Is this too explicit for Year 7, 11 years old

[Sarah510]

So, my ds is doing some stuff on online grooming at school. Apparently they were shown a video, where a boy made friends with a stranger online, and then got tricked into meeting him, and the man sexually abused him (this wasn't actually shown in the film, it was explained in a voice-over, just that the boy was "sexually abused") and then the boy was murdered by being stabbed in the neck.

One of the girls in the class was so upset she had to leave the classroom.

Now they have to do a 'play' about it in groups. DS has a lot of questions about sexual abuse - and I've answered them, but am I too 'old-fashioned' to think this is a bit too explicit for 11 year olds. He is constantly worrying now about strangers, and would they stab him in the neck and if he was sexually abused what would they do to him. I answered as simply as I can, that it's when grown ups want to do sexual things with children. He wanted more info, so I had to go into more detail. I've always said to him to be careful online and monitor him very closely and he has a couple of friends that he plays games with sometimes, but he doesn't have a phone and just plays on our ipad or simple stuff like that. I know he's in secondary now, but is it a bit much or is it normal...

Honestly, I remember watching child safety videos in school in the 80s, one of which talked about a boy getting electrocuted on railway tracks and the like and discussions around them were pretty intense and detailed. I always remembered it, so it did its job really and I was always scared of railway tracks.

Children this age do get groomed, abducted and murdered sadly. Grooming online is happening more and more. Yes parents may have software on their phones, but children i work with have talked to people online via friends phones and computers that don't have software. When I worked in schools I would see children showing each other things on their phones before and after school at this age. While protecting them is important, educating them is key for the times when they are away from you or find a way to circumvent software. Given how much of an impact the education videos in the 80s had, I suspect these videos may well make the lesson stick in their minds. However, I haven't seen the video or how graphic it is so cannot say for certain whether it is too much.

What the hell has happened to that country? You can get arrested and jailed for saying something that offends someone yet teachers are allowed to show this shit to 11 year olds!!!

Unfortunately we are no longer allowed to used facts in articles. How do kids know what applies to them unless we literally bang them over the head with it repeatedly.

There has been a report recently round here of a strange man hanging around a school. Report was that a man was approaching children on the road .

Of course what it didnt tell you was it was school girls and which school they attending and what he was saying to them.

How can you keep them safe when they arent even allowed to read about who to look out for, where they are and what they look like.

@RantyAnty that article made me feel quite sick.

I have had multiple fall outs with my daughter over social media. We had a horrible incident where she was sent explicit pictures and didn't tell me, she told a friend. They tried to get her to tell me, or the school and she refused and deleted the messages. It was her friend who reported it to the school and the police got involved. I was upset she didn't talk to me about it but so pleased she had a sensible friend.
That wasn't sufficient to scare her into not accepting message requests and even the next day accepted another request. I am now logged into her account at all times and there's 2/3 requests a day from people. I find it very scary how blase she is about the whole thing. It feels as though teenage girls think this is normal, and it upsets me that she thinks that way

I don’t think it was too explicit. I think anything that brings home to them the dangers of being groomed and the subsequent risks is fine. Too many kids are far too unaware of the risks. You see here on MN over and over again about 10 and 11 year olds having phones and social media.

Surely if the video has made him too anxious about online strangers that he'll never agree to meet one alone - it's done exactly what needs to be done?

I'm on the fence with this one I'm afraid. When I was in primary school in the 1970's, we were shown a short film of kids suffering terrible injuries through playing on train tracks. The film is called 'The Finishing Line', we searched it because we weren't sure if we'd invented the memory. Anyway, many of us were absolutely traumatised by this film, a lot of the girls were crying and had to leave the hall. I have had conversations with old school friends about that day and many of them say the film haunted them for years afterwards, they had nightmares about it. But.... none of us EVER played on the train tracks! Job done?

If you don’t tell your child about sex abuse and grooming etc how will they know it’s happening to them? By the time they realise they are in a situation they don’t want to be in it might be too late.

For me, if you give your child access to the internet, you need to accept that others might have to explain the realities of that to them. If they’re too sensitive to hear it, they’re too sensitive for the internet.

My ds was sexually assaulted by one of his dad's carers repeatedly age 11, it took him 3 months to realise that what was happening to him was wrong & to speak out against it. So I don't think that a film warning of the dangers of any kind of abuse should be banned.

I haven't seen the video so it is hard to comment but I do think that you are a bit niave.

I teach in what most people would consider a "leafy" comp. I would say about 75% of Y7 and 90%+ of Y8 are on social media like Instagram, Snapchat and tiktok (Facebook is old news). Many children are also playing fortnight and other games unsupervised. They do need to be aware of the risks.

I'm not sure if this video is the best way to do things, but equally I do think your son needs to be aware of what sexual abuse is and means. It's important that young teenagers have the language to explain what has happened if anything were to happen to them.

I'm personally aware of some teenagers who have been abused at the age of 12/13 - education has to happen before this point!

In Yr 7 most have already had smartphones, sometimes for years. I've got a sensitive DD so I am expecting nightmares etc, but I think it needs to be done. We've already spoken to our much younger DC about people pretending to be friends, or children, and blackmailing for nudes, asking to meet up, and said that these people might turn out to be older kids or adults who want to hurt them badly. Neither has a smartphone yet but they do play online chess and maths games and use google and youtube for homework assignments. At some point very soon we will be much for explicit about what can happen.

I saw that film in the 1980s, as a tiny child. And in the 1990s, some friends on a school trip walked along tracks in the country and were amazed that I went ballistic and hauled them off... because I knew the central lines were electrified, and horrendously dangerous.

Predatory people online don't wait for your child to be mature enough to see through them, and calibrate risks.

I didn't show that film to my son, but we talked about it when he was 8 or so - the events it is based upon. He likes computer games, and I needed him to understand why he mustn't talk to anyone online. He doesn't. I scared the hell out of him, yes, but the reality is scary. We invite people into our homes who have no good intentions when we allow kids online. They need to understand that.

www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/12/07/us/video-games-child-sex-abuse.html

www.nytimes.com/2019/12/07/us/protect-children-online-sex-abuse.html

If they're old enough not to be scared by what happened to Brock Bednar, then they're old enough to be less vulnerable, too.

And grooming online isn't restricted to this sort of thing, either. Do you really know what your kid is looking at on Tumblr, or Youtube, or Reddit? What ideas they could be absorbing? Because as soon as they show an interest in something, more along similar lines are suggested. And that's how radicalisation can happen under parental noses, without their realising.

We had a similar talk/ workshop in my yr7 ‘s class last week and DS came out of visibly upset afterwards - there had been lots of talk about gangs / sexual abuse and stabbings. He’s now very reluctant to make the short walk home and I wish I hadn’t given my consent - I thought it would be framed more appropriately. It did seem very heavy handed a talk for an 11 year old especially as we dint live in a particularly dangerous area. I’m all for informing young people to keep them safe but if it’s done in such a way as to scare the living daylights out of them that’s wrong surely?

Sorry, I meant @DollyDaydream70 and the reference to the train film - thread moved fast!

By 11 he should have already have had some knowledge or at least in a child appropriate way have heard the term sexual abuse. In the same way as he has had some age appropriate knowledge around the facts of life.

By 11 I had been abused for over 3 years. The closest I had to being taught anything was not to take sweets from a stranger and the stranger danger video at school which meant I had no language or tools or knowledge to describe or even think to tell anyone. By the time I had the understanding it was far far too late!

If children are not taught they can't ever begin to understand how to protect themselves or recognise situations that are inappropriate or know how and have the language to tell someone.

All that being said I can't comment on this particular thing being shown in schools as I haven't watched it.

Ds sat & watched Three Girls with me last year, he is 15 now & I didn't force him to watch it. Afterwards he told me that there were pupils in his year & up to two years below who were sending nudes & chatting online to strangers & arranging meet ups. A girl who was a friend had been engaging in sending sexually explicit videos to men for money to fund her drug habit, ds & one of his friends had been trying to tell her parents who would not accept that their daughter was doing these things. I told him that we would go to his pastoral year manager together & speak to her, since we spoke to her the girl has been excluded after being caught in school on more than one occasion drinking alcohol & doing lines of cocaine in the toilets, she has been through rehab now & is in a pupil referral unit. Better that than being found dead or whatever else could have happened to her. Yes these films may be shocking, but they need to be, if they save one life then it is worth the shock of children viewing them.

I've heard the 999 call that Breck's murderer made before. It is exceptionally chilling how calm and cool he is. You don't forget something like that.

As an 11 year old hearing that it'd be deeply disturbing. I'm not sure if that's what social media obsessed kids need now though to get the message through.

It is those that are "too young" or naive that often are the ones effected by these issues. Worse is seen on the news which at that age they are not screened from but maybe don't pay attention to . It is the more naive that are gullible and often sucked into these things innocently that it has the most devastating effect on.

10 next month is a long way from yr 7 who are all 12 in the year and that is when the biggest changes happen in terms of independence and more seeing friends and freedom after school

The thing is, lots of parents lift restrictions when their children go to secondary school. They get their own phones so they’re safe walking to school alone.
They ‘need’ to be smartphones so they fit in with their peers.
Their peers might have different messaging apps like WhatsApp, Snapchat. They will want those apps too, to talk with their friends.
They get added to friend chat groups. There are a couple of names your child doesn’t recognise but they’re sure it’s a cousin of someone they don’t really talk to much but they’re in their maths class on Tuesdays so they figured it’s fine.
The cousin of the friend they only know in passing starts giving 😍heart eye emoji reactions to everything your child says. They start their own private chat...

Children need to know not everybody is the
person they say they are. Even people they do know in person might not be honest about everything they say online (I get £10 every week! when it’s only £5, anything’small’ like that).

Breck Bednar, the 14 year old from the video, was being groomed for over a year. That makes him only a tiny bit older than the year 7’s being shown the video.

Ds sat & watched Three Girls with me last year, he is 15 now & I didn't force him to watch it. Afterwards he told me that there were pupils in his year & up to two years below who were sending nudes & chatting online to strangers & arranging meet ups.

That is terrifying. I have two young boys and it's worrying enough thinking towards the teen years and them out with their mates etc. I don't know how I'd ever relax if I had a young teenage daughter on social media, going out etc.

Social media was a huge new thing when I was a young teen and in my angsty rebellious stage, I worried my parents sick a couple of times going out to meet people I'd met online. It was usually other girls my age from fan groups, meeting up and doing fan related stuff. I was so lucky the people I met were who they said they were and my age. I'm much older and wiser now and I'd never, ever do it again.

Here is an article of a mother who pretended to be an 11 year old girl online and it took no time at all for the vile male predators to come out.

I'm a 37 year old mom

@RantyAnty

Whoa. That article stopped me in my tracks. Absolutely horrifying, and I felt sick reading it. I've since forwarded it on to all the parents in my children's year WhatsApp groups as well as individual friends. That's an article that needs to be read by everybody.

Many years ago, when I was about 14 (and much younger looking), I was on my local common in a fairly secluded spot as it was a nice day and I just wanted to read my book in peace. I was approached by a friendly guy who sat down near me, who kept making conversation. He eventually asked if I minded if he sunbathed naked. I didn't know what to say, so just sort of mumbled whatever. A few minutes later he asked if I'd mind if he masturbated. When he started to, I just got up and left as I felt so uncomfortable. We hadn't watched any sexual predator videos at school, and I had no idea that this sort of thing, in broad daylight could happen. I wish I'd found a commons keeper and told them, but I'm guessing he relying on the seclusion of the common to not get caught. That was the 90s. I only hope he's since been locked up, but the truth is, these guys are out there and they just look and sound like regular people. The internet just made the world a lot smaller for them.

There have been a lot of people speaking out about explicit or shock tactic videos but schools still do. For example: www.pshe-association.org.uk/news/warning-against-using-breck’s-last-game

I’d be fucking livid if one of my kids were exposed to that in school. I’d make a formal complaint against that teacher and I’d withdraw your child from any other video footage shown at school at all. Explain to your child that this video was wrong and that the teacher should not have shown if you them. Jeezus if they are showing them stuff like that what else are they saying or doing that’s massively inappropriate ?? teacher clearly has not got a fucking clue what’s safe for children to witness! What a weirdo!

Extreme over reaction

I attended a briefing earlier this week. The charity presenting said they often get the response
'my child is too young/sensitive/doesn't have a smartphone/we have tight controls on our internet' etc
to which they reply
if they are withdrawn all that will happen is they get a 'year 7' version of the video content without the surrounding discussion from the adult in the classroom.
Also
your controls/child's lack of phone is only as protective as the child in their friendship group with a phone and the least oversight/parental control settings.