To ask parents of DDs how you'd want this to be handled

[drelo2]

DS has just turned 15, he went over his friends house last night which he's done multiple times before and he's always been well behaved etc.

I had a message off the friends gf’s mum this morning saying the friend was asking her DD for nudes when the gf said no they made a group chat and kept asking and when she said no asking why she wouldn't, basically pestering her, apparently this was mainly the friend though. The friend did face time her and she did show them something but she told her mum it was to shut them up.

I'm furious with DS, I have spoken to him and hes blamed the friend for it and he asked if they could do something else and he said no, I obviously don't know if this is true and I suspect the friend will say the same about DS.

How would you want this to be handled?

He’s hardly Jimmy Saville is he?! I mean of course you need to explain to him why this is wrong but it’s hardly the distribution of child pornography ffs

Are you insane OP? Why on Earth would you throw yourself and your son to the wolves like this?

FFS Jimmy Saville wasn't born a predatory paedophile - it took years of practice enabled by a rape culture which minimised the experience of the victims and protected the males. Its the distribution of indecent images at the least and the coercion is child sex abuse.

As for nonsense about people who didn't grow up with the internet as if that makes it ok to normalise sexual abuse - that attitude, excusing and abdicating any responsibility for our children's behaviour is part of the problem.

I'm pleased to see that it's taught to this age group in your school, @Palmtree9 .

I wonder if it's been taught yet to OP's son's year group? If so, it hasn't been taken on board.

This is disgusting. It's more a reflection of society, but this is who your son will turn into if you don't come down like a ton of bricks on him. There are a LOT of guys out there like this and you clearly don't want to raise one. This is your chance not to.

I love this plus a personal apology to the girl and her parents. Show him she's a human

This above. Best advice so far.

He is as guilty as the friend. He did nothing to stop it. I would go ballistic and report it to the safeguarding teams of both schools naming all involved. All technology would be removed from my son for the foreseeable future and he would be marched round to the girls house for a stern lecture and to apologise to her and her parents. If they wished to report him then i would back them. He needs a seriously sharp shock so he fully understands the consequences and where his actions could have led and never shows such a lack of respect for a woman or anyone else again

Thats probably the last thing the poor girl needs.why would him turning up on her door step tp apologise help.

Op, you've pretty much answered your own question with the title of your thread. Ask the girl's mum!

I hope you're ok as I can imagine you feel embarrassed, angry but still have that urge to protect your son.

I'd try and speak to the girls mum, ask if she can send you screen shots, find out exactly what your ds did or didn't say. Find out if he/they have done this to the girl before. Let her know what punishment/steps you plan to put in place and see if she has anything to contribute. Be supportive of both her and her daughter.

You have a lot of very sensible replies on here, particularly from school safeguarding leads. Contact the school. They can perhaps offer advice on things you can do to help educate or empower your son not to be a bystander. It might become talk of the school and serve as a heads up that a lesson about consent and sexting is needed. We have a campus police officer in my school and I'm sure they'd happily put the fear of god into him if the girl and her mum hasn't contacted police.

No phone/basic brick phone for emergencies only. No access to social media/internet/x box. If needed for homework, then homework is done with you. Or you contact yeh school saying ds has no access to ict facilites at moment as a punishment for bad behaviour, can paper copies of work be provided if possible. A bit of humiliation wouldn't hurt.

I would also like to know what the other boys parents are saying/doing but that depends how well you know/respect them.

The only thing I don't necessarily agree with is the no football. It's letting the rest of the team down and your son has made a commitment to that team. I would be telling him I'll be at every game and training session and if I see you talking to that boy for anything other than shouting "pass" I will be marching straight on that pitch and marching him straight off. I would not hold back in embarrassing him on that front.

He does need punished but also needs support and education so he learns from this and it becomes a one off mistake and not the start of horrible behaviour.

Agree with a chat from a male your son respects.

If it was my 15 year old DD you'd be hard pushed not to have me dragging every little shitheel involved back to my farm and drowning them in the slurry tank. I'm absolutely frothing just thinking about it.

Motherly rage aside, your child is complicit in the gang sexual harassment of a minor. Do not take this lightly. You've had lots of good advice on this thread, the people telling you to go to the school etc are bang on. Also no phone, or at most an old camera-less brick for emergencies. I'd say for a good long while.

And he owes that girl a sincere apology, in letter form because she rightly might not want to see him in person. You need to make sure he understands what he's done wrong, not just give him the bollocking of a lifetime (but do that too).

Why do people think that this boy would have been able to stop his friend?

Why?

I am just wondering how, if this is established as happening as the girl said (she’ll have the messages), why OPs son is just as bad as the other boy, if it transpires he did in fact try to do something else and therefore did try to stop him.

He’s been called a nonce, rapey, someone wants to drown him in a slurry tank.

Fuck me - this is a bit OTT tbh

And I am in no way making light of what happened to her, not one bit.

But this kind of vigilante style approach and language is exactly why we have laws in place to deal with minors that do things like this.

This. Or I would do it for you.

Yes, yes, kick the rapey twats to death why don’t you!

FFS.

Jesus Christ.

What does ‘rapey’ even mean?

You do a real disservice to those who have actually been raped by diluting the meaning of the word like this.

Nobody has raped anybody.

The word you’re looking for is ‘coercive’

Thank god counsellors, police and people dealing with these children that do this are a lot more measured.

He needs to lose his phone and speak to a professional.

It means that these boys acted in a pack to force a teenager girl to something sexual that she very clearly said no to.

I have been raped and it’s not diluting it at all - it’s a fact most men don’t just rape, they’ll have started with shit like this. They start small and escalate.

As a rape survivor I disagree that it does a disservice.

Rapey means an action or attitude that is conducive to committing or normalizing sexual abuse by ignoring or trying to get around the requirement for enthusiastic consent. It’s a part of calling out rape culture - something the police, god and counselors aren’t very good at.

I have one son and two daughters, I would be sick to my stomach if this happened with my son.
It sounds like he is hiding behind the friend excuse, in reality he could have stopped it at any time. He could have messaged you, he could have told friends mum, he could have said how awful it was and left, but he didn’t.

Personally I would come down harder than a tonne of bricks. I’d phone the school first thing in the morning, and I would phone our local police. There would be no more phone, no more friends out of school and definitely no more contact with women without me or his father present because he obviously has no concept of how to behave.

I would expect a full, in person, apology to this girl as well - but only if she feels comfortable with this, otherwise a written letter.

In a few short years, fuelled by alcohol, this sort of behaviour could escalate to even worse sexual crimes, and it most definitely was a crime they committed. If the GFs parents decided to take this matter to the police they could be made to sign the sexual offenders list, does he have any idea of this?

Though make it clear to him that any consequence he would receive would have nothing on the consequences this girl will face. The effect on her mental health, her trust in men and having to spend countless nights replaying this in her mind are absolutely awful and he should be ashamed to have had any part in it, I would let him face the real world consequences now, if he felt mature enough to be involved then he should be mature enough to deal with it.

I'm also so sorry you’re dealing with this, I know we raise our children to be the best they can be and I imagine this has been awful for you as well.

Interesting that the two above definitions of rapey here are indeed quite different from each other, and are indepdent views of rape survivors.

So as someone who was also raped (I was 19) and like so many other women (globally) have been sexually assaulted and harassed multiple times, I completely disagree with its use here and don’t think that the word is fitting at all.

OP, do yourself a favour and ask to see the chat if you can. It’s been deleted because the boys behaviour is vile, and they know it. But I think obtaining clarity is in order and if he is to speak to a professional about this (and he needs to), his role is this needs to be clear.

For that poor girls sake, I hope he hasn’t distributed that image any further.

So there you have it from the wise old sages of MN. Your 15 year old child is a rapey predatory bastard who needs stringing up. Bet you're pleased you asked now 😉

Also a nonce and should be drowned in a septic tank to don’t forget.

All parties in this are minors.

To
The pp's saying "he's a child" lots of rapists were children. The killers of jamie burger were children. Lots of sexual deviants are children.

Now I'm not saying this is true of the OP son, but saying "he's a child" is peurile.

This ^

OP doesn't need to see the chat. Poor girl has had enough people looking at it.

Why is pointing out that someone is a child, in the same way people have said the girl is a child (she is and so is he) puerile?

We have one of the lowest ages of criminal responsibility in the world and teenage brains are not comparable to that of an adult.

So whilst what he did was wrong, objectively speaking he is a child, and it’s worth mentioning that for the people who have described launching deadly assaults against him and compared him to a rapist.

It is not defending what he did - but some of the suggested punishments here and the language are absolutely appallling.

If she is, as many have said she should, to take her son to a police station, hand him in and watch the book thrown at him, yes she does!

That would be considered due process.

He has been accused of this - fair enough.

But it’s not unreasonable to actually see what he has done before dealing with it in terms of law enforcement intervention.