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.

DS was getting the school bus from age 9 though. He can choose to sit away from troublemakers, the back should fill up first anyway.

No you aren’t unusual, not in my circle anyway. You are right, we need to assess whether our kids are ready to deal with the type of scenarios you describe, and whether we want to expose them to that shit at 12. It will be different for everyone, I knew I wanted mine to be a bit more mature before they had to handle it. It worked out fine.

Depends what time it is. I was driving home from work at 1am today and saw two separate groups of young looking teens (around 14/15 I’d say). I don’t live in a town, just a small suburb with a few pubs/hairdressers/takeaways - all closed at that time. What the hell were they doing? Why weren’t their parents bothered?

I'm a bit surprised at some of the posts on here.
Yes moving to secondary was a big culture shock, and it was a completely different landscape in terms of sexuality.

I went to a large Co-Ed comp (lived in a grammar school area so we were the 'failures') I saw a bit of drug taking/dealing, there was smoking of course, a couple of teenage pregnancies, talk of pervert teachers and I got grabbed/touched up almost every day (hope that's bloody changed) my school was not squeaky clean. But I didn't get porn relentlessly shoved down my throat (pardon the expression) 24 hours a day from my peers via Snapchat.

I don't think some people realise how damaging and horrific some of those images are. I'm not a prude at all, and hopefully some things have changed become better since my day (me too etc) but porn is so damaging for boys and girls.

Just because they are at secondary school why is this suddenly acceptable in Sept when it wasn't in August? Yes as they get older and move up the years then of course sex is on all the kids minds all the time. But it shouldn't be based on what they have seen in porn daily/hourly.
They should be navigating this without porn being the most influential/dominant messaging they are getting.

About going to town alone in year 7, I didn't and probably wasn't allowed until I was 14 if I remember correctly. My parents where definitely on the stricter side (don't worry, I still had lots of fun and got into lots of trouble) but I wasn't unusual in that. I did all the usual things of drugs/drink/sex underaged, but when I wanted to. I went off to Uni the other side of the country and lived on my own (initially not able to speak the language) abroad after that. It didn't make me scared of the world because my Mum wouldn't let me go on the bus shop-lifting with my mates every Saturday when I was 12.

Kids don't always know what's good for them, they do benefit from safe respectful boundaries.
Raise your kids how they need to be raised, they still need support and protection, it's not a race to the bottom.

So well said.
Another one in our very small group on this thread who feels the same.

Go with your instinct OP. My ds has only just started going into town on his own and he's 15. I would have allowed it sooner but he wasn't interested. I've let him set his own pace and he's calm, confident and sensible as a result.

I still drive him to the school bus - 7 miles so too far to walk.

He gets on with the other boys in class but says I'd be appalled at some of the stuff that does the rounds. He leaves his phone at home unless he specifically needs it for a trip, so avoiding the imagery that gets circulated. I'm pleased that he feels able to make those decisions for himself.

I don't think you're the strange one OP. I was forced to grow up too fast by my peers at that age. It did me no good at all.
I'm much more protective of my DCs. Just leaving them to navigate the world, which they are too immature to deal with, in the name of independence isn't wise. I kept my children young for as long as possible.
My eldest is 18 now and is very capable, healthy, happy and independent. My other teen and tween are thriving too. They are family, not peer orientated. Parents and responsible adults are who should be shaping young minds. Peers are for having fun with. They shouldn't be the ones instilling morals and values. Which is what is happening when teens and tweens spend most of their time together offline and online.

And we wonder why teens are struggling with their mental health, why school attendance is so low, why bullying is rife…

The damage that parents are letting happen.

I'm with you re town OP, my daughter is only 7 so i'm ok for a few years, but given it's a bus from our village to town she won't be going until maybe 14, couldn't care less what others think/do.
Makes me bloody nervous reading about the texts though! I'm 38 and it's not something i ever had to deal with in school.

My Y7 walks down into the local town centre without adult supervision - it's a 10 minute walk, on a single road and her idea of the place it's "at" is the local bloody Tesco anyway! Because of distance and the way the local buses don't link up - she can't easily walk to school or get the bus (we let her walk to the local park after school with her friends and pick her up there) so it's one way we give increased independence in a managed way. Think the "going into the local town" milestone varies a bit depending on where you live and accessibility links though.

She's got a phone and is on various group chats - and it's monitored at a distance (we don't do a huge thing of "IT'S FRIDAY NIGHT - PHONE CHECK TIME" but we insist the passcode's not changed and the phone remains downstairs for charging so we can keep an ear on what's going on with it), but she's also been taught how to take screenshots of any nonsense, where the block button is and she's bloody ruthless with that when anyone raises any nonsense with her!

Class whatsapp group doesn’t need to be the way you describe. My sons school has tutors (older students) who are monitoring the class whats app groups of the younger students.
Phones in school must remain in the locker, definitely not allowed in classrooms.
Until my son was 12 we monitored his whatapp and we saw the occasional bad language and loads of aubergines and mildly naughty pictures of ladies in underwear… but never real porn. I think real porn is not that attractive to 12 year olds, it is scary!

I completely agree.

so many parents just shrugging and saying ‘this is how it is’, while their kids are exposed to porn, graphic content, bullying and all manner of other awful things online.

It doesn’t have to be like that. Youngsters don’t have to navigate all this so young. As pp said, no wonder poor child mental health is such an issue at the moment.

Children do need protecting from this until they are more mature. As a school safeguarding lead, I have seen so many horrendous issues caused by the attitude that we have seen so many times in this thread.

And no, children who are protected from it while younger don’t miss out’ on some sort of rite of passage experience. They get to grow up as themselves, without the malign influence of those who do not have their best interests at heart.

I’m not saying all that’s ok but why on earth can’t your 11 year old be in town with friends without parents? Mine has been going since the end of year 6 and he and his friends have a great time. They don’t want or need me tagging along

I'm with you too OP. I don't see the need to rush, especially with so much difficult stuff online to work through and navigate. They'll get there when they're ready.

I agree with PP that I experienced a huge change when moving school in year 7 in the 90s. I went from a small primary to a large secondary.

Most of my class in year 7 would go out to “nappy night” a.k.a under 18s club nights at the Palais in the local town (is this still a thing?!) which I think were supposed to be 14 and up, but in reality loads of year 7s were there.

I was never allowed to do that, but was allowed to catch the bus into town to go to the pictures with my friends at weekends etc.

The idea of a class WhatsApp group existing in those days terrifies me, but then I imagine I wouldn’t have been invited to join it!

Surely that depends on so many things?

Who is in the group?
Is the child capable of dealing with peer pressure?
Are they going to link up with other kids in town that you don’t know?
What kind of town is it and are there any specific issues in that area?

It can’t be a blanket “yeah thats fine, they should all be hanging around in town without adults by year 7”

Well it depends of course on the town or city! My nearest city centre is one of the biggest in the country and I as an adult feel very unsafe going there - I certainly wouldn't allow my 12 year old to go there without an adult present

And now his come home tonight telling me he’s being teased for not being allowed tik tok. There’s some awful things on there that I don’t want him to see at his age and then yet again he and I are feeling the pressure because of other parents allowing it 😫

I think most people are thinking their local town center, or local shops nearest Greggs, McDonald's, Subway, local cinema maybe not travelling into a major city.

Op your child is nearly 12, you have little over 12months to they can switch off parental controls and download whatever the heck they want.

You need to let go a bit.

Now I admit I think 13 if far too young to have free reign over the Internet and I have to laugh when the Government make noises about banning phones from schools when really the best thing they could do is up the age parents can control phones to 16.

Honestly I'm always a bit baffled when grown adults feel "unsafe" going into a city centre.

Parents can control phones to whatever age they want. Just because a child is 13 doesn't mean you have no choice to allow them free reign on the Internet. I didn't let DS use social media at 13.

There's a campaign to delay smartphones that I am definitely signing up to. Having a phone is one thing - to be able to call / send a message and let you know they're safe and eta etc - but having access to the internet in their pocket, and being sent horrible links and videos via WhatsApp is another. I think we'll look back on giving 11 year olds (and younger!) smart phones as being so ridiculous and dangerous one day :(

My 15 year old ds doesn’t have Tik tok, or Instagram, we didn’t really want him to have them but actually he didn’t really want them anyway.None of his school mates think anything of it 🤔 According to him it’s pretty much only the girls that have those in his school. I’m not sure how he would find the time to look at them anyway! He does have the dreaded Snapchat!

This is a lesson for your ds in resisting peer pressure. Sounds like he only thinks he should have Tik Tok because other kids have said he should.

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.

I mean this kindly - but they need to learn how to handle this sort of thing at some point. And going into town in year 7 is the first “baby steps” to becoming an independent adult who can deal with what life throws at him. My friend’s younger brother had a friend who was very sheltered; dad drove him everywhere. And, unfortunately, at 15/16 when he did go out on his own, he was always the one who got into incidents, because he simply hadn’t learned to be streetwise. So I don’t think the cotton wool approach is necessarily the panacea you think it is. Those early steps on your own are pretty vital for learning how to handle yourself - across a range of situations - without your parents.