Children growing up too fast!!

[Highflow]

My son is in year 7, soon to be 12 years old.
Went to a small village school, quite a nice area, nice friends.
Since becoming a parent I’ve thought children grow up too quickly, so intentionally I have tried to keep his innocence. In the things he watches, or plays on the PS5, not having a phone till secondary (and still keeping tabs on it) etc.

Now he is at secondary it’s opened his eyes as well as mine!! From checking his phone, the group chat that he is in with his whole form is awful!
The swear words used by 11 year old children, think the worst word ever, the sexual element of the chat is gross, insinuating oral sex, who is dating who.
Videos uploaded of fights on buses. Gifs of animals humping each other. Pictures of them out round the town with clearly no parents.

Im alternating between removing him from the chat, or keeping it so I can keep an eye on what he is being exposed to at school anyway with these new friends.
I know my son isn’t keen on this new world by the fact he is still choosing to be friends with his primary school friends (who are different schools) via playing online and at the weekend.

Am I a prude, is this the reality now? How do you naviagate this at such a young age. They are still such young children. I worry now for my daughter starting secondary in a couple of years.

To be fair it has always in my experience been this way. Just with the Internet they have easier access to such things.

I am in my 40s now but when I went to secondary school from a lovely village primary there was swearing, sexual talk, dirty magazines being passed around. I was recently reminded from a thread about chat rooms how my friends and I used to have the most disgusting sexual chats with what were probably grown men in chat rooms so we could laugh at them.

Also I couldn't get worked up about 11 year olds being in town with no parents. Thats normal isn't it?

Yep, it's reality now. I have a 16yo and you just have to navigate it as best you can.

12 year olds being out without parents is absolutely fine and normal though!

I really don't like the idea of group chats like that. Thankfully, neither does DD (also year 7) so she removes herself instantly from any that she's added to.

I do agree that kids were probably talking about sex and swearing etc in the playground when I was that age. It was easier not to get involved then though, as in you could just walk away.

Realistically, though I don't know what you can do about it. I'm just lucky - sort of - that DD is very sensible and keeps to just a couple of close friends phone wise and in person (she's Autistic)

Completely normal, and was normal in the 1970s when I was that age.

Obviously we didn’t have group chats but the language was the same, and we used to “pass notes”

He could always leave the group chats if he doesnt like it or not read the messages. My son is in several group chats but when I look at his phone he has 100s of unread messages in them because he never bothers with them.

The difference is that they now have phones, and I wish they didn’t!

it’s hit me pretty hard with my older two kids- now in years 7 and 9.

Depressing isn't it. My ds doesn't carry a phone at school. He said people just use them for bullying and sending dicpics, and he wasn't interested. He was 13 at the time.

Then the school introduced a system of Faraday pouches at school. All phones must be locked in a pouch on arrival and passed to reception. Collected & unlocked at 4pm. Any phone found during school hours will result in confiscation & detention. It's solved a lot of issues. Happier children. Less disruption.

Yep, I really wish they didn’t have phones. DS says there are a couple of kids in the school with the old Nokias. Good on those parents I say, I wish I had their strength not to give in to peer pressure and pressure from the children

When ds was in year 7 I also monitored his phone carefully, there was a bit of swearing but no more than that. He took himself off the year group chat and had a smaller group chat for his close friends. I remember one video of a fight he was sent - I forwarded it to the deputy head!

Ds didn’t even have a console at that age, he played on our PC or the IPad in the lounge where we could see him.

Going into town with his mates didn’t start till year 9. He’s year 10 now and a sensible, confident young man.

Yes lots of his year group seemed to do all those things a lot younger than him, it hasn’t held ds back in any way.

The console is in the lounge so we can see and hear who he is talking to.

Im surprised at pp saying it’s normal for year 7’s to be out on their own. DS will go over the street to a friend and kick a football on the field literally next to our house.
other than that, we go out together everywhere, I wouldn’t dream of letting him go out to the town at this age.

It's always a been like this. It's just digital now.

What you need to do is teach him how to navigate it safely. When and how to get help and support. Keep the trust going so that he talks to you.

Banning him etc won't do that. It will displace the problem and teach him to hide things from you.

Out of interest why wouldn't you let a 12 year old go to town with their friends?

To add. I don't have an issue with my high school children going into town. I let my P7 go too with her friends.

You're the unusual one in that scenario though. How will they ever learn independence if you don't let them go out alone at 12?

It depends on the company they keep. There are always kids who don’t do this stuff. My kids were at the ‘innocent’ end of the spectrum. Which is also not without its challenges.

In some ways kids are also over protected and have fewer freedoms to wander round, stay out etc than ever before. It’s a weird dichotomy.

In the 90s, (and no doubt every other decade) moving to secondary was a quick "upgrade" in worldly awareness, vocabulary and general smuttiness.

The accessibility of uncensored content to fill that appetite has changed though and is grim and damaging.

My (autistic) y8 doesn't engage with any of it, and has little interest in any social contact. He had friends at primary school, and I do wonder if this kind of crap is a layer of anxiety putting up a barrier to wanting to connect with peers.

My y6 recently got a phone (one of the last in the class). It was partly the logistics of a phone becoming avaliable, but also the reality of what's ahead and wanting him to have a couple of terms experience in the more closed, managable world of primary. There's already been some "friendship" issues and he was on a "class group chat" 3 hours before the class idiot shared an Andrew Tate link. It didn't take long before class idiot had him removed from the group which was a blessing in disguise.

YANBU that phones are an issue, but children always grow up fast from y7, and there's a balance to be had in gradually bridging them from being children to adults and guiding an increase in independence, and not letting them be feral or stiffling them in cotton wool.

Rather they were out with friends in real life than on line. I was going into town with friends in year 7 and I’m nearly 50!

Let him grow up OP.

I was kept 'young', it did me no favours because I didn't learn how to deal with situations when others were. So it all came as a bit of a shock.

Of course he’ll learn independence, but this is my whole point, what is the rush. They are still children. Let them be. Don’t let them worry about how to deal with a drunk in the town sat outside in a bench asking a couple of young kids in their own for some money. Don’t let them worry about a gang of 17 year olds in the bowling alley telling them to give over money or they’ll pull a knife.
Am I really the unusual one to not want him to go through that at such a young age?

Perfectly normal for secondary school age kids to go to school town without parents. It's definitely worse with the internet and phones. I was born in 1950. We played kids chase at primary school, passed notes. When I was 8 a boy told me a poem, which basically explained sex, I asked my DM (late) if that's what people did, poor woman almost passed out! She had told me about periods thankfully, I started mine at 11, just left the primary school. My late gran had womans weekly. I used to read it. I remember reading about women having a VERGING, (yes deliberate spelling) but I had no idea where it was!!!

Yes you are the unusual one. The responses on this thread are all telling you that.

I typed KISS CHASE, phone was obviously offended. My parents were like this with me. Only child syndrome, wasn't allowed to have a bike, wrapped in cotton wool.

It might be better, at this stage, to teach him about online safety, social media and wider and legal implications of posting stuff.
Also, he must understand that everything he ever posts online or through chat groups, will have an indefinite presence online that could easily resurface when he will be a grownup. And there will be no way of removing that content. It could affect his job/family/livelihood.
He needs to learn how to be safe and how to stay out if trouble. He also needs to feel that someone will always be there to help if he is worried, scared, overwhelmed etc (school, you, a friend, a family member etc; someone who he can trust and feel comfortable sharing a problem with and this might not be yourself!)
The only way to do it, is by letter him have (monitored) access to these chats groups and to whatever else kids use these days.
I do wish online life was clean, but, sadly, it isn't.

Well I would say 12 js a good age to learn to be able to spot a drunk at 100 paces and cross the road to avoid tbem. What would he do if he encountered a drunk on the way to/from school.

As for having a knife drawn on them in a bowling alley how likely is that to actually happen?

My sons have been going to town/bike rides/parks/football fields since 11 and have never had a knife drawn on them and we live in a deprived area. The key to not getting into a dangerous situation is learning how to avoid it and this comes with experience.

Both have happened in our town, to children at his school (from emails from head) which is why I chose those 2 examples