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?

He was apologetic at the meeting and willing to speak to teachers directly - it was the school who wouldn't allow this.

Yes, and they told him what to do instead so now he needs to get on and do it. The OP can give or retract the right to go to the after-party and that's the lever she has to get him to do the right thing now.

And who knows, if he does the right thing with bells on he might get to the school party after all.

You don't need a sledgehammer to crack a nut.

You reckon? His current plan is to go out with his friends and get drunk again so I would insist he feels the full pain of his actions first.

My DS would not snitch on two others boys when three of them did something daft. School involved the police. Son received a caution, the police were lovely said they knew the other two had done it but they stuck to their story whereas my DS who was taught to tell the truth always got into trouble. After that I told my DC`s to admit nothing.

My DS aged 16 on a Saturday went into town to meet a friend to do some shopping, they went back to friends house and drank a lot of rum. The other mother came home to puking boys. We picked ours up he threw up all over the car, we put him in the shower not easy he was so heavy he sat there for an hour puking hopelessly. We then sat with him and a bucket for a few hours, in the morning he came into our room crawled into the bed with us and slept for a few more hours. He had not done that for years.

Boys especially seem to do stupid things, I have had three. It does not surprise me that the school took this line, they did at our school when some students posted on some teachers media accounts. They involved the police who gave a lecture at assembly.

Perhaps the school should implement guidelines so that pupils know that contacting teachers outside is punishable.

I wonder if the school felt the boy's friend was trying to cover up for him? I would let him enjoy the after party though maybe not stay all night.

My parents never made a big thing about alcohol it was never forbidden fruit. I enjoyed it but, not to excess. My friends who saw it as illicit were the ones who became drunk on nights out.

Lessons have been learned time to move on. Wishing your son good luck with his results.

I wouldn't let him go to the after-party as I wouldn't be confident he had learnt his lesson. Plus the after-party will be more raucous than the prom and he's shown he makes poor decisions in that type of environment.

We really need to set the bar higher for our sons than this "boys will be boys" bollocks and the expectation/acceptance of misogynistic behaviour as some kind of inevitable high jinks (and they're always "easily led" by worse behaved friends of course).

Instead of accepting it as silliness and praising him or the other ones involved for owning up we need to deal with this to ensure they grow into men (and they're nearly there) who aren't disrespectful to women and who understand the concept of boundaries.

He will be going to college (or apprenticeship etc) this year. It isn't acceptable behaviour as the school are rightly pointing out by their actions. I actually think confiscation of his phone would make him realise the seriousness of what he has been involved in and the consequences he can expect.

And yes, I have had teens of both sexes and do expect better for them. This kind of bollocks is why my DDs have to put up with so much shit at school. I can only imagine how these boys, who act this way towards adult women in positions of authority, would act towards their peers.

A group of my friends did this on the days before social media. Wrote a love letter from one teacher to another, looked up address in the phone book and posted it.

Precisely nothing happened. Teacher ignored. School ignored. No reaction. Never did it again. I guess our teacher was sensible and rolled eyes at silly kids, and put the note in the bin.

School really have been heavy handed here. However, your DS has been a bit of a nob (just like we were nobs in sixth form...). I don’t think I’d let him go to the after party.

I agree and you put it better than me, although I was talking about alcohol specially this is the point. It’s not about banning alcohol, it is about raising them to expect better for themselves and for us to expect better of them than just lump them as a stereotypical teenager. It just perpetuates bad behaviour because parents ignorantly normalise it. Going to boozy parties is an adult activity not a child activity. Inappropriately harassing women after drinking too much should be mortifying not a rite of passage

The argument that restricted kids go off the rails does not hold up If you are giving them free reign to go out and drink and then they behave badly as well.. does it? How does that work?

I don’t think it’s ok for parents to be so easily accepting that this is completely normal acceptable teenage behaviour. It is not.

There are silver gas canisters over most parts of the UK now from young people inhaling dangerous substances, casual drug taking is seen as part of growing up along with ridiculous and dangerous hazing at universities and rugby clubs (natch by ‘nice boys and girls’ who can afford to go to uni), London is having the worst youth knife crime epidemic resulting in fatalities it’s ever seen. There is a huge movement for women against sexual harassment at school, the workplace and parents of girls are having to teach our girls about getting their drinks spiked alongside teaching them about periods

technically, despite being fairly tame, OP’s son sent his female teachers really inappropriate messages that made them feel so uncomfortable they reported him to the school.

My DD’s also have to go to school with these children who are obsessed by staying popular by any means and going further and further with idiot pranks, this type of ‘prank’ makes kids school celebrities and it will be all over snapchat and IG. Kids in my DC school are constantly setting up IG pages slagging off teachers or posting videos of themselves doing stupid shit to impress each other

One thing I may have missed here op - is it an exclusion that is formal and goes on his file? I wouldn't be happy about that because colleges etc can be funny about this type of thing and often make offers conditional upon good behaviour.

I ask because my gs nearly got an exclusion prior to his exams. He also did not want to snitch on a mate but fortunately cctv in the school caught who did it and it showed my gs just exiting another door as he committed the "crime". They school then said my gs could have had prior knowledge. I said he could not know what was in someone else's head and often young lads boast about stupid things in any event. I was told I had to keep him off school until the issue was resolved. I asked if this was an informal exclusion and they denied it was.

Funnily enough the next day, I got a phone call telling me gs was completely exonerated but to watch who he hung around with in future.

Schools are not allowed to issue informal exclusions and I had this confirmed to me by the County Council worker and I should have refused and sent him into school to isolation.

Sorry its turned out like this for you son who doesn't sound like a bad lad but who has just done something really silly with his mates.

Do you think girls never send inappropriate messages or misuse social media?
This isn't a sexism and disrespecting women issue - it's a teenager doing a stupid teenage thing issue!

It is a sexism issue as well as ignorant parenting.There have been so many boys will be boys sentiments on this thread, excuses that it is simply silly friends, high jinx and it is fact that male crime is much higher than female crime. Girls are statistically more likely to be a victim than a perpetrator and parents of girls are trying to keep them safe more than trying to keep them out of causing trouble. Girls are not equally behaving in this way and often girls misuse of SM is towards other peers or putting themselves at risk

Girls have their own set of challenges facing them as a teenager, not the same ones no.

Using a small personal sample of my own child’s yeargroup as she has just left school and she is aware of her peer group issues no girls were excluded during my daughters time but some left either due to bullying or being a bully. One girl got into trouble for sending nudes of herself to a boy

2 boys were placed on the sex offenders register one for upskirting and the other for circulating nudes of his then girlfriend on SM. One was excluded for dealing drugs and one was excluded for violence.
I live in a fairly good area and this is not classed as a problem school. Parents are usually well educated and well off

We are not talking about criminals. We are talking about children who I agree need to learn boundaries, but are hardly in the same league as sex pests.
If the messages were dick pics or very explicit, I would agree that this is a more serious matter, but it seems not to be that extreme. Kids do stupid things sometimes. I'd be more concerned about online bullying than this.

I honestly believe kids have it way worse than when I was young. Every stupid thing they do is filmed or can be spread throughout their entire set of friends via SM.

It follows that the parents of their friends inevitably get to hear of every stupid infraction.

My parents and my friends parents were thankfully kept well in the dark about whatever mild misdemeanors that occurred. Thank God. Not that we did much but still at least we had some privacy in our lives.

I think social media has robbed children of that.
God help you if you make a tit of yourself these days.

Firstly the head should take issue with teachers who have easily accessible Instagram, twitter, or facebook etc accounts its highly unprofessional and potentially compromising for teachers and is generally a condition of their employment as a professional standard that they do not communicate in this way to pupils or parents

As previously explained- anyone can PM a social media account no matter how locked down it is. At no point have the teachers responded via SM/PM so why should the head take issue with the teachers as they have done the right thing - they haven't replied and reported it straight away

I think the school were quite heavy handed although perhaps the ds had not exactly been well behaved through the year and this was the last straw. He shouldn't miss the after party.

We really need to set the bar higher for our sons than this "boys will be boys" bollocks and the expectation/acceptance of misogynistic behaviour as some kind of inevitable high jinks (and they're always "easily led" by worse behaved friends of course).
👏👏👏👏

Do you think girls never send inappropriate messages or misuse social media?
This isn't a sexism and disrespecting women issue - it's a teenager doing a stupid teenage thing issue!
Of course girls can and do misuse social media. But if anyone suggested we just accept that 'girls will be girls, they're bitch and always bully each other. It's just mean girls isn't it.' then I'd challenge their sexist low expectations of girls.

Equally, anyone saying 'boys will be boys... It was only a bit flirty... he's been easily led, poor him...' That we have confirmed, him and his mates messages a female teacher a flirty and inappropriate message and then messaged a male member staff asking if he fancied a female member of staff. Society shouldn't be teaching boys this is ok. Minimising it is bad enough, but some on this thread have blamed the teachers because really boys will be boys and it's too much to expect teenage boys not to send inappropriate messages to staff. It's not that big a leap to 'of course they were going to make sexual comments... the girls were dressed in sexy clothes... of course there was a cheeky bum slap but it wasn't a big issue, they were smiling at him in passing'.

Entitled men with no boundaries regarding women don't appear at 25. They are nurtured.

@jaccyjo
This is the issue
Just because it was a low level harrassment and not a high level lewd harassment doesn’t make it not a type of harassment. This is exactly why so many women never come forward and speak up about what they experience as society will brush it off as not that bad or it could have been worse. These teachers should thank themselves lucky it wasn’t a dick pic, and let’s blame them for having social media. It should not have happened in the first place I don’t believe any 16yo doesn’t understand these boundaries - they do, but they find it funny. In the cold sober light of day this is just a silly prank. If it wasn’t for SM then people could do these things in secret without their parents finding out?

Crime is relevant as this is the point in their lives where parents become less and less culpable for their children’s actions. There are many young men who have been in the media in recent years via court cases who seem to be claiming that whilst drunk having a high jinx night out with the lads, they did not understand or (want to) comprehend that the drunk woman they were having sex with didn’t want to, wasn’t enjoying it and was too drunk. In the cold light of day they now face serious consequences.

Those blurry lines start young and they spill into adulthood.

I don't agree that school have been overly harsh.

Teachers have as much right as anyone else to go about their private lives without being hassled, including in the middle of the night, in their own homes.

As the boys are now largely ex-students, the school have very few options. But if they don't do anything, they are sending a clear message to these boys - and the probably 1000+ students in the school - that sending stupid messages to staff in the middle of the night is a fun game, totally worth the mild telling-off.

Firstly the head should take issue with teachers who have easily accessible Instagram, twitter, or facebook etc accounts its highly unprofessional and potentially compromising for teachers and is generally a condition of their employment as a professional standard that they do not communicate in this way to pupils or parents.
The teachers have not communicated with the pupils. The pupils have communicated with the teachers 🙄

The staff have done absolutely nothing wrong!

The head may well have suggested to staff that they tighten up their media security, but they cannot be made to not use it at all surely?

Can someone point me to the post in this thread that actually says "boys will be boys"? This kind of thing could just as easily have been done by girls.

16/06/2019 23:37 EugenesAxe

Wow the thread turned into a real OP bash at the end there. I also think that many people have run away slightly with their ideas of severity. It's a bit unfair to start saying things like 'it could be a criminal matter' when on the whole, her DS thinks the messages were mainly a display of teenage silliness. There's no point guessing and panicking until OP's told exactly what went on, at the meeting.*

Here is one of a few talking about boys sending flirty messages to female teachers being teenage silliness

Another vote for silly boys

overreaction if you ask me. Banning him from seeing the teachers, even to apologise, is a bit much. The messages were silly, but not really anything sinister.

Another vote for silly boys

Silly teenagers who happen to be boys.

Before people bleat on about how it could equally have been a girl, it wasn’t a girl at all.

There are a multitude of posts on this forum every day by girls and women receiving unwanted attention and messages from creepy entitled men Every Single Day. These teachers received unwanted messages from boys this weekend. The sentiment is, teach your children, especially boys that this is disrespectful inappropriate behaviour. It’s not funny