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.

Yes I did thank you very much for asking!

And I stand by my remark, it is a total over reaction by the op!

He’s uncomfortable with a girl sending him kisses and you’ve punished him for it? He was direct but hardly unfair or cruel.

It's entirely possible to be assertive without being rude or mean or cutting.

It's also possible to break up with a 'girlfriend' or 'boyfriend' (at 12!) without engaging in hurtful mockery of that child with your friends afterwards. That is mean and immature regardless of whether the dumped child is a boy or a girl, and any child who behaves like that should be strongly discouraged from thoughts of 'boyfriends' or 'girlfriends' until they can demonstrate empathy and that they understand right and wrong.

Boys and girls alike can be equally mean in the tween years. It's the parents' job to be alert to the language they use about other children and to insist they do better if there's a hint of trashing others to get a laugh from friends.

As a side note:
Boundaries are about your own behaviour, not rules you impose on others.
Assertiveness is not aggression.

I agree. He sounds quite normal for a boy of 12.

I think I am going to need someone to explain why they think this is so bad. It’s blunt, yes, but I can’t see what is rude about it. He’s clearly talking about ‘like - like - you’ hence the mate and the point about kisses. Boys are allowed to not like girls that way and to say so.

Some people are in a bit of an (understandable) panic over the Adolescence hype and that kids doing sometimes rubbish kid stuff while they learn to navigate emotions, communications, and consequences of getting these a bit wrong - so falling out with others etc and learning from that - is them on a path to joining gangs or turning into a full on hater of the opposite sex.

@megifer, thanks. I guess I don’t see this as falling out. He’s literally just saying he doesn’t fancy her, as far as I can tell. He’s not saying don’t text him, just don’t put kisses.

There are 2 separate issues though

He was rude to a girl he broke up with

He asserted a boundary with a different girl who he felt he was being pushed towards

His text to her should have been worded more kindly. So he should not be reprimanded for sending the texts just told/guided as to how he should have worded it and to be more caring of other people's feelings going forward.

I'm no teen (!) but I think his meaning and your interpretation are slightly different. I think he's trying to say he doesn't "like" (wink wink) her, so stop with the kisses, ie setting her straight. You understandably think "I don't like you" means the same as "I dislike you". He's trying to say "I don't "LIKE" you". Maybe. Honestly it's another language!! Fwiw I wouldn't keep the phone over the Easter weekend. You might need big consequences for much bigger things in time! Keep your powder dry.

YABU your DS should be able to communicate his boundaries and I think he is being respectful in wanting no miscommunication. A better way to approach it would be to appreciate what he’s saying and help him phrase it in a better way.

The first place you should have reacted was 💯 with “ Lucy’s mom “ , pushing them together & they’re only 12 ! !..
TBH , that would really have annoyed me , they’re just kids !!! & clearly it made your son very uncomfortable …
You’re way over reacting & your son will never come to you with anything if you don’t approach things differently..
The only thing you have to do here is sit down with your son, apologise to him, explain to him you completely over reacted & have a conversation with him about wording things differently/kindly , he’s just a kid, guidance is all he needs ..
keep going the way you are going & handling situations the way you are , you’ll just drive him away from you & he 💯 will feel he can never turn to you …
Good news is he is only 12 , so it’s not like this is how it’s been for him all his teenage years , it’s just the beginning, plenty time to turn things around 🙂
Now ,enjoy holiday & give him back his phone !!! 😂

I disagree with people saying that you overreacted. If it were the only concern maybe but it was the 3rd strike mentioned.

1. Being generally ruder to girls via text.
2. With mates being very rude to the ex girlfriend.
3. This.

None of these things alone I'd describe as devastating but I'd definitely want to nip it in the bud. Good luck

You seem to be more upset at him setting a boundary with Lucy than you were about him bullying his ex-girlfriend. I think you are giving very mixed messages and the poor kid must be so confused.

Also if you want to have a good relationship with your teen and for them to come to you, talk to them rather than finding ways to punish them because they do something you don't like.

Why are you trying to spare Lucy’s feelings whilst ignoring your sons?

He doesn’t like Lucy in that way and obviously felt uncomfortable how her mother was acting. He set a boundary which should be respected. Honestly I don’t even think he said it in a mean or rude way, he got his point across and you shouldn’t have deleted the message.

Not over-reacting. My eldest son was fairly sensible. I got too complacent with my middle son.
he was incredibly unkind to an ex-girlfriend. I am still really upset when I think about what he did. Luckily her parents recognised how seriously I took it and they were very open about the effect the messages had on her, and were very mature in how they handled it.

my middle son is easily led and makes poor choices. He was influenced by a new kid at school who thought he was “cool”, but it was my son’s thumbs that ultimately pressed send on nasty messages, not the new kid. My husband tried to blame the other kid for being a bad influence and he struggled to see how people have to take responsibility for who we let lead us astray and who we chose to listen to.

i am grateful his ex-girlfriend’s parents handled it so well. I’m Still working on teaching my husband and son about accountability.

you are doing the right thing catching it early and teaching him about who to copy at school and how to be his own person.

Social media is so dangerous. My son is lucky that he didn’t get in more trouble with the school and the police.

never assume it’s just kids being kids. Never assume every child you raise is the same!

A 12 year old does not need a phone (maybe old text style phone if he genuinely needs to get hold of you). This is where so many problems start.

I assume most people on here would have watched Adolescence.

With respect….You’ve watched too much news and believed too much of it. I am
sad for your boy that you’ve blown this up when a gentler approach would help him. He clearly has issues expressing his feelings and maybe you should focus on that.

Your friend was forcing her DD on your son, you saw it and ds lived it.

he shut this down the way he knew how, you were totally OTT, as he has every right to say no to advances.

you should have stood up for him at the time and nipped your weirdo friends BS in the bud.

your friend didn’t take it well when you gently brought up that she has made your DS uncomfortable? Tough! She has no right to manipulate situations for her own benefit, your kids are not puppets.

be firm and advocate for ds. Teach him to be a bit more diplomatic perhaps, but he has every right to be clear, concise and to the point.

if there are potential issues with the girl, SEN etc her parents need to not try to pair kids up, and perhaps not encourage her to send pictures to your son.

don’t take the phone away, talk to him about being more diplomatic

Actually I don't think you're over reacting given his past behaviour towards the other girl. Granted he could have expressed himself more kindly. You're the parent and you have set high expectations of your DS well done!

A good parent teaches their child to think about other people/to take their feelings into consideration. Empathy is the best thing about human beings. Encouraging it in your child is admirable.

The language you use to describe your feelings is strong and you sound more panicked than you should be over it.

However, it's nice to hear that you care enough to check how he's communicating on it, to delete it ( I would and have in the past deleted on my son's phone, him being 13).

The social implications for your son are alot at this age so he's making his feeling clear. Phones and SMedia just make this harder for kids because there's an art to communicating well through it.

A gentle, non stressed word about how to gently communicate is all that's needed. Yes, it was too blunt and brutal and teaching kids how to communicate in texts is a new skill we seem to have to teach them all now this is part of their lives.

It's a bit much the other mum pressuring that situation and she needs to back off. I have an Autistic son so I can get over involved ( not with girls but with friends). It's an over compensating behaviour when your kid is different. Pushing them together as boy and girl isn't fair though and will only cause discomfort.

I wish more parents would scan phones. I've seen some of the nastiest stuff sent on WhatsApp, including to my son and think ' where's the bloody parents '.

Good for you OP. No, I don't think it means Tate in the making at all.

I don't think you're over-reacting at all, you're punishing him for his rudeness and explaining to him why what he was doing was wrong.

His treatment of his ex-girlfriend was nasty, you were right to call him out on it. How are kids supposed to learn if we don't set boundaries for them?

I'm shocked that so many responses are telling you that you've over-reacted - would they be aware of nasty messages their sons sent? Would they call their sons out on misogyny? Do they know what they watch online?

You are a properly engaged parent, which can be a hard thing to be. I think you're great.

overreacting by far, he felt like he was being set up with this girl and set boundaries the only way he knew how to