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?

This

But as the mum of a 15yo DD I would want to beat the little rapey bustards!

*bastards!

I don't post very often.
You seem to be really down playing this and have received great advice
He has committed a criminal offence by his actions of being involved in the making of and potential distribution of indecent images of a child ((regardless of if he was the instigator)
At 15 the school will have covered this in detail, he knew it was wrong, he has deleted the evidence
He will be very very lucky indeed if her parents do not go to the police, I would.
If he gets away with it you need to snap out of it and sort him out with some real consequences- no football!! No smart phone reduced Wi-Fi access no social life
And a major education program which is YOUR responsibility to ensure he knows the reason he feels bad now is not because he has been caught but the harm he has caused that young woman and the impact on her.
She doesn't want to see him for an apology!!! I would not want to have to be in the same room as someone who has done that to me get real it shows you have no understanding AT ALL of the impact of this behaviour

Op I’m so sorry. Nobody wants to learn this about their son. I agree that he needs to know legal and moral and practical consequences. It’s good you give him hell and also talk about bullying and harassing more generally. His dad needs to speak up - he needs to hear it from him. Also heartily agree that an apology just puts further pressure on the girl and signals an apology makes anything ok. I hope the girl has good support and help with the ability to say no and walk away. Makes me so mad in 2022 my young daughter will need to grow up thinking of her safety.

Is OP going to update us on how she did decide to handle this after everyone gave their advice? My guess is no, or she chose to "have a chat with her ds" and take it no matter this ignoring all the outrage on here from mother's of dds.

If I was his dad I'd make sure he was in no doubt about the criminal offence he'd committed.

Oh grow up. They are 15! I am not excusing anything , it is totally wrong and dangerous but your "solution solves nor improves nothing!

Spot on. And I would add, parents of the boys working together on the problem and also ensuring apologies etc given to the girl

OP you need a proper grip on technology!
& a good look at you sons phone. & perhaps also see the messages on someone else’s phone.

I can’t work out how many people (and girl:boy ratio) the group chat involves, but I’d be seeking to have them all (or participants) in one room, with their parents and discuss significance and implications to all.

perhaps also involving schools (school safeguarding can decide if the police need to be involved too & make the appropriate contact).

hopefully the sheer embarrassment of the meeting will prevent anything like it happening again.

I will caveat and say thank goodness smartphones weren’t around when I was 15! (I sound so old!). Being a teenager is all about exploring and learning about life and each other.
Im also reasonably confident even some time on there are Polaroids and 35mm photos/negatives kicking around from my friends that would be inappropriate and p*ssed me off at the time!!! Key difference was we were all in the SAME ROOM and these days they aren’t necessarily. (& there in lies the problem with consent)

they ALL need a big lesson in understanding and respect. But also remember curiosity is normal but needs to happen with respect.

‘Slap him round the head, remove his phone, remove any other privileges then sit him down and have a serious talk about respect, consent, the legalities of sharing nudes’

this. I would give him consequences- no going out for a couple of weeks. I wouldn’t care who started what, they are all complicit and they will deny and blame others. My DS would.
I assume the mum of the DD has told school- they’re in a place to talk to the kids about this in general.
Inhave a DD and a DS and this kind of thing is harmful to both of them.

Go through his phone properly NOW incl all Photos.
ye sits tedious, yes they talk some shite to each other but patiently go through and check for rape jokes, gifs, porn gifs etc…
unfortunately I think you will find some content that the boys are sharing that isn’t good at all but this way you can see how much your DS instigates or responds to it

Punishing won't work on this occasion, the subject needs to be tackled at source. My own child, I'd sit down and ask why he feels that treating another person, regardless of gender, with such disrespect is OK. I'd emphasise how disappointed I was that he thinks it's OK to request nudes without consent, and that it's unacceptable. He needs to change his mindset or I'd worry about his future relationships.

I’d treat it with the seriousness it deserves. Both he & his friend have viewed child pornography. If the GF’s mum decided to report them they would both be arrested & could end up on the sex offenders register, all for a photo. That’s how serious it could go. If that photo gets sent to anyone else even more serious.

if it was my son his phone would be gone. I’d be making sure that the internet child locks at home we’re bullet proof so he can access anything inappropriate for his age. Then we’d be having a sit down chat about consent & showing respect to woman. He needs to know what they did was wrong & you are disgusted by it. He also needs to learn to put a stop to it if he sees his mate behaving that way

the police wouldn’t do anything? Untrue. Both boys would be arrested for viewing & (if they shared it) the distribution of child pornography. Both boys could end up on the sex offenders register, the girl included for taking any pics of herself

the police wouldn’t do anything? Untrue. Both boys would be arrested for viewing & (if they shared it) the distribution of child pornography. Both boys could end up on the sex offenders register, the girl included for taking any pics of herself

the girl is the victim here ffs. She was coerced, and is unlikely to be treated in any way other than as a victim.

the boys are underage. The chances of it being taken any further than some serious words of advice are slim. The police get hundreds of these cases and don’t put kids on the SOR if they can avoid it. More likely a multi agency referral- social services, school, police working together to prevent any escalation.

When this happened in my sons year group at the same age, they went through every boys phone at school. They had two categories. One for who had the images saved and one for who forwarded it as well, the second being the more serious. My son didn’t have the photos and when the boy started showing people he walked away. I was furious that he didn’t tell someone. The idiot explained to me and the school that we are all adults and us viewing the images was a crime. We all stared at him for about a minute before asking how he thought these things got to the police and how those adults viewed the images. That there wasn’t a special license that involved the police being allowed to for work, that half the time they were aware of it because SCHOOLS and PARENTS bring the cases to them. They don’t wake up with an alert on an app that something illegal happened.
There were no school consequences for him and they were satisfied that he had walked away the minute the boy said he had them but I expect more from my sons. He had extreme talks and documentaries shown him. To me his walking away was being complicit, he saw it as refusing to allow the boy an audience. I wasn’t happy with his solution.

How would you want this to be handled?

Really, really bloody seriously OP, that's how I'd want it handled.

He’s not taking it seriously. It’s hard for them to get the impact of this kind of thing, so I would find a way to make it real for him.

I just had that talk with my 11 year old.
They have a class group chat and a couple of the boys were saying derogatory things about one of the girls in the chat.
My son knows I check his phone, so I saw what was being said but asked why he hadn't told them to pack it on or why he hadn't come to show me.
He thought that by not getting involved, he was doing all he needed to. Extrapolate that out and he isnt going to be part of stopping his friends from doing the photo things when they get older.

So we had that chat. If boys dont make their friends realise that they'll be ostracized for doing this stuff then they wont stop. They dont care about getting in trouble, they dont care about upsetting the girls. They're needs to be a shift in attitude amongst boys and men. They need to be the ones telling other boys and men how disgusting they are and they need to stop being silent when their friends do it.

Stop scaremongering. The police will not punish the girl in this scenario. She is the victim.

He would not be going to football. And I would expect the school to separate the boys, even if that means your DS is in isolation. I'd ask the school safeguarding team for advice.

I'm sure you have an embarrassing photo of your DS. I would ask him how he would feel if you sent to everyone in his school?

He'd be read the riot act and and the girl's school would also be informed.

He was taken part in a serious crime. It is irrelevant what the other boy said, DS was part of that.

I'd even consider changing schools. I know that sounds drastic and I know this happens in other schools but it lets him know how serious this is.

He is risking his future and he has behaved appaulingly.

As someone who has worked in both changing legislation/education and directly with young people around the issues of consent and internet use, I’d say (with the greatest respect) that a lot of these messages telling you to directly condemn your son are (understandably: it’s emotive) a bit reactionary and ill thought through.

You want your child to have complete trust in you and to come with you around all these kinds of issues, if you just tell him off without contextualising it you’re effectively closing the door. Despite being 15, he is still a child and there may be lots of things at play here: friendships, power struggles, lack of understanding about consent and so on.

I would calmly sit down with your child & your partner (if there is one) and speak directly about consent, friendships, peer pressure, respect, the law, safe Internet use and so on. If you just get cross, take his phone etc that isn’t going to help him, or help keeping an open dialogue for the future.

This is an opportunity to have an open and frank conversation about all these things- not merely condemn him. It needs to be made clear that this is considered child pornography and it’s against the law, and to make him truly understand how this made the gf feel. Thinking about the repercussions of his actions (and inactions) and how him being a passive bystander / not being an ally have had such terrible consequences for her.

It’s hard to ascertain what went on without seeing the actual “chat” so I would take your son’s phone and contact the other male child’s parent and get them to do the same. Then look through the messages so you can get a better picture of what happened. Would the other boy (the bf) parents be open to discussing it with you do you think? Are they approachable? As it sounds like they really need to up their game in terms of educating their child around safe, consensual and appropriate relationships, esp if he is in a relationship. I’ve posted some resources below which you could share with them.

Your post suggests you have spoken to the gf parents, and that the gf directly told them that it was the bf and not ds. Irrespective, your son should have been an ally and you should speak to him about stepping up to protect others who are in a vulnerable position. This is across all walks of life, not just this particular instance.

I would also get your son to make a face to face apology (with her parents and you as chaperones) where he should outline that he knows what he did was illegal, wrong, threatening and frightening for her and stating that he will stand up for her and shut it down if it ever happens again.

It’s not really useful to just close down and shame a child without putting in place the emotional and educational infrastructure to make them understand what they did, why it was wrong and how to manage this situation going forwards. I’m not taking away from the fact that the gf is the victim here and she should be apologised to and both male children severely punished, but there are ways to go about this.

You might find it useful to look at resources from the below. I would also share these with the parent of the gf as it has help on how to speak to your child if they have been on the receiving end.

NSPCC - www.nspcc.org.uk/keeping-children-safe/sex-relationships/sexual-behaviour-children/

Internet Matters - www.nspcc.org.uk/keeping-children-safe/sex-relationships/sexual-behaviour-children/

**this link (below) has a direct section on sexting and on what to do if your child is the perpetrator :

www.internetmatters.org/issues/sexting/dealing-with-sexting/

He needs to understand what the repercussions of being on the child sex offenders register would be. And having a criminal record. It’s really that serious.
I’m so sorry you’re going through this as a mum.

And yes, to parrot what the other person said who is a Safeguarding Lead in a school- I would absolutely let the school know about this. They will be able to speak to the three children and should have someone trained to do this (probably their safeguarding lead).

They should also do some serious work and sessions around sexting/consent/internet use/safe and healthy relationships. Too often this is a “tack on” in PSHE and it doesn’t get the dedicated time it needs. It’s so so important these days, life is markedly different to when we were kids; these kids live for their peers and they are in this generationally unique position of having all this very addictive technology at their fingertips 24/7. They are never off it, it’s their lifeline and schools must help towards keeping them safe on it- and not to is simply neglectful.

The school should use this as an opportunity to get someone external in to discuss these things. Most of the large Children’s charities have people who can come into school to do workshops on safe internet use, consent and relationships and so on. I’d be asking them to do that. Can almost guarantee this isn’t the only time this has happened in his school year.

I do maintain though that this is two issues that are inseparable: internet use/criminal aspect and the consent/safe relationships aspect. You can’t do one without the other, so simply getting a police officer in to bang on about it being a crime isn’t useful without also bolstering them with the emotional knowledge of how to conduct themselves and why.