DD’s friend sent video of her grandma having a shower

[Smellthatbbqsmell]

Really doubting myself if i’m being over the top about this.

Dd is 7 and has a friend who comes to stay with her grandparents (young -60’s maybe) who are our neighbours.
Dd often plays with her, Dd has used my phone (with my permission) sometimes to call/message her to see if she wants to play.
Her friend is at the grandparents this weekend and Dd played with her briefly yesterday.

This morning I woke up, checked my messages as always and had Whatsapps from the grandma. It was from this girl sending messages to Dd. This girl had taken a video of the grandma having a wash in the shower (very unflattering, of her bum, washing everywhere etc) you hear the girl laughing and telling her she’s filming her, the grandma asks mid bent over if she’s filming. DD’s friend then sends a voice note laughing saying it’s funny and laughing emojis etc.

I obviously didn’t show Dd, but was pretty shocked and not sure what to do, worried in case she sent the video to others etc and thinking of how embarrassing this must be for the poor grandma.
I decided to text the mum to give her a heads up, these are the replies

Aibu to be a bit baffled that she’s not more upset/angry? Her Dc is almost 6, so still
young, but a bit naughty in lots of other ways

Later the grandma sent a message to me saying thank you for letting them know and to have a nice Sunday, it’s just the mums responses? I’m a v easygoing parent in general, but wouldn’t be happy about this if Dd had done it to my mum or me for example.

I am in another country and know they won’t be on here

With my safeguarding hat on, this is raising a number of potential concerns

1. Abusive messages from a 5 year old
2. Unsupervised access to smart phone by a 5 year old
3. The fact a 5 year old would even consider to video someone in the shower, never mind send it to someone

Is the child at the same school as yours? I think I'd be cooling the friendship a bit and be speaking to school. My kids school had an incident (admittedly with older kids) and WhatsApp and they formulated a very considered and educational approach ti the situation, for both pupils and parents

Phones are just a problem full stop where children are concerned imo.

Any kind of access to social media, filming, sending, receiving needs careful supervision which becomes unrealistic for busy parents. My Dc just know they aren’t allowed to use messaging etc without checking with us first - which with phones means asking to use ours. People can call it controlling but I’d rather be safe than sorry.

But having been allowed to play with it, I don’t actually think this child has done anything outside what might be expected for a child with access to a phone and granny’s bending bottom .

Most kids where I live would absolutely never have uncontrolled access to their parents’ phones, but kids are smart naughty little twits with itchy fingers. As I said before most people on this thread would be surprised what their little angels can get up to when they see a phone lying around, even with a lock code. Kids especially like / find it hilarious filming adults doing intimate or embarrassing things for some reason.

sorry v invested in this because familiar scenario to me

Yes at the same school, but different years/classes. Dh thinks similar and that it’s all odd.
Do you think something strange is going on?

I don’t know why some responses are critical of you, I think you’ve behaved responsibly throughout and don’t need to justify yourself.

I agree that the parents and grandmother of the child are probably terribly embarrassed that this behaviour has gone public, and their polite responses to your messages are a cover for the concern they’re likely to be feeling.

Fingers crossed the video hasn’t been doing the rounds - poor Grandma!

I'm just remembering now that one of my DC (aged 5) circumvented the teacher's lock on the classroom computer, simply by watching and memorising the password. They then taught their friends. No intention to do anything nefarious, just wanted to save time having to get the teacher's attention to proceed. This was before smartphones.

I think 5 year olds know that sending videos of granny in the shower is naughty but probably not really understanding the full implications of embarrassment etc.

I would steer clear of that family from now on. The mum's messages don't make it clear that she's taking it seriously (could be out of embarrassment, but she's still downplaying it) and the girl seems to be completely unsupervised around technology. I wouldn't want my daughter playing with a family like that.

I wouldn’t be letting my child play with her again. It’s very odd behaviour.

I’d keep my DD well away from such a nasty little kid. Otherwise you did the right thing and can now forget all about it.

Why is that strange? If my 5 year old sent a video of me naked in the shower to someone, my first thought would probably be exactly the same! “thank you for telling me it must have been an accident” seem an entirely normal initial reaction to me!

What if your child was not exactly an angel?

It's impossible to know based on these things alone, but school may have a greater oversight of a bigger picture that this could form pieces of.

In terms of safeguarding reports you always hope you're wrong, but do so on the basis of what if you're not. Where did she get the idea to film someone in the shower with such hilarity? Best case scenario, shes 5, its funny. Absolute worst case scenario, has someone filmed her in the shower and when she's objected, they've made out its just a funny joke?

So the parent left their phone unattended by accident. The child picked it up by accident. The child turned it on by accident. The child started filming by accident. The child pointed the phone at her naked grandma by accident. The child started laughing because it was an accident. The child shared the video with her friend by accident.

That's a lot of accidents. Personally, I'd say it was all on purpose and needs to be dealt with as such.

I’m not saying it was an accident. OP explained to the mum that it clearly wasn’t an accident and mum accepted what she said. I’m saying that it’s not at all weird that mums initial reaction was to think it was

The mum minimised it repeatedly. "They don't know what they're doing in their innocence" and "that's just childish stuff" is not the shocked reaction of someone who fully acknowledges the seriousness of what happened.

The child shouldn't film anyone naked. The child shouldn't send messages to friends unsupervised. If the parents can't teach their child how to behave with a smartphone, they shouldn't let her anywhere near one.

Frankly, I don't think "it was an accident" is a reasonable reaction even at the beginning. It hints at a mentality of denial and defending you and your child at all costs even when you're clearly in the wrong.

Awful behaviour by a 7yr old, wow!
Forgive me though but I did giggle a bit. I think teachers would likely describe this kid as ‘spirited’ 😁

All I can think of is that this grandma will be a million percent more embarrassed if she sees you’ve posted her texts up on a social media platform. And will want to never leave the house again when the daily mail runs this a story.

You still haven't said what you expected her response to say. Could you put down in words what you were looking for?

Personally I'd expect something along the lines of "I'm so sorry this happened, thank you for alerting me. I will of course talk to DD and make sure it doesn't happen again".

Increasingly I get the feeling op wanted “oh I am so desperately embarrassed. Yes, I admit, our child is a demon.”

I think this is about op not liking the child. The film was a convenient excuse to get the child in trouble.

Don’t be so silly

I’m not sure it is silly,

The mother has said she will talk to the child. She didn’t berate you for raising it with her.
I’m really not sure what you wanted- except that your follow up posts have dripped in that the child is a “bit of a bugger,” speaks dreadfully to the GM, sends “ awful” vm, bombards you by just turning up etc etc.
I just think you don’t like her and were hoping the response from the mum would be bigger. There isn’t anything you need to worry about from your side in the mother’s response to you. She’s been told, she’s acknowledging receipt of the info, she’s said she will talk to her. What more are you wanting?

From your message to the mum it does sound more casual eg girl took video of grandma on shower and accidentally forwarded to you. I don’t think the whole scenario of her making funny comments etc and the deliberate nature of it comes over in the message you sent the mum. Presumably the mum won’t have seen the video so is going by the case of it could have been accidental and she’ll speak to her DD about appropriate filming. It sounds on her reply to you thats she’s mortified and likely downplaying to you to hide their embarrassment. It doesn’t mean she won’t be speaking to her DD about it.

It seems like the girl has too much freedom around the grandmas phone when she is there. It’s not careful supervised use like you are doing with your own DD. She also seems to have a nasty streak (maybe immature rather than actual nastiness) so I’d be limiting any interaction between the girls.

Clearly embarrassed and playing it down so as not to cause judgement. However, if I was the parent I would respond more seriously and say that's not acceptable and thanks for telling me. X

Some very strange responses on here giving OP a hard time, not even reading her post properly. This is appalling behaviour by the 5 nearly 6 year old, poor grandma.
I think you're right to stop them.playing with each other, and to.pull back from.even supervised access to your phone. She may find it fun to take photos of the dog with one of those disposable cameras or even a Polaroid if they still.make them.
You did exactly the right thing to let the mum.lnow. it was obvious this child was doing this to embarrass her grandma, horrid, cruel, very worrying behaviour imo