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 would archive the chat and encourage your son not to read or reply in there.

Kids shouldn't be on WhatsApp or social media and for good reason.

Kids that age are wild and peer pressure is really strong. When I was that age, the girls (12 year olds) were filming themselves doing sexual things even one boy had his video leaked around the school and everyone made fun of him saying he was ‘small’ it’s horrible. Definitely report it, the n word is what really shocks me. Im really shocked but not surprised at the same time. I grew up with the exact same thing and now everyone my age has mental health issues

Report it to the school

Remove Whatsapp from his phone, he does NOT need it to talk to relatives, he can use other means, or use your account to talk to them

Children shouldn't be on WhatsApp under 16 due to the end to end encryption!
If it is being used inappropriately then it should be flagged up with the school. There is so much teaching regarding correct use of the internet/online etc that direct examples of misuse can be helpfully used as part of youngsters learning.

When I was at school I remember the things being shared were p*n including animal p*n. I didnt even have a phone but you get shown it on everyone else's.

Well if there are only two black boys in the class, then it must have been sent by one of their classmates in their own school.

Personally I don’t know what the school can do other than say they will look into it. The truth is they simply can’t prevent this from re occurring regardless of what they say and do. But they can stop using seesaw. And you can prevent this by removing his phone so he isn’t exposed to it. He can use yours for contacting family or just email them? He can use a tablet or laptop to access SeeSaw. A phone can’t be the best device to upload and view work anyway.

What a complete mess caused by allowing irresponsible children to have phones.

My friend saw her son trying to hang himself due to phone bullying. He was twelve years old.

Please don't perpetuate the use of the name Karen as an insult. You are an adult.

I think you should go to the school.

This isn't about the teachers singling out Molly and Ben who are the ringleaders and using inappropriate memes - it's about them having an assembly about internet safety for the Y7 contingent, letting them know that ANYTHING they put out there is never going away, and that they shouldn't share anything they wouldn't be comfortable with their nanny seeing (as I put it to mine). They also might go ahead with a parent meeting for something similar - I know they did this at my son's former Primary school when the WhatsApp groups were getting out of hand (although seriously, some of the shit they were putting up with instead of just deleting the app and telling their own children 'no' was ridiculous.

For those of you confused about why kids are using it - it's just another method of texting. Simple as that. It has an age limit because of GDPR and the end to end encryption - but let's be real here, if you're not monitoring your tween usage of their phone, they can be sending and receiving the same stuff via the built in text messaging service.

Keep your parental controls tight and have regular conversations about keeping safe and how they do not 'owe' anyone the right to have them in a group text situation.

Irresponsible children but more importantly irresponsible parents

@TinnitusEar you really didn't need to quote the whole of the OP to say something which has already been said at least 20 times on this thread.

Only last night we watched on BBC iplayer - on the series 'Forensics:the real CSI' (Series 3, episode 4) - a documentary showing how the police had caught a paedophile who groomed girls online and then raped them. One was 12 years old.

Mobile phones are dangerous in the hands of children. I hear so often parents saying they've given their child one "for their safety". I urge everyone to watch this programme.

Interestingly OP is considering complaining and her DP is against. A bit of anecdote to justify the OP's use of the term.

WhatsApp groups are NOT AT ALL the same as text messaging, and are far, far more open to abuse.

For those of you confused about why kids are using it - it's just another method of texting. Simple as that.

It really isn’t.
It’s this type of naivety that causes these issues to happen.

The problem with not allowing WhatsApp (which I didn’t, at the start of Y7) was that my DC missed out on meeting train friends, drama rehearsals and social events. None of the other 11yos could be bothered to remember to text them separately when everything was done through the WhatsApp group.

So while I am strict and they have no other social media and very locked down phones, I’ve made an exception for WhatsApp because it was demonstrably causing problems for them not to have it.

They have it on the setting where they have to agree to join groups and, while they have seen some nasty behaviour, they’ve been able to tell us and we’ve talked about not joining big groups and just using it for small groups like train friends and birthday parties. I suspect that’s how the OP might want to handle it - it’s the big groups that get out of hand.

The problem with this is that so much stuff that happens on social media has a direct impact on the kids. They bring it into school and it affects them at school. So it does often have a direct impact on their learning.

if the school didn’t deal with it then they would be accused of neglecting safeguarding (rightly so)

Christ, same! I had no idea and I'm pretty horrified by this thread!

Technically it is illegal for children of that age to even have WhatsApp. So shouldn't it be encouraged for kids to organise plans elsewhere?

WhatsApp is toxic within school environments.
There are better ways of keeping in touch with family. When my son lived abroad, we used FaceTime/Skype/Zoom.

You could report it to the school. Last year my DCs school became involved in a situation where they had been told of a group of 14 year old girls had arranged to meet up with a group of 20 yr old men in another city. They got the girls in and the parents and got the girls to show the messages with all the details. They did a big push the next week of online safety.

What's app is definitely a tricky thing and I think you need other parents on board too who also monitor their kids phones, otherwise letting them know what's going on is futile and the school involvement may be a wake up call for many.

It's good you contacted the mother about the racism. I've had a mother contact me to ask why my DS (among others) had blocked her DS and painting him as a poor victim and I told her exactly what a trouble making, racist kid she has, with his comments to other kids in my DS's friend group and she should be contacting their mums to discuss. Haven't heard from her since.

@JamSandle Yes, and I tried to do so. But other 11yos weren’t organised / caring / thoughtful enough (understandably) to remember to include my DC. I can’t control what apps other DC have access to. I was pretty reluctant to allow it, but it was getting ridiculous. Things like missing student-run drama rehearsals and losing train friends were just some of the issues.