page can locate other staff you work with and therefore link to their accounts and friends and so on, citing places of employment within biography details will do the same, and even a few photos with likes that appear on a page that is otherwise secure can be used to source other staff members.

On Facebook in particular, one switch to a publicly viewable photo will default all other posts to public.

In many circumstances it is not just your privacy that you are being careless with , it is the privacy of others who may not be so laissez faire as you.

Making a comparison to community based interactions is a fallacious argument in relation to social media. as is the reference to disguises.To me it shows you do not completely understand the ramifications of privacy and security in relation to social media.

Have just been contemplating the fact that, when I was a teen, I could have looked up my teachers address and phone number in the local phone book.

But if I had been a male & in a moment of madness after my GCSEs fuelled by a pint of Diamond White, decided to send them a dodgy photo I would have had to a) take the photo b) get it developed at Boots c) pay a lot of money for b) (unless I was lucky enough to be able to afford a Polaroid camera and then schlep round to their house for delivery or pay for a stamp.

Maybe we need to cut both sides some slack.

Not coming back to update probably out of pure embarrassment or will come back and also downplay it

Hi all

I'm sorry, not deliberately ignoring the thread, just been a really busy evening and there was so many updates.

So basically DS has been banned from prom and final assembly. He is not allowed back in school apart from collecting results (he wasn't going to sixth form anyway so that's not an issue). DS friend has also been banned.

They did have print outs of the messages and they were mainly just the sort of things he had said, however amongst these declarations of love to their teachers they had also sent messages to a male member of staff asking if they fancied a female teacher. School obviously saw this as incredibly inappropriate and said it would not appropriate for DS to be at prom with these staff after the kind of messages he had sent and "intruded their homes with on a Friday night".

DS was very apologetic in the meeting and offered to apologise to staff but he was told it would be better to write it in a letter and he would not be permitted to see the staff. DS didn't grass on his mate in the meeting. I did however say there were a group of them but the HOY and assistant head said without names there was nothing they could do with this information and my son had admitted it and needed to be held culpable.

DS told friend what happened and his friend actually went into school and fessed up to HOY. So they are both banned! Their other friends involved have got away with it which I'm not happy with but what can you do!

So all in all I am very disappointed and angry with him but I think he's more upset with himself to be honest. My question now is whether to let him go to the prom after party?! On one hand I think he has suffered enough but am I being too soft and really I shouldn't let him go considering all this?

Thanks so much for everyone's time!

Well his friend is truly a marvel isn’t he? Not may friend would do that so kudos to him

Yes let him go - it’s student arranged and nothing to do with school

Its down to you but personally I would let him go to the after party. My DS was involved in a stupid drunken incident related to a school party and as a result has been the model of sobriety and good behaviour since.

Hopefully he will have learned a lesson from all this and will be more careful in the future.

Good luck to him for his GCSE results. Remember even the potential future leader of the country made a teenage mistake for which a lot of people seem to be quite happy to forgive him.

Remember even the potential future leader of the country made a teenage mistake for which a lot of people seem to be quite happy to forgive him

Should have said "mistake"

Maybe suggest you personally pick him up from after party at reasonably sensible time plus get him to leave his phone at home to avoid further mishaps.

I would let him go personally, he's suffering enough missing the prom

The other lad is responsible as he composed and sent the messages. Just the same as someone accessing your account and being mischievous. You should tell it as it is. Too bad for the friends mum if her so is banned, he needs to learn what is appropriate. Both parents though I though should give their boys a rocketing for being drunk at their age or maybe it should be the parents who need a rollicking for that

All the people who are moaning about the parents letting their DCs get drunk - how do you suggest the parents prevent this?

My Ds got drunk at parties on a couple of occasions at this age. On both occasions, the next day we were pretty unimpressed with him. We have always said we don't want him to drink, we don't buy him drinks to take to such parties, we always pick them up after the party.

The only way we could actually prevent it is by not letting him go to any parties or by going to the party with them.

There is a difference between actively encouraging your child to drink and them drinking despite your best efforts to discourage it.

Teen parties often involve drink despite the best efforts of the parents to avoid it.

No. Women end up with awful men in their lives because the men they have fallen for are awful. Are you seriously saying it's the men's mothers fault? Jeez

The OP has never bothered to tell her 16 yr old son that staying out all night drunk off his arse with his drunken friends is a bad thing to do and so he will do the same thing to his wife and his wife will be complaining on MN about him - and you'll be one of the people telling her to pack his bags and/or leave the bastard.

Now the OP is seriously considering letting her son go on another booze-up (probably another all-nighter) with his friends to celebrate their leaving school.

You reap what you sow. It's our responsibly to raise good men. Shocking that I even have to tell you that!!

The OP has never bothered to tell her 16 yr old son that staying out all night drunk off his arse with his drunken friends is a bad thing to do

Where do you get this from? It's certainly not in any of the OP's posts.