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

Can you contact the other parents, or take phone to school and talk to the head of year. This does need to be addressed as the poor girl will still be subjected to that by the other girls. And we've seen how that can go, you'd feel
Bad if you didn't inform school and she ends up doing something to hurt herself.

Screen shot all the messages and send them via email to the school, is my suggestion, there will probably be a head of welfare or counselor for this. We had an issue similar in the school I worked in we were primary and it was year 6 children. A parent sent all the messages to the headmistress and it was dealt with swiftly and lots of parent consults and relational phse lessons around the subject of cyber bullying and how it affects the victim.

A teenager in our area took her own life a few years ago. She left a note saying that she wanted nobody from her school at her funeral - staff or students. She described the bullying she had endured for years from other girls and the complete lack of action from the school despite all her parents efforts to engage them. So so sad.

Recently, a 12 year commited suicide near here. Her friends were messaging vile things in the hours before she died and none of them contacted parents or the older sibling. She went to bed in the evening and her mother found her when she went to wake her for school the following morning , she'd hung herself.
Your DD is too young to be using these apps.
Phone gets removed permanently now. If for some reason she needs a phone , then supply one that makes calls and sends texts.
School need to be informed immediately. Do this to the head, head of year and safeguarding lead.

Is it Easter hols where you are? if so, perfect time for a phone break.

She can sulk all she wants but she's old enough to know that when you do something wrong there is a consequence, AND she's more than old enough to know bullying is wrong!

I'd be telling her the earliest she gets it back is when she goes back to school but that will only happen if she drops the attitude and shows some remorse for her actions.

I can see why people are saying she wouldn't get the phone back but that depends on your circumstances, IMO. My DS travels 40 mins by coach to school and I need to know if there is a problem and he needs picking up.

What I would say though is that all parents should be checking their kid's phones regularly and, if they find anything like this, reporting to the school.

You really should've screenshotted and sent this on, IMO.

It clearly needs dealing with.

Whatever you decide to do about your daughter’s phone please email school with screenshots of the messages, do not wait until parents evening, this needs to be seen by school ASAP so this poor girl can be supported.

No, I check her phone every single day. Most days twice. She doesn't have her phone in her room on her own, she messages at the kitchen table. She leaves her phone at home, doesnt take it to school. We set the codes and the limits. She had been added to group chats and she asks me to remove her, so that she can say that I took her out of it.
She did get added to a class group chat which she felt safe in, but I took her out the same day.
And I spoke to her about some of the things I'd seen in there. I also have no qualms contacting parents/school with screenshots, so people don't add her to chats as the other children now know I see everything and will act on anything I think adults should be aware of.

She actually feels safe this way, as she can simply say "my mum won't let me join that group".

Thanks. That sounds like a good approach as it sounds like it’s only accessed at home and with you around.

The thing about this generation of children is that all their stupidity, embarrassing stuff and nastiness is written down or put in photos/videos and shared, screen shot and seen by the whole year group, many of the parents and often teachers. They have to bear that in mind every single time they write or share anything.

What a horrible thing to discover.

You were right to act quickly. I guess meltdown is completely normal — try to hold off the big conversation until she's calm, nothing lands well in that state.

When you do talk, lead with curiosity rather than judgment. Ask her what was going on in the group — kids often get swept into pile-ons out of fear of becoming the next target. That doesn't excuse it, but it opens the door rather than slamming it. May be this will work for you!

Worth flagging to school too, even if it happened off-platform. They have safeguarding obligations and can keep an eye on both girls.

Hope this helps!

Children of this age shouldn’t have smartphones

get her a dumb phone

I think you are brave to post this on here and I respect your ability to take the straight talk. You are obviously a good person and a good mum.

The phone needs to go, but most importantly you need to contact all the parents of the girls in the bullying group and the parents of the girl being bullied immediately. This has to stop asap.

I would tell your daughter that you are sending screenshots of the chat to the school. At my daughter’s school there is a zero tolerance policy on bullying- one offence - suspension then second offence - expulsion. So I would also threaten that. She is likely to be mortified, furious, embarrassed and will
no doubt say that you’ve ruined her life, but she was ruining someone else’s life so you can tell her that’s what happens to bullies!

This.

Obviously not old enough to use it correctly. Bullying is awful and can have a lifetime negative effect on people. Bullying needs reporting to school so they are aware.

Stropping for 2 hours further shows her inability to understand consequences of actions. Too young for a phone let alone WhatsApp.

You absolutely need to let the school know about this. Same happened in DDs class whatsapp.... actually not as bad as what you've described. School got involved and were brilliant. Kids all learnt a very valuable lesson. Kids need to know that if they are in a group and they witness bullying, the responsiblity is on them to alert an adult/teacher.

Why are parents allowing access to WhatsApp - under 13’s are much too immature and incapable of appropriate social behaviour.
These problems rest with the parents.

Yeah but they won't admit that, they instead blame tech oligarchs. Those oligarchs were only able to get access to children because parents put technology in their hands without doing their due dilligence.

Are the oligarchs to blame too? Absolutely. They will exploit things to smithereens, but kids do not need access to smartphones, and school curriculums need to start teaching internet safety to prepare kids for this, with encouragement for parental involvement since too many are being lax about it.

My DD was on receiving end of these similar groups, it escalated so quickly, it was bloody horrible, like a pack of animals
in year 9 we took her out of school to home school her, all because of social media bullies. She had to have counselling, still not a confident girl, all from on line bullying
do not back down

Stick to your guns. This behaviour is despicable.

@TrashHeap
Schools have been teaching about internet safety for years. But there is fuck all schools can do when parents won't deal with it themselves. There was a thread on here recently where a poster discovered her 15 year old son was receiving explicit nude photos from a girl he had never actually met. Some of the people replying were incredulous that she even looked at his phone.

Correct. Many schools have also offered sessions on this for parents - usually with few takers.

Like fuck would she be getting it back. The phone itself would be history if she was using it to bully someone. I abhor bullying. It's the one thing, I will come down hard for. Her arse would fucking glow. Let her throw a tantum all day if she wants to, there's other things she can lose if she keeps it up. As for the friends their parents would be sent screenshots of what their daughters were up to.

My dd13 12 year old friend died by suicide last year. There is a police investigation ongoing with a focus mainly on online phone chat groups like whats app. The experience has been horrific, the devastation it has caused is beyond peoples comprehension, her lovely parents are trumatised. My dd was not on these chat groups it seems to involve groups linked to her sport not school. My child has had to grow up so quickly and deal with such pain and grief and I am heartbroken for her.

Reading the description of the whats app messages I feel physically sick. I am begging you @lookinggforadvice to report this group to the school so this child's parents know asap what is going on and what this child is being subjected to. It is everybodies job to keep children safe, why do you not seem to grasp the urgency in this? I am dumbfounded.

As far your daughter having a 2 hour temper tantrum because you took her phone after her engaging in this bullying, no words. You have a lot of work to do there

As a teacher I am very concerned for the girl that’s getting bullied. It would be derelict in your duty as a parent to let this slide, and imho you must tell the school so the girl getting bullied can get support. Please.

Bullying in WhatsApp groups can be really harmful. Because it’s constant and follows you everywhere, it can lead to anxiety, low self-esteem, and feeling isolated or excluded.

It can affect sleep, confidence, and even school or work. Messages can be screenshotted and shared, and group pile-ons can make things feel overwhelming very quickly.

It’s important to recognise the impact and step in early, online bullying is still bullying, and it can have serious effects.

I remember that thread, it was rage inducing.

Parents who put tech into the hands of their children without properly monitoring it, are negligent and if anything happens as a result, they need to be held responsible. But no, we blame everything else but parental responsibility.

"Get her to read the messages out to you. I think sometimes people cannot understand how awful things they type are."

In terms of your daughter, I think this - from an earlier poster - is really good advice. It sounds like empathy is the biggest thing you need to be working on with your daughter. Social media is dangerous because it is dehumanising. It's also dangerous because it is permanent, the poor girl recieving those messages will be reading and re-reading them and not able to get away, even in her own home: you need to talk to your daughter about that and make sure she understands it.

When my kids got phones, we talked alot about anything they messaged, they needed to think 'how would I feel if my Mum, or my teacher, or my friend's Mum or the police read it' and if the answer was they'd just feel a bit silly and embarrassed then fine, but if they'd feel ashamed or guilty, they should definitely not be posting it.

Read up on the smartphone free childhood. Stick to your guns and keep her off WhatsApp. Being a bully this week, being bullied next week. You’re protecting her from a world of grief she’s too young to understand.