Online Harassment on Y6/Y7 Whatsapp Groups

[Lilyfairy]

My daughter has just left primary school and is due to start high school in September. One of her classmates started a Whatsapp group for the primary leavers and a second Whatsapp group for them and any others they know from other schools who are going into Y7. That group now has around 100 members.

One of her old classmates (who she never really got along with) has started repeatedly sharing unflattering photos (what they call 'mugs') of my daughter on the leavers' group and refuses to stop, despite my daughter asking her to several times. My daughter has blocked her and has stopped engaging with her on the leavers group (as she still wants, and deserves, to be part of the group) but she is continually harassing her on there with the repeated sharing of her photo and now, nasty comments to boot. As my daughter has now stopped rising to the 'bait' the other girl has now started doing the same on the upcoming Y7 group which my daughter is finding very upsetting and she feels she's being humiliated and belittled in front of all of her new peers.

My instinct is to just get her off both groups but there are people she likes in there and she very much wants to feel part of those groups, which I can understand. Should that one girl have the power to force my daughter out by harassing her in that way?? I really don't know what to do or how I can help.

I would also want to remove my daughter from both chats too but if your dd wants to remain in the groups then support her with it. I understand why she still wants to be a part as it’s very unfair for her to miss out due to this bully.

I would encourage her to just not engage with this girl and to continue to show you the messages and pictures this girl posts about her. Your daughter should also respond to normal group chat.

When y7 starts then you can contact the school and let them know about the previous history between the two girls. That way if anything happens during the school term then you can approach the school for support.

I would remove her from both chats, or potentially mute the leavers one and then check together. DD was allowed what’s app at the end of year 6, but the deal was she had to know who was in the groups and be able to explain who people were - quite a few didn’t use their proper names which meant she couldn’t join the big groups. I checked on a regular basis who she was talking to. These big what’s app groups are frequently trouble. They’ll quickly become obsolete once September starts and you can remind her that there will be plenty of parents like me who refuse to allow their DC on them. I was not the only one by a long shot. She could start a new group with her friends and any friends of friends but try and keep it small. Screen shot the nasty comments so that you can make school aware - someone will be monitoring email for safeguarding over the holidays so it may be worth dropping her new school a line.

Firstly age only 10/11 is too young to be in a huge WhatsApp group.

Asking your DD to ignore is not enough support for her.

I think you have to step in somehow as this is very active bullying. If your DD has asked her to stop what is happening is harassment.

Take screenshots of everything and start by reporting to WhatsApp.

Report this to school as soon as you start, so school is aware of the behaviour.

And protect your DD online going forwards - huge WhatsApp groups of people she doesn't know are not a good idea.

Do you have the other girls parents number or address???

I would start there they need to nip that right in the bud

I completely agree that your DD should not be in either group. She is being targeted and is far too young to have to deal with it. I would suggest that as her parent, I would post something along the lines of “DD has requested that photos of her are not posted online but this is still continuing. This is unacceptable and is bullying behaviour so she will be leaving this group”
I would also speak to the other girl’s parents to inform them of their DDs behaviour.

Remove her from both groups. Its bullying and what message are you sending, that its ok to put up with bullying because of FOMO. This is why there is an age limit on social media, and why childrens access needs to be regularly monitored by a responsible adult.

As a PP said, could you not not contact the bully’s parents over this and ask them to get the photos removed? That being said, I have a DC going into Y7 and no way would I be comfortable with them being in a bit WhatsApp group.

I would go straight to the shitty parents who should be checking through the phone ( but probably don't). If no joy there, I would tell the school in September that there has been a history regarding this picture spamming and can they keep an eye on things.

Keep your daughter off this for as long as possible.

I have a young teenager and I want to smash the phone provided by other parent into a million pieces. I have temporarily removed it in place of a Nokia and it was like drug withdrawal.

These phones are hideous hideous hideous and should be illegal under 16 imo.

Get her off them. Legally, they need to be 13 to use WhatsApp. They are too wee and they can't cope with it. We got a letter from high school warning us not to allow them to join large groups as it is where all the bullying is. They post silly things and try to show off and because everyone sees it, the comments aren't forgotten and moved on from the way a spoken word is. They feel forced to respond and things escalate.

Get them off the group. Contact the school who will deal with it. Don't contact parents yourself unless you know them and have a good relationship with them. This can also escalate tensions.

What is she missing out on by not being in these groups? In my experience they are pointless. Protect your child and remove her. By all means encourage communication with trusted peers in a controlled way - but not this.

Talk to her about use of phones and others have said make sure it’s safe. You’re just as guilty for exposing her to this.

I understand that your DD doesn't want to miss out, but IME they don't miss out on much by not being part of the huge WhatsApp group. Can she start a much smaller group just for her friends? I'd remove her from both groups, she can join again in a few weeks when the bully has probably forgotten about her.

What do you mean by “unflattering photos”? 11-year-olds don’t take ‘unflattering’ pictures of each other, as if they’re paps catching pop stars falling out of night clubs. They just take pictures.

It’s recently risen to 16. My daughter is a year older than the OP’s and the school had to send out a letter reminding them of this.

Is anyone else an admin on this group or is it just bully girl? Any admin can remove the pictures.

Do you have a general parents group still? It might be worth raising the alarm generally.

Have a look at the policy on social media on the website for your new secondary school.

Tell the parents of bully girl that you will be alerting the head of Y7 the minute term starts that there has been online bullying over the summer unless this is dealt with this week.

Age of criminal responsibility in this country is 10. So if you have no joy with this girl's parents you can ask the police to pop round.

Also echo everything pp have said about the problematic nature of large WA groups - and smartphones in general - for children so young. They simply do not have the maturity to cope.

For children this age, large groups on WhatsApp are a massive red flag for me

I would take her off both groups, ensure she remains in contact with her close friends in other ways

If the bullying continues, absolutely report to the school

In my area (SE London) a number of secondary schools are banning smartphones starting with year 7 this September

Our DC aged 11 is going into year 7, sadly his school isn’t going to ban smartphones- he doesn’t even have a phone yet but will not be getting a smartphone for some time yet, it will be an old school Nokia or similar so can contact us/friends

All this smartphone/social media addiction in children is crazy! And yes adults are addicted too but thankfully we can hopefully stop this continuing for our children

Your dd should never have been allowed on those groups. You have just reminded me why I didn't let my dd join her y6 leaver's group, there are some rights arsehole kids on it, and this is form a nice leafy outstanding school. I know what's going on on the group chats as my friend's daughter is still on them, it's full of vulgar swearing and girls and boys bitching about each other using pathetic Gen Alpha slang. My dd was only allowed to be on small groups throughout year 7.

While I am no fan of groups for young kids I a wondering if, before leaving the group, she could post some mean photos about the girl who has been doing it. It could be a photo of the mean girl with the word 'Main character energy loading', 'I need followers like I need oxygen' or 'I want that main feed energy' overlayed. if you want it a little harsher try 'Built to terrorise' or 'I’m the main villain'. She could directly respond to the photo message the mean girl sent about her. So it's obvious she started it. Leave it there for a couple of hours until most have seen it then delete it.

I would get the contact details of the parents and lay it out straight! She’d probably get a bollocking and it would stop.
I kept getting nasty messages as a child, awful by this one horrible girl. Our house was egged too. My dad called the police. They came, said they’d go to her house - they did - needless to say, she didn’t say a word to me ever again.

@Lilyfairy I’d remove her from the groups and, importantly, set her WhatsApp so she can’t be added to any groups. Maybe review the parental controls on her phone as a whole.

I would also go as far as to take some responsibility for this and let my child know I’m sorry and have learned from my mistake.

As well as informing school, I’d encourage parents on any year 6/7 groups to check the messages being sent as there’s been some bullying. Keep it vague and enough people will check, and then it can be their responsibility to keep an eye on the kids that are left in the groups.

Can I tell you as a year 5/6 teacher, you would not believe the sheer amount of time we have to spend daily dealing with the fallout from the previous night's social media activity. Social media is so damaging to young people, why are parents so desperate to let their kids get into this so early?

Sorry it’s not clear if the bully started the group or another child. If the later I would do go the group creator and her parents and have them block the bully. As said they probably shouldn’t have a group at all at that age but complete exclusion of the bully might send her a wake up call

I think this is really good advice. If you're on a parents WhatsApp from primary you could message and say something like 'Just taken DS off the yr6 and yr 7 chats as there's been some unkind behaviour - you might want to check your DC aren't affected/involved.' I bet some parents don't know their kid is on the chat, and some won't be checking it.

Having been through two kids transitioning to secondary, I agree with PP who say those big groups are a nightmare but also fizzle out very quickly so DD won't feel she's missing out on much for very long.

Take screenshots.
Remove her from all large groups.

Tell the girl’s parents it’s bullying and you need it to stop.
Email the Head of Y7 - now - to say this girl is deliberately targeting your daughter online and you would like to ensure they’re not in same half of year/form/whatever and if they are please could staff be made aware of the deliberate harassment. Also acknowledge you know this is out of school and they’re too young etc

Just a word of warning - a similarly large whatsapp group was set up for the final year leaving my son’s school and dozens were added from feeder schools whose kids were also going to the high school. Someone on it shared images of child sexual abuse. It was horrific and terribly upsetting for the many children who saw it. I think these large groups can be very risky as you don’t really know who is on there.

Why are parents allowing their DC’s on WhatsApp below the legal age limit?

Phones before secondary school are a terrible idea, especially for this reason. I can guarantee every Primary school in the country where kids are allowed phones will have the same problem, ds's did and that was nearly10 years ago now. He didn't have a phone though so it wasn't an issue for him, but I heard all about it all from a friend. Nothing good every comes from those groups, there's not ever even any meaningful conversation - and when anyone can add anyone then you have no idea who is on there.

As far as I'm concerned OP you're responsible for this and you've set your daughter up for this - but it's too late now to put the genie back in the bottle.