To be thankful I dont have a teenager (olly stephens)

[dottypotter]

metro.co.uk/2022/06/21/olly-stephens-girl-who-lured-teen-to-death-said-im-so-excited-16865296/

This is scary, do those of you with teenagers worry about social media? Glad I dont have to worry. Despicable that the social media companies arent doing more to protect people? Parents are also paying for phones and have no idea whats going on?

How do you deal with all this? Do you think the age should also be raised to use it?

Whilst this is very sad, the blaming of SM and particularly Snapchat seems unfair. These boys planned it meticulously. Snapchat is aged 13 and he was actually 13.

Contact Child Exploitation Online for decent info to protect and report

www.ceop.police.uk/safety-centre/

It is a specialist agency of the police. Advice for parents and kids.

The problem with banning social media, is that it’s the main way teens are in touch. If all their friends are on Snapchat, then they’ll be left out if they don’t have it. Just like as an adult, I’d rather not have WhatsApp, but if I want to be involved in some family group chats, I have to have it. Banning them from the main way their friends communicate isn’t likely to seem reasonable to a teen, so they’ll probably find the easiest way to get around the ban.

Banning is also a blunt tool. Teens are savvy. If an app is banned, they could get a secret phone, find a way to hide the app from parents, use it at a friends house, use it in browser on private mode… Phone inspections wouldn’t pick any of this up, and teens are less likely to share with their parents if they’re in a bad situation, as they won’t want to get in trouble for being on the app in the first place.

I think the best way to handle teens and social media is education and building a trust where they feel that they can speak to you candidly without fear of your reaction if they get in trouble. Teenagers are only as safe as their least protected friend.

The title is in poor taste and the issue is much more complex than not giving children social media access. If they wont find it on social media they will just google things their friends are doing/talking about. We could legislate but to what end? A whole industry will mushroom offering kids secret social media access for say, selling drugs. Yes social media has a lot to answer for but so does patriarchy and misogyny. The thing is Olly's murderers and almost all of the young people who have stabbed others do so out of feeling "disrespected", wanting to show off to a girl or to friends, wanting to rise to the top of some (idiotic) hierarchy. Unless the patriarchy and misogyny that underpins these feelings and behaviours is addressed, things will not get much better. Social media does amplify those feelings. As someone said: for the first time in history of mankind we have the ability to embarrass/humiliate someone (or feel humiliated) before millions. For kids that source of humiliation is so petty (to us) but feels like their whole world is destroyed. SM companies will tell you they already have age limits and constantly take off harmful content. And there will be other young people that use social media beneficially and will tell you if it wasn't for that they would be dead. Is so hard. I just have sympathy for Olly's family and friends. And even a tiny bit for the parents of the murderers. I haven't yet seen that they were terrible parents. They will now live with the knowledge their once cuddly babies are murderers. They will live with judgement from people. But its Olly's parents (and parents of many other stabbed/murdered children) that have lost the most

That's so terribly sad. I wasn't aware of the incident or that Panorama looked into it.

The thing that jumped out at me is this comment in that article:
"In response to Panorama’s investigation, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube and Tikok insisted there were strict policies in place to protect young people from bullying and harmful content."

While many thousands of young people don't get attacked, many do and I would push these platforms to show us their 'strict policies', be open, be upfront about them. Not in an effort to drive them underground but in an effort to stop them offending in the first place or stop them having access to these platforms in the future. Nobody needs to be on these platforms, people have survived without them for decades and decades. Just as people who are convicted of causing death by dangerous driving get their license taken away, these should not be allowed own a smart device.

I just read the article, that is horrendously sad. Poor boy

so awful

the dc don’t have various SM accounts (just WhatsApp friends’ groups) but I’m really saddened by that story

I don't think it's just social media we should be pointing the finger at. Kids are playing extremely violent video games from a very young age. Films and general entertainment have no respect for moral values or feeling of right and wrong. The desensitizing of violence happens way before social media comes into play.
More and more parents are called overprotective when they refuse their kids to engage with this, often end up being left in an impossible position when, for most boys, online violent games are the main source of socialising.
It is sadly only going to get worse.

But what do you want Facebook to do? If they ask for ID, what if there’s a cyber attack and those ID pictures and information on them fall into the wrong hands?? this is obviously a very tragic case, but parents need to make sure they know what SM their kids have access too and that their children are educated in the risks and dangers of it

Yes actually I agree with you - well said

Obviously it is a horrible incident. But a rare one. And not a reason to be glad you don't have teenagers!

This is the most bizarre reason I’ve heard for not having children. Bit gross

stop blaming social media and blame the absolute scrotes that committed the crime.

5years and 12 and 13 years

This was premeditated murder

Lock them away until they are dead themselves or just so old they aren’t a danger to any one.

Olly had at least another 70 years of his life to live. Let the punishment fit the crime. At least 70 years each to be served

I am absolutely shocked that they can get away with murder.

At the most they will be out in a 6 years and have their whole life to look forward to

Youd think Mark Zuckerberg would care about children etc wouldnt you?

In a word, no.

Why on earth would schools foster it?! Social media is the single biggest cause of bullying in schools at the moment (I work in education). Of course they’re trying to tackle it! But schools aren’t, and shouldn’t be, solely responsible - kids spend a lot more time out of school than in it.

Sorry to have missed the point of the thread.

I have now adult children who grew up with SM and when they were early teens I never banned them from using SM but I did check their phones daily.

Anything amiss and I was on to it.

In most cases it is the other parents who are not parenting. In one particular case in ds’s school the parent joined in with the bullying and didn’t think they had done anything wrong.

If your Ds is sending bullying videos out. How stupid do you have to be to allow yourself to be filmed joining in with the bullying.

The problem is that if for any reason you miss a night things can blow up very quickly.

OP you keep referencing FB. no one under the age of about 40 uses FB???

There is no failsafe way for parents or the companies to police tiktok/snapchat/insta etc.

Sounds like the references to 'killing' and 'murdering' should have been flagged so no doubt they will tighten up on that but then the kids will just use other words.

all we can do is to keep open channels of communication with our kids? But in this situation if your kid was Olly there was nothing you could do.

Banning kids from having phones/trying to implement minimum ages for social media platforms - just not realistic or doable IMO

This is part of the problem. Parents need to understand the tech their kids are using. When mine got SnapChat, WhatsApp, Messenger, Insta etc etc, I made it my business to understand how these apps all worked. So I could access them on my child's phone if I needed too.

Some kids are happy to explain / teach parents, or ask other parents. I have always communicated with my teens on whichever platform they are currently using, if not just to get an answer from them.

Come on parents, there is barely anything else in life so potentially dangerous, that we let our kids do without us having a clue what it is.

FWIW re TikTok I think that is based solely on what you view.

Mine is cat and husky videos as well as diy and storage ideas.
Nothing that could be considered horrible or risqué

Excuse me?! Fostering it? What on Earth do you mean?

Christ, schools are responsible for everything it seems. The question is : what are parents doing? School do A LOT - pastoral care lessons, assemblies, community police officer teaching programmes etc. But the real problem is violence and its prevalence across society. Thus it has always been. Solve that and you solve most things.

A pupil at our school was involved in gang violence that started via a WhatsApp group. A young boy from the rival gang was killed, our pupil was so badly beaten we thought he wouldn't make it and has been in hospital over 6 months. The community response? Reciprocal violence.

I'm not sure of the answer, but funding to help parents parent well in such communities is a damn good place to start - starting at the ante-natal and pre-natal stage. By the time they reach us at age 11-12 lots of the damage is done.

I have 2 teen DS (and a pre-teen) and live in a big city. We parent responsibly - clear boundaries/ open communication/ know their friends/ movements- but many, many parents don't/ can't/ won't.

For those saying “ this is rare” you really don’t know what’s going on out there it’s beyond scary. It’s on the increase. My teen has horrified me by telling me that so many kids he knows (not his friends btw before I get jumped on) of carry knives nowadays (we live in a very middle class city). After a terrible experience of bullying to my son last year, which resulted in court action, and where knives were used as part of the threats, I urge you to open your eyes and check what’s going on with your kids and their social media as this is a very real threat.

DS is 11 and is getting more independent and asked for a phone. He will be getting one to make calls and text message only - no net access. I do worry I’m being too stringent, but I agree his life will be safer without access to a smartphone.

Zuckerberg cares about nothing but profit and power.

I said I'm glad I don't have teenagers today it is a worry.

When parents first bought their child a phone it was to keep in touch with by phone nowadays they aren't phones they are mini computers and children and teens have access to alot of nasty stuff.

Exactly it was on BBC News today too how much time we are all spending online. Some adults said they were going back to basic phones.

Hasn't he got one of his own?