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.

Yup

You are over-reacting. He is a 12 year old boy, embarrassed as he feels this girl is being forced on him, too young to know how to deal with it, reading too much into a casual x in a message from her .......
He needs your help to handle this, not punishment.
You need to try and get inside his head and help him to deal with it.
You could have asked him to talk about why he sent it, helped him to see that an x on a message is often v casual, agreed to try and stop friend trying to pair them off, listened to his feelings, acknowledged that it is a bit tricky and discussed better ways of dealing with it.
He needs you on his side helping him to navigate the choppy waters of human relationships.
He is only 12, hormones are kicking in and he is just learning about life.
Please be on his side.

Devastated? No. He could’ve been more tactful though. He sounds a bit arrogant.

I didn’t read my kids’ messages at 12. That seems OTT. He’s nearly a teenager and should be entitled to some privacy. Unless you have concerns, you have to learn to let go. Though keep instilling how to have common sense, respect and open communication.

IMHO it’s OTT to confiscate his phone for the entire weekend. He shouldn’t have told her he didn’t like her, as she might think he meant he didn’t like her at all (whereas I assume he meant he doesn’t fancy her). But why can’t he make it clear he doesn’t feel comfortable with the kisses?

I disagree that it was an overreaction. This is part of a wider issue of how he speaks to girls and how he views them in comparison to boys. That message would have been absolutely devastating to receive. At 12 he absolutely does know that other people have feelings and to hurt them on purpose is a horrible thing to do.
Lucy's mum did what lots of adults do - they wanted the kids to entertain each other, so the adults could have a bit of tone to themselves - she wasn't pushing them to date! And even if she was, none of that was Lucy's fault.

The way I'm seeing it is that this isn't the first time you've had to talk to your son about the way he talks to girls so it isn't a 'don't know how to respond' issue and more of a 'don't care if I hurt her feelings' one. I think taking the phone away until he learns how to use it responsibly is not a disproportionate response. At the same time, you will have to keep working with him on how he views girls and how he speaks to them. Does he lack empathy generally?

It's a normal thing to happen in terms of learning and growing up
Yes it wasn't correct but that's why we are parents to guide our kids through these things when they happen.
Just to warn you there's going to be a few more of these !

Geez OP that was a massive overreaction perhaps influenced by the previous incident.

It is ok for your son to be uncomfortable and unhappy with the situation- just as it is ok for a girl to be uncomfortable with being forced to spend time with a boy and then having texts with kisses. He does not need to be a people pleaser just because you are. At least he was nipping it in the bud.

Instead of going mad, you need to give him the tools to express himself politely and firmly without offense.

Have you acknowledged to him that his feelings of discomfort are valid and ok? Or now does he feel he was wrong to feel this way and should just put up with the forced friendship?
FWIW I don’t think 12 year olds normally put kisses at the end of texts to people that they are not very close to but I may be wrong.

The previous incident does not sound good and you have dealt with it.

Enjoy your holiday!

Christ, most kids tell each other to go kill themselves so I think he's totally right to set his own boundaries. He's 12

I think you have panicked because of what’s happened before. He shouldn’t have sent the message because it’s unkind but on the other hand he wants her to stop. From his standpoint you have awareness of the situation but you haven’t put a stop to it.

You need to ensure he’s not put in that position again, going away with a family who are trying to set him up at twelve years old. The fact that you were aware of this but didn’t tackle it head on at the time but instead managed it by taking him out for football is an under reaction and now this is an over reaction.

You have spork to the other mother but Lucy is still contacting him. I hope he’s ‘allowed’ to block Lucy.

Gosh I get your concern but you have to be careful not pushing him away so he a) goes secretive and hides things from you like
deletes his messages and b) stops confiding in you.

I would have prob said not cool buddy - this message would hurt her feelings kisses don’t mean she is seeing you in that way - can you delete this?

And give him back his phone and say why the message was not cool and he needs to think of how others will feel when reading it - you don’t want to start his teens years as a war - you want to have open and honest conversations about things so you are going to give him back his phone for the holiday and trust he’s going to think about things going forward.

So girls can act and say anything they want to boys (and adult equivalents) and boys are in the wrong if they say anything?

Watching Adolescence OP - a bit bored over the holiday?

Yes, you are massively overreacting. Mild irritation at having to deal with this right before your holiday is one thing, but devastated? Nah, your son did nothing wrong other than be a bit blunt in a situation he doesn't have the emotional maturity to deal with.

It pains me to admit this, but a few years ago my DD was the Lucy in this situation and, to a smaller extent, I was Lucy's mum. We'd met up with some old family friends after a few years of not seeing them and their DS and my Lucy were both about 12 and initially hit it off. I thought he was a good kid and encouraged the friendship probably a little too enthusiastically. My Lucy ended up really liking him 'like that' but he didn't and he sent a similar text to your DS – actually a lot harsher – telling her he didn't like her. His parents were angry he was rude but we agreed he didn't do anything wrong and we certainly didn't worry he was going down the Andrew Tate route. In the old days, kids would dispatch their friends in the playground to tell a girl or boy they liked or didn't like them – now they just do it themselves on their phones. As for our Lucy, we had the 'He's Just Not That Into You' chat, which helped her see the situation for what it was and now she's older she's plays it far cooler with boys and has healthy boundaries.

So cut your DS some slack and talk to him about framing texts that aren't horribly rude in tone.

I don’t think you’re over reacting at all, you sound like a lovely compassionate, feminist mother trying to raise a good man. So lovely and conscious of Lucy’s feeling. Can’t believe how many people are saying over reacting. Sounds like you’re doing all the right things, keep going.

He lacked tact, he's 12. But you're massively overreacting.

I get why you overreacted- like you said we’ve all got Andrew Stupid Tate on the mind as we raise our teens, in general we don’t want to raise someone who doesn’t treat people with respect and probably subconsciously you’re afraid of what your own friend will say too.

Op I took my son off Snapchat because looking at it, it was like a zoo, it’s hard to be diplomatic at the best of times and their whole class were saying stuff that was coming off as awful because it was without context or had eg the wrong punctuation. Hope ye can have a proper chat, I’ve found the treat others as you’d like to be treated, or how would you feel fall flat lately unfortunately- tweens and teens are hard!!

Once again you're conflating two unrelated issues.

The first situation is exactly what you said.

The second is very much not.

You're not acknowledging that.

Agree with this

Were the sexes reversed OP and “DD” wasn’t comfortable with what she felt was over familiarity would you be responding in the same way?

I didn’t read my kids’ messages at 12. That seems OTT. He’s nearly a teenager and should be entitled to some privacy

Oh definitely no to this - you absolutely should go through children’s phones. They are not old enough for this level of privacy on devices that can access the www - 12 year olds certainly shouldn’t doing, writing, viewing, reading anything that requires privacy.

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

Your son was a bit blunt maybe but he’s just putting a boundary in place. Lucy’s mum needs to stop pushing them together and trying to get children into a relationship.

You can speak to him about being nasty about the girl he was in a relationship with but your son has said he doesn’t want to be shoved together with Lucy and you have to respect that.

He’s not mature enough to have a phone. Take it off him til he his.

Overreacting much as the message was unacceptable. I don't think it is one step to being an Andrew Tate wannabe, but am sure you can use this incident to instil appropriate values in him.

OP have you heard about the To be a boy podcast? It’s about raising boys and is set up by the lady who founded pregnant then screwed. She’s a feminist trying to navigate raising sons in today’s world.

Aside from that I think you need to think about what you want to get out of your upcoming holiday. Personally I would use it to really focus on building your/your DH’s relationship with him. He will become much harder to parent if there is no relationship there or it just feels like he’s being disciplined all the time.

I don’t know if you think you did over react, the general consensus seems to be that you did. I would be tempted to go and have an actual discussion with him about this. Why you reacted how you did but also that you have thought about it further you understand that maybe he was trying to set a boundary about something that made him uncomfortable. But still acknowledge that he should have phased this differently. I probably wouldn’t take the phone away for the whole holiday.

It would be useful for him to see that you did something probably a bit rash, thought about it, talked it through and then came to a different conclusion it will help him to do the same in the future if he can see you work through that process.

Unless you didn’t think you over reacted at all 😂

Not conscious of her son’s feelings or his boundaries whilst the other mother was forcing him to spend time with the girl?
A good way to alienate boys against girls/women.

What he needs to be taught is how to recognise your own boundaries, recognising boundaries others are setting and that others should also respect yours - then to express this clearly, politely, assertively and then what to do if this is not respected.

He is 12 so unsurprisingly he didn’t get it quite right but he doesn’t want to have a romantic relationship with this girl and has said so. Now he needs to learn to rephrase that more tactfully but still unequivocally.

I don’t think you’re overreacting. The fact that your son treats girls worse than boys is something to nip in the bud by teaching empathy and where needed sanctions. I don’t think that unkind messsge was fine, it was rude.

Lots of women and men put xx at the end of almost every text message as a matter of course. It doesn't mean she "likes" him, and it's a bit big headed of him to think so.

He doesn't have the right to be rude or police another person's innocuous speech.