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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To be upset by DS being removed from group chat

80 replies

GentleButter · 05/04/2024 22:53

DS, 11 years old, was added to a group chat by a friend who was already in the group.
DS was really happy and pleased, was beaming in fact, to have been added and included. He's had really bad experiences with friendship difficulties over the past year so was made up to be added to this group and was excitedly telling me about it.
2 hours later, another member of the group deleted him. No conversation about it, no explanation.
DS texted the boy and asked to be added back in to the chat again. No reply from the boy.
This boy has been pretty badly behaved towards DS over recent months, but DS was excited to be added in to the (already existing) group, thinking it meant they could be friends again.
Only to be crestfallen 2 hours later.
AIBU to feel sorry for him?
DS is a really nice boy. He's got friends that love being friends with him. But he's had a lot of hostile behaviour to deal with from other kids.
Why are kids so harsh with other people's feelings?
Am I right to think that this is upsetting for DS, who is friends with all the other kids on this group chat, they all link up and play gaming together and DS was really excited to have been added so that he could play too.
Or AIBU? Do 11 - 12 year old k8ds just have to suck up other kids hurtful behaviour and actions?

OP posts:
itsnotyouagain · 06/04/2024 11:42

If you're going to give them access to SM then you need to support them in navigating this. That means helping your DS build resilience to deal with this online behaviour as you would offline behaviour. Ask him how would he deal with it if it was in person? How could he resolve it? If others are kicking him out, does he actually want to be on a group chat where that happens regularly and kids are on eggshells wondering if they'll be next - it is a form of relational bullying? (Some kids do love the drama of it all, it can feel exciting to them.) Or could he set up his own group chat with his own close friends who don't do this and it's a more positive experience?

When you say about him 'beaming' at being added, I would work on why he needs that approval so much from kids who don't seem to value his friendship. My kids are late teens, been through this, one didn't stay long in the big group WhatsApp because he couldn't stand the behaviour so just has a much smaller group with friends for gaming. The other had a lot of issues (they are ND so was much trickier to navigate) and after a lot of talking it through deleted themselves off the group chat but stayed in contact with a few trusted individuals - they were much happier for it.

KeinLiebeslied54321 · 06/04/2024 11:45

whiteboardking · 06/04/2024 00:21

I agree that it's a red herring to blame group chats for bullying.

Definitely- bullying has always happened, there are just different ways to do it nowadays.

crumblingschools · 06/04/2024 11:50

@KeinLiebeslied54321 difference with group chats is that bullying can be 24/7 now and in effect in your own home not just in school grounds

KeinLiebeslied54321 · 06/04/2024 11:53

crumblingschools · 06/04/2024 11:50

@KeinLiebeslied54321 difference with group chats is that bullying can be 24/7 now and in effect in your own home not just in school grounds

Bullying has always extended beyond the reach of the school grounds, with the existence of even old style phones. Part of parenting is teaching your child not to be available/online 24/7. That said, I wouldn't necessarily say that removing someone from a WhatsApp group is always bullying - people add and remove folk all the time.

NewShoes · 06/04/2024 12:41

whiteboardking · 06/04/2024 00:21

I agree that it's a red herring to blame group chats for bullying.

I disagree. Bullying is much easier behind a screen.

EmbarrassingMother · 06/04/2024 12:50

Honestly I wouldn’t even worry or get involved. He will be added and deleted about 1000 times during the course of his school life. He’ll probably delete a few people too. It’s hurtful the first time, but it’s not that big a deal.

BogRollBOGOF · 06/04/2024 13:16

DS is this age group.

My advice to him is to not give away admin rights to anything he sets up. To look at who's admin on other groups and block the group if this shit goes on and certain suspects are involved. TBH smaller, more focused groups are of more use to him (not that he's massively interested) and there's not much interesting stuff in the bigger chat so he's not too bothered about what's going on in there.

He's got a phone partway through y6. I see this as a training stage. I've delayed as long as is viable before social exclusion becomes inevitable anyway, and he needs one in a few months to deal with the logistics of y7. He's young enough that he's open with me and we can get through these issues together, while we're in a fairly closed environment. Other parents keep tabs on it too and it's been known for the parents to put out a alert when things get heated. Introducing him to this in the more open world of y7 where I can offer less support in offering perspective and context.

Strategic exclusion and this in-out hokey cokey is a form of bullying when it's done as a power play. Bullying can exist in many forms in many ways. It won't be eradicated, and learning to recognise it's a "them problem", not a "me problem" helps with living through life with unpleasant people in the world. (And use avenues like going through school where appropriate)

As a parent, Ihave to work in the culture that we're in. I can't pretend its the 20th century or even the 2000s (and there was enough aggro with young teenagers and phones then). I can't pretend it's not the state of the world, isolate my children and deprive them of a functional tool that society expects them to have. I've already held out years longer than some peers. What I can do is educate and support my children with navigating this social and technological world. Extended delaying and hoping that they're automatically more mature and can deal with it when the time comes is also a high risk strategy.

volvoxc40 · 06/04/2024 13:44

Aww that is so mean and unjustified. Poor little lad.

Springcat · 06/04/2024 13:49

I can remember the awful awful bullying I went through as a child at school
To have a phone ,and what's app groups full of the potential bullies from school ,would of meant I would never of escaped being bullied.
As it was I was just bullied for the school hours
If I'd of had a phone ,and everyone else had a phone it would of been 24/7 bullying.
So thankful when my kids were at school ,not everyone had phones and both schools banned them

whiteboardking · 06/04/2024 21:04

Mine know to leave any group that's more than their immediate mates / team etc It's the big group chats that get out of hand esp if there are a few kids whose parents don't watch what they posting

Princesspollyyy · 06/04/2024 21:17

whiteboardking · 06/04/2024 21:04

Mine know to leave any group that's more than their immediate mates / team etc It's the big group chats that get out of hand esp if there are a few kids whose parents don't watch what they posting

Not always. In my daughter's experience it was her small circle of friends not the big group chats.

buswankerz · 06/04/2024 21:24

Can he not make another group chat?

Ds had that happen to him once. He wasn't bothered though.

It's awful though but the group chat is 10m messages and pictures of absolute nonsense.

Can your child make a group chat with just his close friends? My ds did that and removed himself from bigger group chats that wasn't his group of friends.

Original poster
GentleButter · 07/04/2024 06:56

Thanks everyone.
I didn't know if I was being too sensitive about it, or whether kids commonly delete others from group chats.
I just feel a bit overprotective as DS has dealt with really awful behaviour over the past 2.5 years from about 5 different kids, one after the other, that were his friends but then turned against him in such a nasty way that it's ultimately impacted on his self esteem which I find heartbreaking because he's such a nice, decent and kind boy with a high set of good values which I've never had to teach him, he just knows how to be a good person. 1 of these kids is this kid that's kicked him out of the group chat so that he can't play gaming with them, even though he's friends with the others in the group.
BTW DS is 12, not 11, that was a typo, I accidentally hit the 1 instead of the 2. He's in Yr 7.
TBH I can feel myself losing resilience because I've been dealing with the impact of mean behaviour from other kids towards DS for 2 and a half years now, and it's wearing me down. I feel like I live in a permanent state of shock at how gobsmackingly horrible kids can be.
He has other friends who have never been mean in any way and who really think a lot of him, but it's hard knowing how to help him through dealing with the friends who are mean. I've seen a significant impact on him.
Funnily enough, a few of the kids who've been really nasty to him have now done a u-turn and are reaching out to him and want to be his friend again, so I'm trying to teach him about boundaries.

OP posts:
calligraphee · 07/04/2024 07:02

crumblingschools · 06/04/2024 11:50

@KeinLiebeslied54321 difference with group chats is that bullying can be 24/7 now and in effect in your own home not just in school grounds

This is the big difference about bullying now - it comes home in your pocket.

I don't think 11yo is mature enough to deal with the constant reach of mobile phones.

What we do about it as a society I don't know, though, there's no consensus.

Noicant · 07/04/2024 07:11

Kids can be little shits tbh, I’m so sorry OP, I’m not an interventionist but I would be delighted if smartphones were banned for kids. It’s just another way to engage in relational bullying.

HoppingPavlova · 07/04/2024 07:18

@Princesspollyyy Yes and then they will get bullied for having a rubbish basic phone. You can't win. Mum of grown up teenagers here, been there and done that, got the flipping t-shirt

So, you guided your kids to succumbing to peer pressure? I’ve also got grown up kids and went through this with them at these ages. We taught them to shrug their shoulders against such taunts, we didn’t solve it by replacing their basic non-smartphones with smartphones. They’re all fine.

Hankunamatata · 07/04/2024 07:23

My two teen dc took themselves out of group chats as more problems than they were worth.

Their what's app we're initially set up so they can't be added to anything without their permission.

SBHon · 07/04/2024 07:45

He can set up a new group with his friends?

Postapocalypticcowgirl · 07/04/2024 07:55

As others have said, I think this is the norm for y7 group chats. Often they don't notice it if they're not the one doing the kicking out or being kicked out.

If you can, I would try to encourage him to not take it too seriously and perhaps set up a gaming chat with his close friends if he wants to.

I know they all have WhatsApp but it is meant to be a 16+ app, and as they get older these things do calm down. I'm not sure kids really have the maturity for it at 11/12.

GRex · 07/04/2024 08:01

Have him set up a new group with actual friends in it. A non-friend child cannot exclude him that way.

Princesspollyyy · 07/04/2024 09:08

@HoppingPavlova

I didn't 'replace their basic non-smartphones with smartphones' - they weren't born in the nineties! 😂

They've only ever known the smartphones you see today. Also, their secondary school required them to use certain apps for their timetable and schoolwork, unfortunately phones were not banned at their school.

There's no way on earth I would get them a basic mobile when everyone else in their class had one. That's not succumbing to peer pressure, it's making sure my child fits in, and not making them different to everyone else.

HoppingPavlova · 07/04/2024 11:20

I disagree. You seem to think some of my kids are not in the same era as yours? Mine did have smart phones available and were ‘standard’, I just didn’t seem this in anyone’s best interest. Today, in 2024, you can get non-smart phones still. The ‘making sure they fit in’ is interesting. I made sure mine had whatever was in their best interests. If that meant ‘not fitting in’ too bad so sad. They knew about kind people/real friends etc and didn’t need to conform to have friends. It must start early. When mine were young, others would use ‘your mum is fat’ as an insult. Didn’t work as they came back with ‘yeah, she is, fat, absolutely, so what’. If you start this at first year of school and teach your child they shouldn’t need to bow down to friends/peers for friendships, you won’t be needing to compromise on things that don’t benefit them such as smartphones at 11/12yo.

HoppingPavlova · 07/04/2024 11:23

Sorry, should have added, we had a family tablet for the kids with any Apps applicable to homework or whatnot. It was kept in a ‘public’ spot in the house and only used for homework, and sometimes they had to wait their turn. It’s all doable but if you want to make excuses, that’s fine but that’s what they are.

outsidethemug · 07/04/2024 13:20

Ah this makes me sad. I was bullied by my "friends" throughout high school and there was a lot of being left out of things, nasty comments in group chats and all the rest. It scares me to raise a child and have to navigate it, I couldn't bear for a child of mine to go through what I went through

jengachampion · 07/04/2024 13:29

HoppingPavlova · 07/04/2024 11:20

I disagree. You seem to think some of my kids are not in the same era as yours? Mine did have smart phones available and were ‘standard’, I just didn’t seem this in anyone’s best interest. Today, in 2024, you can get non-smart phones still. The ‘making sure they fit in’ is interesting. I made sure mine had whatever was in their best interests. If that meant ‘not fitting in’ too bad so sad. They knew about kind people/real friends etc and didn’t need to conform to have friends. It must start early. When mine were young, others would use ‘your mum is fat’ as an insult. Didn’t work as they came back with ‘yeah, she is, fat, absolutely, so what’. If you start this at first year of school and teach your child they shouldn’t need to bow down to friends/peers for friendships, you won’t be needing to compromise on things that don’t benefit them such as smartphones at 11/12yo.

Edited

Agree 100% with all of this
when I was at school one of the most popular girls had very hippie parents and didn’t have the fast fashion clothes or junk food that everyone else had. She owned it, and her parents had explained why they did things differently, and it didn’t affect her at all.
if you teach your kids the need to fit in at all costs even to their own detriment, it will never end and never be enough. They’ll learn to look outside themselves, and live their lives imitating others, rather than making decisions based on what’s best for them.

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