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

That’s amazing about the legislation change. I was speaking about Charlotte but have just read about Dolly, two cases that are incredible sad and could’ve easily been prevented..

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_of_Charlotte_O%27Brien

Here is charlottes story if anyone wants a read.

I would contact the school immediately and share everything with them. This is a safeguarding issue.

if you give her back a mobile phone it should be a brick phone that she can call or text you on.
I have tweens myself and none of them or their friendship groups have phones yet. They’re too young. The legal age for WhatsApp in UK is 13, but is 16 in Australia and I think other countries should follow suit to protect our children. Until then it’s up to us as parents to protect them for as long as we can.

Literally no phone going forward or a non smart one just used for calls and texts that you have full control over, is never in her possession over night or alone in bedroom etc.

So many parents just give in with the smart phones and social media because “every other kid has it and they don’t want theirs to be left out.” But if more parents stood firm and said no we’d have a lot more happier and healthier children mentally.

Have you rang or emailed the school
office yet @lookinggforadvice? The person you need to speak to is Head of Safeguarding.

Keep a log of your calls to the school so that if anything were to happen to the victim (God Forbid) you have some record of having taken action.

After you’ve explained, please make sure you know, before you hang up, what they are going to do about it and when. It has to be before the holidays. If it continues over the holidays the girl will get no respite, during the school day at least she can’t be looking at her phone all day every day.

The other parents must be told and shouldn’t have a choice as to whether to take action or not. We have to address the issue of the suicides that are happening and make parents accountable.

In your case, there needs to be a log of who is involved, how little long it has been going on, how many hours a day it goes on for and of course screenshots of the posts and images.

Particularly the gravestone one.

RIP Dolly Everett, Charlotte O’Brien, Molly Russell and in The Times yesterday, Luca Walker. In Luca’s case it sounded as though he had been in a similar position to your daughter. The victim did end his own life. Luca struggled with grief, guilt etc and ended his two years later.

We have to lose all complacency regarding childhood bullying, which is off the scale these days.

Bravo OP you totally did the right thing by taking the phone. And definitely tell the school as that poor bullied kid needs someone to look out for them. You 100% have a reaponsibility now as a parent IMO, as we all do, to report this. As other postsrs have said, online bullying can lead to suicide and self harm and if you know and don't do anything then its on you (its on all of us).

Does your DD understand why this is so wrong? And what the feeling of pressure to socially conform with the herd made her do (against her real feelings, by the sounds of it, if she has privataly been messaging the girl in a friendly way?).

I wouldve thought your DD might also be worried about now being a target if she cant be a part of the conversation.

THIS.

OP, you MUST contact the school immediately. Leaving it to 'mention' to your DD's form tutor is just not good enough - would you like this laid back approach if it were YOUR child being bullied like this?

I'm a retired secondary head and now chair of governors. Take what I'm saying seriously - please.

And only give her a brick phone for emergencies. As I said earlier - do not facilitate this sort of behaviour by handing back a smart phone.

This is vile. She’s part of the bullies. Vile. Take her phone away completely. And properly punish her. Kids are taking their lives because of people like your child and her friends. Think about that. She needs to be punished, not made excuses for.

Exactly! Failure of the parent and in turn the child has turned into one

This is an excellent approach.

I like the idea of making her read out her messages to you, so that it sinks in how horrible they are.

I like the idea of writing an apology to the girl, Id probs make this a shop bought blank card for daughter to write the apology in and writing a proper apology like the image below instructs.

And then for basically wishing death on another child, I'd set her a lofty task of raising money for the local childrens hospice, something like £500 or £1000. And only once she has done that can she get the phone back. So that could be making things to sell or standing at the supermarket with a a collection bucket. I'd probably opt for the supermarket collection as it will be an awkward experience for her, but it will be character building once its over and I dont imagine she'd partake in wishing death on another child ever again.

And I'd make sure she knew that I was disgusted with her behaviour choices.

But im a fafo parent and that's how I roll. My kids know I love them but I have no hesitation in harsh consequences. Im not raising any cretins here, only good humans. No wishy washy nonsense after crap choices and behaviour.

Id message the rest if the group and tell them you will be showing their parents the messages. Needs stamping on and stopping.

@lookinggforadvice have you contacted the school? Most schools have details on their website for Safeguarding Concerns.

My daughter was badly bullied by a group in school the messages were horrendous, I wish all parents took it as seriously it’s great reading some of these posts to see how other parents deal with it on the other side x

I would concentrate on the bullying aspect. I know if I caught my daughter doing that she’d be in floods of tears and wouldn’t be asking for her WhatsApp back she’d be mortified. I’d be more worried your child doesn’t seem to care about the effect she could be having on someone else. Where is her empathy? Stuff like this can happen without phones. So we need to make sure this type of behaviour doesn’t happen regardless. The phone is almost a secondary aspect of it. So I’d be saying until she shows remorse she’s not getting it back on her phone.

I wouldn’t tell the group I’d just send the screenshots to the parents. Don’t give them warning

I'd find it extremely hard to keep calm. Never mind her having a 2 hour tantrum, if my DD did that she would be witness to MY 2 hour tirade about how disgusting bullying is (we haven't been in quite the same situation but we did confiscate DDs phone and took WhatsApp off her phone for about a year after due to her sneaking her phone and being dishonest)

I would take the phone away permanently and she gets a brick phone until she can pay for her own phone and afford a better one. I would also be contacting the school asap (if they haven't already broken up for the Easter holidays) to let them know what has happened and provide a list of names of all the kids involved.

We took whatsapp off dd1 for about 6 weeks because she was getting quite worked up and had messaged friends talking about another girl (she is so annoying / do you think she is annoying - nothing awful) - we really hammered home that this is bullying, and apart from anything else, putting it in writing is really stupid.

I also like the idea of her reading the messages out to you, or printing them out and putting them on her bedroom door for a week so she sees them constantly. It's trying to get across that these will really stick with the victim for far longer than they will with the perpetrators.

I think no phone for the Easter holidays and Whatsapp blocked until at least May half term.

Gravestone thing is horrific. I might have a serious talk with DD about how bullying can lead to self harm and worse

Id tell the school and the victims parents tbh

we have parents evening the week they go back so I am going to mention to form teacher

Not nearly enough action.

Make sure you have screenshot and emailed it all and sent to HOY and safeguarding lead so it's received on the day they all get back.

Hopefully the staff will be able to deal with the nasty little bullies, which sadly includes your DD.

Indefinitely it needs to be no phone, no WhatsApp. She cannot be trusted.

12 seems very young to be on this. It's unfortunate that this is how they communicate, but understand that she doesn't want to be the odd one out. The bullying MUST be reported to the school.

A local girl to me recently took her own life - she was 13. The reason? Social media bullying. It is all coming to light in the wake of of her passing, It is absolutely horrendous & whilst details of the comments haven’t been made available, I’m sure it would be similar to the comments in your DDs group.
I’m a secondary teacher - the amount of times I’ve been shocked to learn the name of a student who has sent the most vile messages, it’s all too common. It’s awful, it needs stamping out, it needs families to be way more aware of the dangers of social media, WhatsApp, online & peer pressure.
please inform the school - don’t wait, email the DSL (designated safeguarding lead). There should be contacts on the school website. Include screenshots of the messages so they can start to investigate. They will pick up emails through the holidays, things like this is so important. Please please don’t leave it, that poor girl may be in all sorts of pain from this & these other girls need to be dealt with immediately.
I definitely wouldn’t let her have WhatsApp or any other such app for a long time. I would be suggesting to school that they impress upon students the seriousness of nasty messages. My heart aches when I think of my local girl and her family, it’s just so incredibly awful but it starts, and 99% of the time, involves, messages designed to hurt.

How did your talk with DD go today op?

This is horrendous and hits home, in February we had a year 8 suicide at ds’s school, I still can’t comprehend this (so goodness knows how her family are dealing with it); I have no idea if social media was involved but I was not prepared to get that email from the head on that day and those girls need to understand how awful what they’ve done is and how sometimes their actions can result in something they will never get over and how far reaching the result can be. You’ve done the right thing taking it away from her but screenshots and send to school for anyone else who experiences this.

those of you that allow whatsapp but no groups - isn’t it possible your child adds themselves / deletes themselves from groups?

those that check phones / chats - it’s possible your child deletes stuff?