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.

It’s not fair that schools are having to deal with fallout from WhatsApp groups. It’s bullying, but isn’t happening within a school environment.

OP you need to remove your child from WhatsApp- it’s not for children of this age. By removing her, you’ll still have to keep an eye on friends showing her the chat. A pp has mentioned the age of criminal responsibility and this needs to be reinforced within this age group who are using images on WhatsApp to bully and harass others.

Delete WhatsApp and do not allow a smart phone or ANY social media through secondary school. If you do this now then I guarantee her secondary school experience will be easier.

https://weareluna.app/parents/guides/mental-health-and-wellbeing/mug-photos-and-cyberbullying/

Absolutely spot on

Thanks.

I think that site confirms my suspicions though. Children nowadays seem to think that any photo of them that isn’t staged for Insta is a ‘mug’ and that posting one is very hurty.

@LilyfairyI am so sorry to hear this…this should be happy an exciting time. I personally think she should leave both groups and wait till she joins Year 7 and decide in time what group she wants to join- not to rush. The group is too large. Plus she has no escape….is too young to deal with this and I congratulate her I thinking she can ignore it but honestly she won’t be able to escape it and it will play on her mind- it is not worth it!

We also went through this in Y6. These massive WA groups are feral with no advantages. 1000+ messages of pure bollocks every morning and a huge strain on teacher time.

We retained WA but strict rules of no groups of more than 6 members and DD needed to know all members. Nightly checking. All calmed down once Y7 started. For now, I guess. 🙄

I would contact the secondary school too - year 7 is legally too young to have WhatsApp and they will likely want to know (though may be hard to respond just now).
My DD doesn't have WhatsApp, she has a smart phone with games but time limits and is only allowed text and email. Already there are 4 year 6s in her friendship group who only use WhatsApp (i.e. their phones are only set up to use WiFi) and two of them have refused to give her their number and I've had to point out this is Not Kind.
She will be getting WhatsApp at the end of Y8 if she still wants it, but if drama in large WhatsApp groups sounds not fun to her she may not want it! Good reminder to us to not allow group adding etc.

We have a parents WhatsApp group for the secondary school since yr7 my son is going to be in yr9 in sep.... I didn't know the children had their own group chats. To be honest with that many kids in the chat things can get nasty with others too.... I would tell your daughter to leave the group and make another group chat with the ones she likes and gets on with only.
Another way to deal with the existing chat group is to get in touch with the admin as they can kick the bully out.
I dread to think how that bully will act in school with your DD no doubt she will be causing trouble...keep a close eye on the matter as your daughter might not tell you, as they don't like to snitch.

It’s nothing to do with the school. It’s for parents to manage phone use and by not allowing underage use of apps such as WhatsApp.

The school may see fallout though as the teacher above has said. So they'd probably prefer to know so they can tell parents to do their job. After all, individual parents can't contact other parents en masse.

I really wish people would stop giving young children smart phones!

unfortunately there’s nothing legal or illegal about WhatsApp, the age guidance is just that and is based on marketing data consent age, not anything else- I discovered this last year when researching into whether I gave my DS a smartphone for year 7. It’s also absolutely nothing to do with school outside of school hours, it’s unfair to expect them to manage family choices unless the phone is used at school during the day.
what is potentially illegal is the content they share or forward on to large groups. So many children unaware they could be committing a crime just by sharing pictures 🤷‍♀️

How does she have so many ‘unflattering’ photos of her if they never got on?
how do other people in the groups( especially her friends) respond when the girl posts them? Do they stick up for dd or laugh along with the other girl?
are they actually unflattering as in inappropriate or could cause bullying from others or are just normal photos of her doing normal things?

Get her off WhatsApp altogether. She’s too young to be in any of them, even if they are nice groups.

She is too young for whatsapp. I would delete the app.

Way too young for their own phone with internet access.

"Already there are 4 year 6s in her friendship group who only use WhatsApp (i.e. their phones are only set up to use WiFi) and two of them have refused to give her their number and I've had to point out this is Not Kind."

I'm wondering if I've misunderstood this - it seems to me that it is completely fine to refuse to hand over a phone number. Quite a few families will make this a condition of a child having their own phone. I would certainly want my own dc to feel entirely comfortable saying "No thanks" when asked for their number.

I didn't know the children had their own group chats.

WA groups have caused serious safeguarding concerns in my local area (Newcastle and North Tyneside in case anyone wants to Google news reports). Over the past 18 months we've had groups which promote self harm and suicidal ideation to kids in Year 6 and below as well as groups used by paedophiles to invite large numbers of children (mostly 13 and younger) to house parties where they were plied with alcohol and pressured to take part in sexual activity. These groups had thousands of members from primary and middle schools across several counties. Check your kid's phone.

I tried to Police my DD's phone. It was ridiculous the amount of inappropriate images and texts. She now has a brick phone and will not be having one until she is 16 and even then I might say she has to work to pay for her own.

My child’s secondary school addressed all parents at the pre-term meeting and explicitly said if you allow a child a WiFi phone and apps that are below age appropriate are used it’s entirely on you as the parent.

Sounds like primary schools should be doing the same as there are parents allowing their younger children a smart phone with WhatsApp - what planet are these parents living on???? It’s definitely a parent problem rather than school.

This is excellent @Vitrolinsanity when my DS started year 7 last year I had to start a thread on here to find out more because I felt that we had to buy them for secondary and that my DS would be left out socially and as I felt, at a disadvantage in classroom if they were using apps. It’s not been the case at all, he’s been absolutely fine but unfortunately some of the year7 girls have had some serious problems with WhatsApp groups, including one who has her picture taken without her knowledge when someone spotted her out with her family. The school has now changed its policy in line with many others, phones are banned from premises- I think schools are fed up with managing the fall outs and behaviours coming from smartphones but mainly social media in really young kids 😞

Initially I admit I was rather taken aback. Then I read threads on here about situations exactly as the OP describes, and thought there’s 200+ kids starting school here in September, with another 1000+ already here. How can the school expected to police that?

It’s a fact that parents buy the phones. They have ultimate control over their use.

The vast majority of patents don’t want their child bullied via phone or exposed to unsuitable content. Yet here we are, via this so-called “right of passage” where every year 6 child is handed a phone that literally enables that.

Your poor DD!!! Remove her from the groups.