AIBU to make DS16 reports sexual messages sent from his phone?

[BusyJoker]

DS (year 12) has been tutoring a year 9 girl for about a year. He told me that someone stole his phone without his knowledge during sixth form today and started mass sending sexual messages to all the girls in his contacts on snapchat. One of the people that was messaged is the year 9 girl DS is tutoring saying something along the lines of "Do you want to hook up I'm horny." DS was friends with the person before the incident and the person did it as a "joke". I encouraged DS to inform his school about this situation but he is refusing to do so as he doesn't want to be seen as a snitch by others and is saying his friend did a joke that crossed the line. What should I do? What action will the sixth form take against the pupil likely if informed?

An adult tutor wouldn't have a child's contact in their phone - it is a clear safeguarding risk. teachers and tutors communicate with the parents. He has no business having a 9 year old's contact in his phone.

You are his Mum - this whole situation needs taking in hand before he finds himself in serious trouble.

What his friend did is a crime.

He has no business acting as a tutor of minors unless he has a grasp of these issues.

In your shoes I would be straight round to the parents of the 9 yo. And the school.

ETA - My Ds supported younger students when he was an A level student - I went through all these points with him. Including not being alone with the child in the home, keeping the door open etc. Not scaremongering - professional guidelines for anyone in this role.

I am so sorry for the people on here with daughters. It appears it’s never too young to learn their place in the world and that they need to realise that men can harass them, especially if they are just having jolly japes.

I hoped the world would get better but it’s getting worse.

She is year 9, ie aged thirteen or fourteen - not that this materially changes anything in your post, which I otherwise entirely agree with

And I’m sorry but it should be the police dealing with it

Yes, sorry - Year 9 and I agree it makes no difference (just removes the surprise that a 9 year old would have unsupervised phone contact with a 16 yo)

because the messages are of a sexual nature and they've been sent to children

My point is more that teens do do these things with each others phones (for those denying it happens)

However. It is suspicious that he won't give the name away. And it is appalling he had her as a Snapchat contact

They're in year 12? Immature boys!

Oh believe me I do agree that he is the one at fault - I’m not blaming her parents. That being said, my point is, what are her parents thinking of by taking on a stranger they’ve found online to tutor their daughter? Have they never heard of safeguarding?

Agree. The son behaved awfully but the parents seem to have left their brains behind somewhere.

If my son didn’t report it then I would be doing it myself. Who cares if he snitches on a boy who is obviously a shit friend and wants to get people into serious trouble. I would see what the school are going to do about it - someone needs to apologise to the year 9 girl in particular and I would want it to be the friend. I would want to speak to her parents myself but it would be better to go through the school. This needs reporting ASAP as some of the girls involved will probably be telling their parents

I agree re immature things boys do .. I said that upthread too. But it’s extremely unlikely that this is what happened here. Your situation is plausible, OP’s ds is really implausible.

I don’t agree re the Snapchat thing. Teenagers add everyone to their contacts, especially Snapchat - that part to me is very normal too.

in year 11, we were contacted by police about an incident at school where my sons friend received an AI image of a girl at school that had been made nude as 'a joke' by another kid and airdropped to lots of people. my son never had the image on his phone he was stood with his friend when it was received on the friends phone and they went and showed the girl who was obviously upset. her parents had reported to police it was my son who created it and it was on his phone hence having the police interview.
Whilst the scenario is slightly different - i can assure you school and police will take this very seriously. I was stressed beyond belief over this and the subsequent interview, thankfully as nothing was on my sons phone and never had been it ended there. I think you need to take this seriously and deal with it immediately, if in fact your son is being truthful, which given his willingness to protect his 'friend' sounds dubious.

This is crazy. When I tutored, as a middle aged, qualified female teacher I wouldn't have a child's number until they were over 16 and I only used a Nokia phone for all tutor-related contact information.

I agree, at least in the days of MySpace and early Facebook, you would just add anyone you vaguely know. I assume it’s the same for Snapchat and TikTok nowadays. It probably wouldn’t be obvious to the DS that this is not professional. He’s still very young, I assume this is his first job so he needs guidance about professional boundaries. This is not to excuse anything that’s happened, just that I can see why they might be connected on SM

Stop blowing things out of proportion & get a grip .

I agree that your DS needs to go ahead and tell his school. He will have to explain what happened to school and who did this when it comes to light and someone complains.

I would also try and get in touch with the parents of the girl and apologise, explain what happened, say the school is taking the incident very seriously. He could also suggest that it may be more appropriate to communicate through them rather than their DD direct, not that he expects that this is ever going to happen again.

Finally, once the school decides what happens/what the punishment is, I would request a formal apology from the friends to the girl and her parents, to show your DS is clearly innocent. I'd prepare him for them to cancel the tutoring though...

Perhaps they assumed he wouldn’t send messages harrassing their child. Naive perhaps. But they may not know that he has her phone number.

Yes, the young girl has been harassed - whether by the OP’s son or one of his “friends”. This needs to be addressed ASAP and if it was me, I would leave the position just to ensure she no longer felt uncomfortable about the situation. You can’t ask a girl that age to “move past it”.

Of course this needs to be reported. If he won't then report it yourself.

They need to involve the police. And he needs to step down from the tutoring immediately.

And all apologising teaches him is that he can get away with disgusting behaviour.

Exactly, but apparently it was just boys joshing around and everyone needs to move on.

It’s likely her parents will tell everyone they know about it (in a ‘don’t let him tutor your child’ way) so he’s going to get a reputation at the very least.

Nah I reckon he did it. It takes time to go through someone's contacts on various apps and send written typed messages. Your attitude to it is gross too OP

professional tutors do not add their students to social media. That's a clear red line .

I mean that he is about to find out. It is likely that this is not the end of it, and should the hirl's parents take it up the decision will be taken out of his hands.