To be devastated by what DS has done or am I over-reacting?

[Acunningruse]

Short version: DS (12yo) sent a message to a family friend’s daughter (call her Lucy) saying “mate I don’t like you so don’t put kisses on messages”
😢 I saw this when doing a random check of his phone, hit the roof and have banned his phone for Easter weekend and given him extra chores.

Long version:
DS (12) has struggled hugely with the transition from a tiny primary to big secondary school. He seems to be trying to be the big I am, the cool guy.

We are involved parents concerned about social media and we check his phone regularly. I am concerned about how he speaks to girls in messages- less respectful than he is with boys. He had a girlfriend for a short while but when they broke up he and his friends were name calling her (a play on her surname, eg her Surname is Bank…) she messaged him asking him to stop and he was unkind. I discovered the messages and made him apologise to her and he lost phone and gaming privileges for a week.

We visited these family friends a few weeks ago and the mum seemed to be “pushing DS and Lucy towards each other. Rather than leaving them to just be, it was “DS and Lucy, you go to the shop together, you both sit here to watch a film…” DS was mortified by this and kept saying afterwards I don’t want Lucy to think I like her in that way.

Lucy text DS yesterday with pictures of their holiday and DS response was “mate I don’t like you so don’t put kisses on messages “

I am hugely upset by this to think he could possibly think this is an acceptable way to speak to someone. Lucy is a very sweet very naive girl (suspect SEN) who would have been devastated to read this. Im hopeful i managed to delete the message before she saw it (no blue ticks) but I can’t be sure. I don’t know if I did the right thing by deleting I just wanted to spare her feelings.

when we confronted DS he just kept saying “I don’t want her to think I like her in that way”. We talked about men and women being friends, you can put kisses in messages and it doesn’t mean anything, but he was not as remorseful as we felt he should have been.

we go on holiday today and this has completely cast a shadow over it for me. Im terrified we are raising some kind of andrew Tate wannabe-despite us being the strictest parents ever around his phone and social media. Not to mention we are going away with friends whose kids will all have their phones so DS will be an absolute nightmare sulking about not having his but we feel we have to do something.

parenting a pre-teen is all new to us (DD is 9) and every other day I feel like we are getting it wrong.

Am I over reacting? under reacting? I haven’t slept in days (sick bug in house) and I just don’t know what to do any more.

There is no female Andrew Tate waiting on charges of sex trafficking.

The Ghislaine Maxwell case pass you by, did it?

You are massively overreacting. He could have been more tactful but there is nothing wrong with him asking her not to put kisses on messages. He just needs ro learn to be tactful. You need to have conversations about how certain responses might make people feel. This is a learning opportunity. Punishment is not needed and won’t encourage him to come to you about stuff. In this situation I think my son at that age would have asked for help wording the message. You need to back him up too when he doesn’t want to be pushed into spending time with Lucy. He should be allowed to pick his own friends.

He was putting boundaries in place, good on him.

1. DD (and a lot of her female friends) don’t use kisses at all (even for best friends) unless there’s some kind of romantic interest/a relationship. She’d definitely find the kisses weird, possibly uncomfortable and an indication of something more.
2. While you are correct statistically(as in he’s more likely to be the perpetrator than the victim) it is not 0 chance. It has happened and it is happening. On a very small scale though, and the girls tend to be vulnerable themselves and in need of support. However, the boys in question also needed support in how to navigate it. Dismissing their feelings wouldn’t have helped into making them respectful and considerate towards women/girls.

He could have been nicer but he is 12 and at that age they do struggle to navigate from child to teen (all DC not just boys)
As a Mum of a Teen boy it IS of course a good idea to keep an eye on their behaviour and make sure they have positive male role models and also their SM BUT I do think you are going a bit over the top

Wow, total overreaction. He was a bit abrupt with a girl he doesn’t like by text. Personally I don’t police my children to this extent but instead try and keep lines of communication open, offer judgement free guidance (which has been tested many times over the years), and encourage them to spend time in places and with people who are good role models (think clubs, cadets, new interest groups etc).

I have a 20 something who is independent, kind, fun, successful and likes spending time with me, and a tween who talks to me about his friendship issues. Things aren’t perfect and there’s things to work on but you have to shift from the telling you can do with younger kids to a guidance mode of parenting.

You were OTT imo. Allow your kid some boundaries ffs.

Yes i hear she has a large online following

So when the mother was trying to push them together what were doing about that?

Has he overreacted about the kisses do you think?

Did you think that Lucy particularly wanted to spend time with him & his mum was facilitating this?

Good on the lad for making it clear he isn't interested, he is 12 for goodness sake you way over reacted, punishing him for making it clear he sent interested even tho he needs taught a better way that's all. Watch he doesn't start resenting you when he is actually doing the right thing. Been there with our teens and this is not how I or hubby deal with things like this

Why are you devastated? Honestly the teenage years are going to be long and hard if this is how you react to small things.

Daughter is turning 4 in a couple months - recently she is colouring on everything, the last couple of weeks she has coloured on our private rented walls, sofas, tv, tv cabinet and our table and chairs. I have since kept taking the pencils/crayons away but she is hiding them and doing it again and again, I’m at wits end now. She is nearly 4 surely she shouldn’t be doing things like this as she knows it’s bad and it’s upsets me so much? She has never done this before until now and it’s driving me mad

If this was the other way round and you had a DD ,it would be massively annoying to be pushed towards a boy you werent keen on.They are 12 FFS! I would be saying to your friend ,to lay off trying to match them up and leave it at that.He is not being rude or nasty just honest.

Why would the mother be pushing her daughter together with him in the first place, if that's really true - but yes he needs to be kinder in future

This!

he’s not wrong to want to tell Lucy he’s not interested. And no wonder- he’s 12! No 12 year-old boy wants a girl sending kisses.

just chill and guide him on what he should’ve written. What is the alternative? For him just to ignore her? That’s what most 12-year old boys would do - I see no issues with being direct. So what can he do? Ghost her? That’s surely more confusing for her.

if you knew your DS was uncomfortable with the mum pushing them together, then you should’ve stepped in.

actually I think it was a good message, the mate bit sounds condescending but I think if it made him uncomfortable it’s ok to say don’t put kisses and for him to be clear. I think adults adding kisses is different to how young people use them - I know I stick kisses on texts all the time but it’s not done by my 13 and 11 yo DC

Also, if we’re talking about respect for others, where is your ire for your friends who have decided it would be cute if your son and Lucy have an innocent handholding “boyfriend and girlfriend” scenario, without a thought for whether either child wants it? It’s them you should be mad at.

l think this is a really important point. I support OP in the message about respecting others she’s trying to instil in her DS, and l understand the concern at the change she’s seeing in him if she perceives there’s a pattern emerging. But at the same time she needs to understand the difficult time he’s trying to navigate his way through, and his need to set his own boundaries. What the grown ups see as cute is likely to be acutely embarrassing for both kids and OP should be reinforcing that that’s OK, but that there’s a right way to push back.

You do sound as though you have people pleasing tendencies. Be really careful about this around your daughter. I was raised by a people pleasing mother and not allowed to develop proper boundaries. It took me far too long to get that right as an adult.

He could have been a touch more delicate about it but you have punished your son here for setting boundaries for himself. Just because he’s a boy doesn’t mean he can’t do that.

Lucy’s mum is as much to blame for setting her daughter up for this fall by encouraging her or attempting to push the two together.

The other stuff about talking about girls in a disrespectful way is more concerning, this is definitely something to keep an eye on but if you keep taking his phone away he’s just going to start deleting everything so you need to be careful that you don’t come on too strong.

I agree op.

Probably lots of MN will think the message was great because a lot of them post in the same rude blunt style on here.

I don’t think you need to be devastated as he’s only 12, I think he has done the right thing to identify his feelings and try to put boundaries on that basis, yet I also understand why you think it was too blunt. It is good that we encourage clarity and an ability to assert our boundaries, but too many people think that’s carte blanche to be aggressively rude and hurtful. Lots of nastiness can slip in under cover of honesty.

Id be inclined to return the phone for the holiday and explain why you felt it was too blunt. But make the return of the phone only after he sits down for a proper discussion of how else he could have handled it. Good suggestions people have made is conveying his feelings by simply not adding kisses to his. I slightly disagree that we can demand others leave them off their texts. It isn’t physical affection ( where obviously it’s fine to state it), and if it’s just kisses ( which plenty of people put unthinkingly) I think she’s really entitled to author her own texts just as much as it’s completely his prerogative not to put kisses.

Yes I agree the disrespectful language about the ex was disturbing and I’d explain when you sit down with him that that was also part of your reaction. His feelings are fine but how we convey them matters.

The strictest parents around phone and social media. Aye. Mine had Nokia bricks until 16 when all their mates had the latest iPhones. And no gaming at all. Sure, they begged their school friends to even hold an iPhone during their school breaks, but that was it. And the moment I bought the phones for them, one was immediately bullied by texts. Retrospectively I think that the only way to have a phone at school is to have an old button phone and I regret allowing phones at 16.

What an overreaction, poor kid. I’m actually a bit shocked by it. He’s had people trying to force him to have relationships/friendships with people he doesn’t like, he’s standing up for himself (when apparently you won’t) and he gets punished for it? I feel for him. He’s 12 and so is learning how to communicate and navigate life, you need to help and support him and you’re doing the opposite. As for kisses on messages…yes it can be normal but he’s also entitled to not like it, I’m willing to be if you had a DD and she asked a boy to drop doing that you’d be up in arms about that.

It’s not a problem for me. If I was Lucy’s Mum I’d have told her she doesn’t need friends who don’t like her and to find better friends. Young girls need to know how to respond to unkindness.

I understand why you're being wary and trying to manage his ways of speaking with girls but I do also think he's trying to manage this himself. He's trying to be clear with her and not lead her on. He can't do right for doing wrong. The thing about calling his ex names - well I think we've all done that before too. And it happens on here daily!

But huge respect to you for trying to make sure he deals with things respectfully and is thoughtful and kind. It's tough but I do think he's trying himself too. It might be clunky but he's managing someone else's boundaries and maybe just hasn't quite caught on that some people put a x after everything!