12 YO DD and WhatsApp. Did I handle this correctly and what to do going forward

[lookinggforadvice]

Dd is in year 7. She started at a school where she knew no one but settled in really well, however it seemed like they all kept in touch on WhatsApp so we let her have an account which we would monitor. All very immature group chats

However tonight I looked for the first time in a couple of weeks and it looks like they have turned against one girl, DD included. Nasty bullying comments and short videos including one with her friends name on a grave stone. Awful. Separate to this she is messaging the same girl privately chatting about holiday.

i’ e confiscated her phone for now, and deleted WhatsApp altogether and told her she not having it until she is mature enough to use it properly. I obviously want to go through how bad this is, but she’s literally thrown a 2 hour meltdown demanding WhatsApp back.

i’m horrified by how nasty some of the messages were, but don’t want to completely cut DD off. How would you proceed

I agree with @DrinkFeckArseBrick . Also mention that even being in the group (even if she hadn’t weighed in) is being involved and that she should inform one of her trusted adults when something like this happens.

I’ve did a workshop on keeping your kids safe online and they advised you not to punish them by taking the phone off them. Because this makes them less likely to tell you when things go wrong.

I was just thinking the same thing. Meltdown over not having her phone but couldn't give two shits about the reason why.

It just goes to show how toxic these things can be.

You need to do it before then OP. This child is really really suffering. Please. Do it tomorrow.

Contact the school now, you should be able to get through even in the holidays to someone, leave a voicemail etc. As other PP have said this bullying won't be stopping just because your DD has stopped and can have horrific consequences

The Milgram experiment gave us insight into how people behave around their peers in order to fit in. Your daughter may well have gone along with the bullying in order to fit in (if I were you I would definitely prefer to think this rather than she thought it was fun). Thankfully she has a mother with a moral compass who is going to do the right thing.

I hope it stops in time for the bullied child to recover. I wish we could close the lid on Pandora's box, I truly do.

That child could do anything. Many of them really do not cope at all.

This is sad to read know your a good parent for actually recognizing and acting on this, the issue now a days is many parents dont or they cant even be bothered to parent their own children. Definitely do not give into the meltdown which I dont think you will and I would be saying if that didn't stop also then im confiscating more things. Right idea to speak to the school too as the other kids in the chat are obviously saying mean things also and hold part of the blame their parents need to be made aware

You sound like a great mum

Stick to your guns and do what you know is right, dont be swayed by emotion

I think its natural but pointless to feel furious at her; she is too immature to handle the internet or a smart phone, not just Whatsapp. Her meltdown is a symptom of that immaturity.
She needs help navigating this. Expecting her to act or listen with maturity isn't going to work, she can't. State some rules, boundaries and consequences, and tell her you are doing this as a consequence of her own behaviour.
She has to go back to school and face the other girls, and she isn't suddenly going to develop a mature way of doing that, so try to prepare.

She's demonstrating behaviour that 90% of people demonstrate in life. In reality, very few people have the b*lls to say "hang on, this is not okay" in so so many spheres of life!

If you think your DD did this in order to fit in, then it’s also would be good to talk about holding true to your values while being in the middle of that type of behaviour. This is very tricky stuff that many teens struggle with.

My daughter was subjected to bullying in WhatsApp groups that she kept getting added to. It destroyed her confidence and it's taken years to rectify that. I'm glad you are taking this seriously, I hope your daughter understands the impact of what she has done.

Children under 13 shouldn't have WhatsApp, they can't legally have an account. Therefore whatever she types is essentially you typing since by allowing her to have WhatsApp you take full responsibility for it.

We let our 11 year old have WhatsApp for the same reason as you, however I view it as my WhatsApp that she uses - since she isn't legally able to have an account I take full responsibility for it. She knows this. She also knows I check her phone every single night, without fail. I talk to her about whatever is in any messages and I delete any chats that I don't want her in. She also isnt allowed to be in group chats of more than 4 people. It isn't a hardship to spend 5 minutes checking her phone every day, and I don't see how any parent can let their CHILD have access to messaging apps without daily checks.
My daughter knows fully that I will continue to do this every single evening until she is at least 15 - as this is what I did with her brothers. They are now 15 and 16 and have earned my trust. However they still know that I own the phones and have access if I wanted to. They aren't allowed to take them to school either, the phones stay at home in the school day, and downstairs at night - this is non-negotiable.

Bullying is so easy to get caught up in when it's online, and it soon becomes a ganging up. I work in education and mental health, and sadly we have had a very recent death by suspected suicide of a 12 year old girl, due to bullying on messaging apps. Her parents had no idea. Clearly the parents of the children who were bullying her weren't checking their phones, and now a child is dead.

I really wish parents would take full responsibility and if they can't be bothered to they should simply not give their children phones in the first place.

Yes that is one of the nasty tricks, isn't it? To keep adding the victim to a chat s/he hasn't asked to join and doesn't want to join. So that they have to see all of the horrible things being written about them. Anyone who hasn't tried to get their child through this has no idea.

You’ve done the right thing. I personally would keep hold of it until the end of the Easter holidays. So she learns this isn’t acceptable.

This is for her own good too, not just punishment, because the bullying will continue over the holidays and you do not want your DD involved in any way, shape or form. The bullied girl’s parents will rightfully so contact the school as soon as they are aware of what is happening and your DD will be in a heap of trouble if involved.

The question should be, how can you help the bullied child?

My DD was in year 6, I checked her phone and saw one girl viciously singled out. Fortunately my DD, although in the WhatsApp group hadn’t got involved, so I emailed screen shots of the full verbal attack to their teacher. Heads rolled at school for those girls. The bullied girl gave me a wave of thanks one day, I was extremely happy to have helped her. The mothers of the bullies stopped speaking to me, but I didn’t give two hoots!

Oh my God @VivienneDelacroix that is absolutely terrifying. In some ways I wish I hadn't read it. That poor, poor family.

I think there's now an option that you can't be added to groups without your permission? This was quite a few years ago and it was just awful. We blocked numbers, she would leave as soon as she was added but the damage was done. Absolutely broke me seeing her go through it but she stood up to the bullies and eventually got through it.

Sadly not the first very young girl locally to die this way due to online bullying in the last 12 months.
I wouldn't want people to have to see what I see at work, but I wish parents would understand what they were putting in their children's hands. We don't just hand children the keys to a car on their 17th birthday and expect them to be able to drive off and yet we hand them phones and leave them to it.

The aren’t strictly old enough for WhatsApp in yr 7 tbh - I think it’s a 13+ app

I know they all do, but it’s worth bearing in mind.

My DS has it but he did take my suggestion not to be in any of the big groups. Maybe those with a couple of friends for a purpose, and he’s in the family group chats, but not the random ongoing groups. DD was good like that too when younger.

Because being in the groups increases the chances of you being the kid who gets bullied by a large margin.

@lookinggforadvice I read recently about a 12 year old girl who killed herself in Australia due to bullying by her friendship group. A whole life gone. Forever. Beautiful girl gone. And part of that was through WhatsApp.

please take this seriously OP. Please show your daughter the story of Charlotte O Brien. Her heartbroken parents do talks at school about bullying. You need to take this more seriously than 2 hours. They’ve put her name on a gravestone for god sake! I’d be telling the school and the other parents

The gravestone imagery is horrifying. That poor girl. You need to approach the school and you need to sit down with your dd and work out her involvement in this and her understanding of how serious this is.

You sound like a good mum and this is one of the hardest but best things you will do for your dd because as others have pointed out, this level of bullying often has serious consequences and there is no coming back. That poor girls parents need to know before its too late.

There are 2 issues here. 1 The bullying, 2 The use of social media.
Firstly, the bullying. I am not sure you approached this in the right way. You can't punish someone into being a kind and empathetic person! All this does is turns the perpetrators even more against the victim and the bullying ramps up becomes more sneaky. You need to sit your daughter down and calmly talk about bullying and what healthy and unhealthy friendships look like. Most often kids join in the pile on because they are frightened not to. It takes a lot of courage to stand up against your friends.
2.Social media. You need to emphasise to her that whatever she types is potentially there forever. Be very very careful what you commit to writing online or offline, especially anything that could cast you in an unfavourable light.

This in spades.

Kids are literally committing suicide over this kind of shit and it’s utterly heartbreaking.

If it were my son or daughter contributing to those disgusting messages you found, they simply would not be getting their phone back, and no amount of tantrums in the world would convince me otherwise.

This! Your daughter has been a right little cow OP, whether you accept it or not and you need to nip it in the bud now and advise the school as well. Tag-alongs who aren’t the main instigators but sit back and watch and poke are just as bad. The fact your daughter is also two faced enough to message the other girl and pretend to be her friend! You need to do something bigger than two hours!

I get that bullying is never right, but equally, punishment is rarely effective. If you want to actually address the problem rather than feeling that you’ve acted “appropriately” as a parent by removing phone, social media etc, you would ideally be trying to gain an understanding of what led to this. It’s incredibly hard to go against the herd at this age. And if you do, the likelihood is you end up on the receiving end of the same treatment. Your daughter doesn’t feel strong enough to do that. I would imagine deep down she feels awful about this, hence messaging the girl outside of the WhatsApp group, but she’s struggling to work out how to not turn into a social pariah. She needs your help in understanding that there are options in between being in with the kind of kids who bully, and being the kid who is bullied. You can’t force her or shame her into being a “nicer” person. She’s probably a perfectly decent kid anyway - we are all capable of some pretty grim behaviour when we feel like our back is to the wall. What you can do is help her to resolve her own struggles so she is better placed to be more empathetic to others. By all means let her see that you are shocked by what’s happened, and link that to how awful bullying is for those experiencing it. But let her know that you love her, and you know she’s a good person even though her behaviour has been very wrong here, and that you want to help her by talking through how she ended up doing this and what’s going on for her at the moment. In year 7 you can still do a lot to influence healthy friendships. Now is the time to talk about what that looks like, before she’s in year 9 and locked in a toxic group where vicious behaviour is the norm. By all means remove social media if you think she can’t handle it - but not as a punishment. Explain it’s a protective step, there’s loads of evidence out there of the harm it does. But you have an opportunity here to model to her that when she makes mistakes, she can expect understanding, love and support from you. Don’t let those frothing at the mouth and calling your daughter a “right little cow” sway you - I would imagine they’ve made their fair share of mistakes as well. If handled right, they can be the moments that people look back on as having shaped them for the better. Best of luck.

It was Dolly Everett. There is a charity in her name now. Dollys Dream . So unbearably sad. There was also a change in legislation in some states to strengthen the penalties for cyberbullying.