To think my friend should have spoken to me first?....

[MeetmeinParis]

I'll try to cut this down as I have a tendency to ramble!. I have a good friend whom I met through DD, she is very opinionated and extremely confident in herself and her opinions, she has a tendency to dominate conversations with her opinion and it is difficult to challenge her on these opinions. That said, she is generally lovely and we get on well, I haven't seen much of her in the last 6 months as we dealt with illness and subsequent death of a close relative, she didnt make a huge effort to support me through this as she is always busy, volunteers for every pta activity, local group etc etc so in short, I haven't been as close with her as we were.
She messaged me last night to say that there had been some issues with my DD messaging her DS and that it had got nasty, stated that there were various issues with the class snapchat group and some nastiness (kids are just turned 10). She told me she had her DS phone and had replied to my DD herself. I saw the message on my DD phone this am and it was very to the point, please stop this etc etc and not threatening in any way but I am really angry that she did this rather than message me weeks ago (she says this is how long it's been going on) telling me there was an issue so that we could sort it out before now. I have told her I'm not happy at how it was done and feel as we are friends I would have preferred the chance to deal with this myself. For reference, my DD had asked her DS to be her boyfriend, when he said no, she persisted and then at one point called him a weirdo then said she hated him, nasty and will be dealt with but silly kids stuff really. AIBU in thinking she should have come to me rather than messaging my 10 YO?.
When I challenged her she said, "believe me this is not how Bob (the boys Dad) wanted to deal with this, I found that a bit threatening?. I need perspective!.....

@devilsadv0caat why the LOL?

Chin up OP. Most of the messages you get now won't be reading the thread or your updates and will just wind you up. You've had enough feedback, probably quite enough for the next ten years! I would hide this thread (click Hide under the AIBU heading) and go and live your life.

and

You're not a crap parent. Yes, you missed a trick, don't we all? It's hard to keep up with the technology, particularly if a 'helpful' older brother is going to instal things without your knowledge!

It's obvious you were up to your ears in it, with the death of your mother (condolences OP, the loss of a parent is terribly hard, it's always too soon).

Your daughter will learn from this, you've learned from this, all good in the hood.

I hope the wine is in the chiller, and takeout winging your way. . .

@MeetmeinParis
It just made me laugh that you don't even know the basics of how an app works but you really think you know how to keep her and her tech savvy friends / your son from re-installing it. Oh the naivety.

If you don't/can't parent your child - for whatever reason including family tragedies - then you should be grateful that another, more responsible parent stepped in. Would you have preferred that the school had to do it instead?

Have you thanked her yet?

Does you DD have a phone? IMHO - that age is not mature or chronologically old enough to be on ANY social media. Especially Snap which does disappear as you say so kids feel they are no consequences for their actions. There is a reason that Snapchat (and other platforms) have minimum age requirements. I'm sorry but you need to be honing your parenting skills. She needs more supervision (and so does your friends son).

If she had gone to the school with this your child would be called in. Instead of being upset with your friend you should address this with your daughter.

You can get your phone to link with her phone and have screen mirroring.

I think some time spent looking through some SM guidance and having a review this weekend. You Can also lock apps from your phone on your ddS phone.

Your 10yo little pipsqueak was harassing another child to be in a relationship? Teach her what the word no means. I would be very concerned that a little child wants to be in a relationship. Your friend had absolutely every right to message her directly, in fact she was rather measured.
So your daughter is big enough to want a boyfriend but cant handle it when shes confronted about her bad behavior?

YABU Your friend knows you much better than anyone in this thread. She acted in the way she thought would be the most appropriate.

Perhaps she felt your child would stop after her message and a line drawn or perhaps she felt you would minimise the behaviour. I would guess it was a bit of both as your post deflects from your daughter and your own responsibility and levels blame towards her.

I have a son and daughter of a similar age and they have no phone because it isn’t appropriate. They aren’t emotionally mature enough and it is very difficult to monitor. I would be removing the phone.

As you have now agreed she's got too much internet access, I'd be taking her phone off her until she's old enough to be responsible.

Your son also needs to be told he NEVER puts any SM on his sisters phone.

I'm sorry but deleting the app isn't good enough. You got lucky this time. She needs to lose the phone.

And obviously it's a good job the other mother was policing her sons phone or how much nastier would things have got?

Although 10 is still too young for SM!

On a practical level what phone does she have?

I blocked them to be able to install any apps without me logging in so I had to approve - also for reinstalling

Also banned all content under 13/15 which included YouTube

Took the phone away at night

Put parental controls on my WiFi

Used my email to sign them up to anything and if they changed the email details I would get a notification

There is a lot more you can do to police the phone

As for talking to her, you really need to tell her you understand why her friends DM sent the message, and why DD should not say things like that to anyone. Get her to watch some of the cyber bulling and e safety videos on CBBC website - watch them WITH her

We all fuck up as parents, OP, don't take it too hard. And it seems that the advice here has been useful to you.

I haven't read all the comments so sorry if I am repeating, but I just wanted to say that your friend may well have thought that you were also monitoring your dd's snapchat and that is why she didn't say anything earlier.

I'm sorry for your loss.

YABU. She's done nothing wrong in sending a reasonable message showing her son how to respond in a reasonable way. Then she brought it to you. I imagine his dad did is angry and wants to take it further but she's hoping to stop that by bringing it to your attention first. You owe her a thank you not anger. I think your anger is misdirected when it's actually that you're embarrassed. We all mess up just take her phone away and move on.

I'm sure all kids at this age do this kind of thing at some point.

Nope.

I have a 10 year old DD. She's knitting a monkey.

Gosh, who set up snapchat group for 10 year olds, how irresponsible.
Why have you allowed it, anyone in their right mind knows what this could lead to. Kids are supervised at school for safety, because that number of children is a recipe for disaster, otherwise.
Tbh, I'm surprised this is the only worry.
get her off there for god's sake.

Take that app off her phone. That's not good for kids, as you cannot monitor it. Sounds like your daughter was handling your friends son to go out with her. You need to talk with her and tell her its unacceptable, because everyone has the right to say no. Your friend didn't involve the school which is good. Think your daughter needs to leave the boy alone now. Why are you so annoyed at your friend? Is it because she talked to you about it? Or that you dont want to know what your daughters been doing? I would prefer for a friend to tell me, rather than to have it all cross examined at school.

Hassling

I think your anger is misdirected. You should be angry at your kid, not your friend. We hear about kids killing themselves over bullying on social media, the poor woman was probably scared out of her mind with worry about her kid.

I'm going to hide this now as advised by MNHQ as its clear people are not RTFT or making assumptions about me as a parent. I'm genuinely grateful for the helpful advice and links and thank you to those who posted them. This is not a flounce, I'm happy to have had a different viewpoint to consider, I'm just fragile just now and am taking the nasty comments to heart. Thanks guys......

I'm not going to go into the rights or wrongs of phones,snapchat etc.

What you need to understand OP is that she's a mum first, and your friend second. She has the right to deal with issues that arise the way she sees fit as long as they are legal,reasonable and non threatening/aggressive. She could've gone straight to the school,she could've messaged you first, she could've done many things.

She chose an avenue that in her opinion defended and protected her son. She's entitled to do that. She let you know as a curtesy and because you are friends. That friendship however does not trump what she needs to do for her son. That's what it comes down to, even if you would've dealt with it in a different way. Neither are wrong.

she persisted and then at one point called him a weirdo then said she hated him, nasty and will be dealt with but silly kids stuff really.

Not silly kids stuff. Bullying. Take it seriously.

I’d have done the same if I was her. Obviously she can’t trust you to deal with it properly.

YABU- your child is too young for a phone never mind snapchat . Your friend wasn’t wrong tbh . If you allow your child to have access to a phone and snapchat( I don’t allow my 14 year old to use Snapchat) then you owe it to her to understand how she is using it . There is no excuse.