To speak to the school about this?

[Largethighsbadeyes]

DD is in year 6

She has been added to a watsapp group for her year group and I check her phone every so often which was a condition of her getting the phone.

Last week another boy in the class created a new group called "romance only"

His first message asked if anyone wanted to meet up after school and make out. All the other kids replied along the lines of "don't be weird"

He posted again about how he really wants a girlfriend and wanted to know what girls look for in a boy. When people again told him it was weird he said things along the lines of "come on baby girl"

A few days later he started posted tick tok videos. He posted 2 very similar ones which involved a heart monitor flatlining and the caption read "would you care if this happened to your friend"

So I have 2 concerns.

1. I don't think the original messages are appropriate for 10 year olds (but appreciate that I may be out of touch)

1. I found the tick tok videos worrying. Why the emphasis on death?

From what I know this boy is a nice lad, well behaved at school, not a trouble maker etc

I don't really know his mum so can't speak to her directly so my other option is speaking to the school.

What would you do, if anything?

@Ubiquery

It was enabling DD to stay in touch with her classmates for us. Her school did no class video calls during lockdown. With both DH and I working more than full time she had no other way to stay in touch with them. She lost her entire social network overnight and was really struggling.

That sounds really awful and isolating for your DD. I'm just not convinced that an adult app was the best solution for a child.

My DD who is the same age , uses my phone to video call her friend’s on their mum’s phones. Her closest friends don’t have their own phones either.

I'm a headteacher. Definitely talk to the school. Y6s mature at different rates, have strange ideas about what is funny, but don't fully understand what is and is not appropriate. Someone needs to have a chat with him and his parents. You'd want to know and intervene if your child was posting that.

This is very blatant and what sounds very odd to me is the "come on baby girl". I would wonder whether an older sibling has perhaps got their hands on the phone and decided to wind the little kids up.

But definitely, definitely talk to the school. It needs to stop before it goes any further and this is realistically the only mechanism you have to help achieve that.

@Ubiquery

She has been added to a watsapp group for her year group

Who did this and how did they get her number? I think primary is too young for phones.

This

My DD who is the same age , uses my phone to video call her friend’s on their mum’s phones. Her closest friends don’t have their own phones either.

Good for you. Mine was in use 24/7 dealing with the NHS response to a worldwide pandemic.

Have a biscuit.

I would tell the school. Our primary certainly dealt with some WhatsApp issues.

Isn’t their an age limit? Should they be on it in the first place?

Definitely tell the school. I wouldn’t expect to hear that anything has been done about it afterwards, but the relevant people will know, and they can decide what best to do with the information confidentially.

Yes, tell the school, and you don't have to be quiet about it - tell the other parents too.

Setting up a group for romance and making out and asking what girls want in a boy is a short leap to dick pics and asking for nudes.

Wanking on about age limits for WhatsApp is utterly missing the point. The kids already have a WA group, the genie is already out of the bottle. The problem now has to be minimising harm.

Definitely report this to the school, OP. Adults need to know whats going with that kid, and to assess whether he is a risk to himself or other children.

Speak to the school. Those messages were not written by a child.

Problem with social media, is that once seen you can't unsee it. So good to monitor messages, but if someone does send something totally inappropriate your DD will have seen it.

Straight to school it's definitely their business if the child needs safeguarding.

Can't believe people think that's not a good idea! Even if you knew the parents it would be better coming from school.

Yes to removing dd from the group and a strong chat about boundaries and screen shots.

Tell the school. They deal with these sorts of things all the time. Obviously parents have responsibilities too, but schools can only help or intervene if they know what is going on. They will have more information about the other children involved and will be able to make a more informed judgement than you can about the level of concern/seriousness where the boy is concerned. Deal with your DD as you see fit, but for the sake of the other kids, do report it and then you have done all you can. Don't get involved in discussions with other parents - no good can come of it!

Speak to the school.

By the way, my son has what's app. He's 10. He has only has two friends on it, the other people are myself, my DH and my DB. Can't see the harm !

You’re posting this on a thread where an adult is asking for advice about their child being on WhatsApp

WhatsApp has an age limit of 13 doesn't it? So inappropriate for there to be a pupil WhatsApp group in primary school..

Who set it up?? Presumably not the school!!

There's another messaging app called Signal that the family use to chat to our 10 year DGD as she's not allowed to be on WhatsApp.

I would definitely vote for informing the school too. I can see how a school might not want to get involved with messages between individual friends and he-said she-said. However this is different as it's a whole-class (or many-from-class) group and a child is posting inappropriate stuff on it.

But I'm not going to explain my parenting decisions to you or anyone else. It's not mychild who has been posting inappropriate messages. I would know if she did as I monitor her phone use.

But op your 'parenting decision' namely to allow your child acces to an 'adults only' app is the crux of tbe problem! I dont think it is a worry or a safeguarding issue that a y6 boy, who must be 11ish, is getting interested in sex and girls. It is wrong that he is posting these messages to 10 and 11 year old girls, but again they should not be on the app in tbe first place.

Is it optional to read the full thread these days?