Should I report a whatsapp group to my son’s school ?

[M2BANTRIM]

So I am a mum of an 11 year old boy and about a year ago we decided to get him a cellphone so that he can have access to his homework which is usually sent on a school app and we downloaded WhatsApp for him as well . As a backstory we are from a southern African country I do not want to mention living in the UK so WhatsApp allowed him to keep in touch with grandparents and extended family . About a month ago , he told me that he had been added to a group chat and within minutes he was crying hysterically. He showed me his phone only to discover that a meme of a black boy with bulging eyes had been sent on the chat and someone had captioned my son’s name . This sent me into a rage and I managed to contact the boy’s mum who had sent it and she apologised and the son did as well and I just decided not to further escalate it . So my son doesn’t really open his WhatsApp and can go for 3-4 days without been on it and I can check on his 'last seen' . I discovered that he had over 900 messages and I saw he had been added to another group chat and these are kids aged between 10-13 and the chats were horrifying . One girl sent a picture with her mouth wide open and was saying something along the lines of how she is good at oral . The kids were throwing insults at each other including use of the n word , b word , c word it was absolutely vile . But none of these were directed towards my son . I immediately removed my son out of the group , took screenshots and sent them to my phone and deleted everything from my son’s phone and changed his privacy settings that don’t allow him to be added to a group without his permission first . So my question is will I be unreasonable to take the screenshots to the principal and have these kids dealt with ? In another chat one girl told another girl to delete herself because she was a c word ? Should I ignore this or take it up to the principal ? At the end of the day I do not want to be labelled a Karen but at the same time these kids are very unhinged . Please help

I think you should, yes. Sorry that happened to your son. So much ignorance. You sound like a responsible and caring parent. Go and lead the way.

I think if you take this to the school, you’ll be fed a whole lot of tripe about how seriously the school takes this but what can they do? They can’t monitor the entire school’s phone use, blah blah… Keep screenshots and go to the police. Let them deal with the school. They will be forced to acknowledge the systemic problem and take action. These are kids, but they are committing crimes like hate crime forwarded at your poor son, and potentially soliciting also. The kids will be forced to understand the seriousness of their behaviour.
Gross. I’m so sorry you and your son have encountered arseholes like this

You really need to take it in . That’s serious . If there is violence etc consider contacting SS and police too

To be fair, I got my first phone at 11 in 2002, as did most of my friends. It was normal to get one for secondary school. Obviously we didn't have WhatsApp back then, but the concept of kids that young having phones isn't new.

Yes please report ASAP, that's gross behaviour at 11-13 imo.
On a separate note, am I just obscenely out of touch? Is it the norm for schools/teachers to be assigning homework via apps these days essentially making it a "must" for actual children to have their own smart devices?? That seems genuinely insane to me and I'm shocked at reading that tbh?????

It is not the school’s place to deal with social media issues that take place out of school.

I’d say the common denominator is the parents allowing their children on What’s App without any level of supervision - not the school’s fault.

Yes unfortunately it is

It's a bit off track for Op but there's been a combination of technology being more prominent in education, the Covid accelerated shift to online, parental pressure to 'know' what the kids are doing (and online makes this easier/accessible and easier for teachers to link up to their own tracking tools), parents allowing phones for keeping in touch with their kids, and then kids taking advantage and using them socially (and then huge FoMO for parents and kids with no access).

And there you go the perfect sweet spot for tweens and teens being unsupervised online. Oh and of course they see adults being vile to each other on line be it X or MN and assume it's ok!

Your poor ds. I am so surprised at all the messages, both the horrendous racism and the sexual innuendos, just awful. I would always report anything, which is bullying and / or a safeguarding concern and this falls into both.

My dd is 15 and it’s all Snapchat these days. She was on a big WhatsApp group in the last year of primary, ie yr 6, which was all ‘hi’, ‘hi’ and not much more. Then added to a big one for secondary in year 7, which slowly stopped being posted on. I monitored these and nothing awful was ever said on them.

There's a reason WhatsApp's minimum age is 13.

It absolutely is within the remit, especially as schools expect children to access work via tech and some schools allow phone use at times as part of in school class work. This is bullying and a safeguarding concern.

This

Yes, the school should deal overall with concerns reported by parents, e.g lessons on diversity, tolerance, anti-racism, etc. This should be part of the curriculum. It is not the place of the school to find out who said what over social media and deal with it, racism and other safeguarding concerns outwith school can and should be reported to the police.

Tell the school. About all of it. If you have the racist message that too.

P.s. please don't use the term "Karen"

Fair enough but the school will have experience of it plus they can do assemblies on social media use

@NowayJoséé

I thought she meant leave the group not kill herself?

Absolutely - the school educates about these things. They do not deal with issues that arise out of school due to the lack of supervision over social media.

How the hell can year fives have what's app groups! My daughter is year four and none of them have phones yet. And even if they do get them for communicating with their parents at year 5/6 when walking to school etc surely they don't have whats app without any parental control. They shouldn't have unsupervised internet access at what age. It's insane (and I think I'm quite lax about this stuff!)

The reason is to do with US data laws I belieive nothing to do with primary school bullies in the UK, or is that what you meant?

I would also report it to the school, maybe they won't be able to do anything but at least you'd have tried, other parents may also be letting them know

If these children are at many different schools it makes it more complicated. I'd still report it to all the schools, that your ds (only if he's sure) tells you these children attend.

In my experience, these years can be awful for WhatsApp groups. My now Y10’s school year WhatsApp group when he was Y7 was horrific, DD is now Y7 and hers is much the same. Our school absolutely take it seriously and there are regular assemblies for the kids about managing social media and parents often receive e mails asking us to ensure we’re monitoring their phones. If it’s any comfort, Y10 DS’s group is now completely normal as they seem to have calmed down a lot/grown out of being complete dickheads.

Definitely best to keep them out of these groups for now and ensure your DC feels comfortable letting you know about any issues and you won’t be cross with him. Both my DC know if they get added to any groups which get out of hand, to not post on them at all and leave the group. They do need some adult guidance in managing this stuff when they first get phones.

Definitely needs reporting to the school as the content of the messages are totally unacceptable and the children need speaking to. Racism is completely unacceptable and name calling etc is unkind. On that note, it’s a bit double-standard-ish and derogatory to be talking about being “labelled a Karen” given the very nature of your thread.

People just love to flash the term ‘safeguarding’. Just imagine how many hours would have to be spent on unravelling all this shit in school? School cannot and should not be responsible for dealing with the internet use of up to a thousand pupils, which takes place OUT OF SCHOOL. Most schools ban, or very strictly limit, phone use in school.
Of course they have assemblies on the issue and it will be part of whatever PSHE program they have in place but other than that, they should not have to deal with it. It is up to parents to monitor their children’s use of phones.

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