Dd shown Porn in school, help needed.

[RowanAspenOak]

My dd is 16. (Am regular poster in FWR but have name changed to protect my dd.). She is very unhappy at school, there are a few reasons, but last night she was very upset and literally shaking with stress, and she said “it is so horrible, I don’t want to be there, the boys make rape “jokes”, constant awful stuff “ . We talked more and then she told me that pre lockdown (she hasn’t been on the bus since then) boys on the bus would watch porn, showing it openly, pass it around, show the girls, some of whom laughed it off ( dd thinks in a wanting to look cool in front of the boys way). Some boys would deliberately show stuff to dd, a very overweight woman having sex, who they all mocked in disgust, other clips including extreme animal cruelty which she has had nightmares about since.
In the classroom a boy deliberately showed her close up porn images of a vagina “because ddRowan hasn’t seen this stuff”. Dd is a year younger, I think this partly fuelled this boy. His mother is a solicitor! I actually think he may be the new head boy, i need to check.
Had she told me at the time I think I would have gone to the police. I have a younger dd who I obviously want to protect too.
She is really distressed. I asked why she didn’t tell me at the time, and she said partly because it was so constant and normalised, I also think partly because she knew I would go to the school and she was frightened of being bullied more.
So I need to talk to the school, obviously. Could I ask for any thoughts or advice ? Surely it is a safeguarding issue with such young children on the bus ? No adult woman would put up with this at work, yet really young girls are having to deal with this on the bus and in school itself. Is this a local authority issue, a governers issue, I am not sure where to start.
I should say I really like the school, they have been very supportive over the years, have tried their hardest through the nightmare of the pandemic, and they have great teaching staff. They have a female head who is excellent. I am just not sure how to tackle it as it isn’t just one boy, it is loads of the boys. A friend’s seemingly nice son was one of the boys passing round the extreme animal torture.
Any advice welcome.

Don't worry about the time delay. It took over a year for my DD and her best friend to come forward about an older lad sending them dick pics. He is now on the sex offender register and the girls got compensation and we got legal fees reimbursed.

It's really hard for your DD to report this. It makes you feel vulnerable all over again and it's upsetting to have to keep retelling the story. If it's any comfort, my DD was also upset, initially reluctant to rock the boat but each time she has been supported and had the issue tackled she's felt more confident.
She hasn't been bullied as a result as the boys know she isn't intimidated by them and will report it again. The school have been pretty good each time we've been in contact. (There was some Covid related bullying starting around mocking her for adhering to the rules)

Do you have contact with other parents who have daughters that travel by bus? It might be worth asking around, since multiple complaints will have a stronger impact at the school and dilute the feeling that all the weight of reporting sits with your DD.

I would consider approaching the police first.. perhaps getting advice as to which area are most likely to respond appropriately. In my fantasy world this would mean the police coming into school and taking the phones of all of the children who take the bus and performing an analysis of the content without first giving them the chance to delete history, get rid of phones, object to the seizure of phones and get their own legal protection involved. There should be no opportunity for those involved or their parents to either intimidate your daughter or to 'change their behaviour', be 'given a stern talking to' or 'educated as to where their boundaries should be'. It is all to easy for schools to deal with this be temporary exclusion, allowing students to come back to do their exams and keeping it within the school walls until the culprits leave school, leaving the next wave of students to follow in their foot steps.

Child pornography laws in England, Wales and Northern Ireland are covered bythe Protection of Children Act 1978("the 1978 Act"), which made it illegal to take, make, distribute, show, or possess for the intent of showing or distributing an indecent photograph of someone under the age of 18.

The age of criminal responsibility in England and Wales is 10 years old. These students are not protected in law from the consequences of their criminal behaviour by the fact that they are still at school, by their previous good behaviour, by the fact that they come from.good families, by the fact that they are head boy. They are the adults of our very near future and if they are allowed to continue in this way, they will not make good men, good husbands and good fathers.

I agree with a pp about speaking to other parents as well. I think you will have more success with "this is endemic and illegal" rather than "dd is being bullied" (even though, of course, she is).

This is beyond dreadful. Whatever route you and your daughter choose to report this, I hope your daughter can gain comfort and strength from the responses on this thread.

Nobody should have to put up with these boys' behaviour.

I'd second police involvement, whether that's via the school or whether you go direct. Good luck with all of this.

While you take steps to notify the authorities and force them to address this problem decisively, I think it is just as important to arm your DD with tools to handle these attempts at intimidation. Share tactics to cope with these psychological assaults as most groups of men enact them. It isn't just boys, random men will do similar things in public. Tell her all bullies operate from a point of shaky self esteem. In particular boys are anxious and resentful of their hormonal teen urges and instead of understanding and dealing with these urges they lash out at what they feel are the cause of these urges. Tell her it is down to chemistry not women, and they don't understand it or acknowledge it. Tell her misogyny exists, it is based on men's fear of women's power, and that she has innate power. Help her build a backbone based on her superior understanding to withstand these assaults. Don't let others drive her away from a suitable school and education, don't give them that power.

I have never felt or acted like a fearful dithering cartoon woman. I have never seen this as a productive way to cope as most assaulters want to see this sort of reaction. What is the point of enacting fear? The predator is simply confirmed that he chose the right prey. Tell her to arm herself with contempt not fear. Don't look at a proffered phone, they can't force her. If the situation permits, stare them down, flick your eyes in dismissal, ignore, affect incomprehension, walk away, whatever works and preserves your safety. But why cringe and shudder and sit with head bowed and tears running? They deserve contempt and dismissal not power over you.

I know this is unpleasant. Awakening your innocent protected child's eyes to the nastiness of the world is NOT FUN. Hardening your little one to the world is not what we wish. But they will suffer more if they are not able to cope.

Just want to say OP that I hope you've had a constructive response from the school and that your DD feels supported.
Hopefully the school will see this as an issue relating to the culture in the school and will respond intelligently, not just dealing with the particular issue of the buses but also picking up the criminality and safeguarding aspects. These boys are already a danger to other children - left unchecked they'll be a greater danger to women and children in the future.

“These boys are already a danger to other children - left unchecked they'll be a greater danger to women and children in the future.”

^ this
If you enjoy watching animal cruelty you have something fundamentally wrong with you. Porn is also unacceptable and should be dealt with by the school.

I hope your DD gets the support she needs. As a previous poster says, she needs to check her reaction. (Yes I know it’s awful stuff she’s being exposed to and she shouldn’t be exposed to it) But her reaction is making them worse, she’s a target based on her response - they enjoy it. They enjoy seeing her distress. I don’t know what she can do to combat this, maybe others have more experience. This must be a widespread problem in schools.

This happens at DD's school too, it's rife amongst the boys, they are vile. The "cool" girls join in, DD just keeps her head down, she has tried complaining and in theory the school do crack down on it for a while, but it always comes back on the complainant. The students are very much of the "snitches get put in ditches". Parents frequently say their boys are nice boys,or boys will be boys.. meh. I used to be really indifferent to porn, but seeing it in this day and age just makes me think it should be as socially unacceptable as drink driving.

@SusannaM

This happens at DD's school too, it's rife amongst the boys, they are vile. The "cool" girls join in, DD just keeps her head down, she has tried complaining and in theory the school do crack down on it for a while, but it always comes back on the complainant. The students are very much of the "snitches get put in ditches". Parents frequently say their boys are nice boys,or boys will be boys.. meh. I used to be really indifferent to porn, but seeing it in this day and age just makes me think it should be as socially unacceptable as drink driving.

Yes, dd says the cool girls join in. She said, as a thoughtful pp mentioned, that she felt she was the misfit, that this was so accepted that her reaction was obviously not normal. That makes me really upset and wish I had prepared her better. I think I have avoided the discussion as I didn’t want her to know yet about the level of endemic violence against women . I had no idea that boys would be openly gawping at this stuff on the bus and passing it around.

She saw some of the Sarah Everard coverage on the news, and that plus all of this from boys has made her really scared of going to university. She is a stellar pupil, yet she thinks that she might not want to go away because she thinks this will never end.
I have had a meeting today, I am about to finish the letter to the head.

I hope your meeting went well.

From what you say about your DD - academically excellent, friends outside school and so on - I think you can reassure her that when she gets to university she will very much find her tribe. Yes there will be arseholes there, but she can ignore them so much more easily. Tell her that from me - I was a misfit all the way through school but flew at uni, as did my misfit friends.

I do understand why you wanted to protect her, but I think it's probably time to address the situation, but also to arm her with feminism, so that she knows that she's not wrong, she's not alone and lots of other people want to deal with this shit.

As an aside, it's worth noting that a good school can deal with something like this without identifying one individual victim. Countless others will have seen these incidents and good staff gather together plenty of "evidence" so that it doesn't all fall on the shoulders of one child.
The school has a major problem with a porn soaked sexist culture and the girls (and other boys) need to be empowered to speak out about this. OP, it's worth insisting that the school tackles the bigger problem as well as the issue for your daughter.

That's dreadful.

I'm glad you are going to talk to someone at the school. Don't be afraid to name names! The boy who showed her the picture needs to be severely reprimanded. His mother being a solicitor is irrelevant (except she may be able to frighten him with legal talk). However his mum could just as easily be a shop assistant, it makes no difference.

Just be nice to your daughter and reassure her that she is perfectly all right and the boy is a sleaze-ball in the making.

I remember being shown a pornographic picture when I was 16 - by an adult man. It made me feel quite sick.

I'm so sorry your daughter has had to put up with that sort of thing; it must, and can, be stopped.

And this is exactly why my dd will be going to a girls school when she reaches secondary age.

When my ds started secondary, another boy showed a group of them pornography on a phone. Luckily the teacher caught him. Unfortunately my ds had seen it. He came home and told me and was so incredibly upset by what he'd seen. It had really shocked him.

This is such a huge issue now for kids and young people, I really think the government need to take it more seriously.

This sounds terrible. It's not inevitable. My DDs, at different co-ed schools, have not experienced this and have friends who are boys. I don't know why it happens in some (apparently most) schools but not others.

@Comedycook

And this is exactly why my dd will be going to a girls school when she reaches secondary age.

When my ds started secondary, another boy showed a group of them pornography on a phone. Luckily the teacher caught him. Unfortunately my ds had seen it. He came home and told me and was so incredibly upset by what he'd seen. It had really shocked him.

This is such a huge issue now for kids and young people, I really think the government need to take it more seriously.

Good points.

I always favoured co-ed schools and actually felt a bit guilty about my son going to an all boys; however they started taking girls in the sixth form when he was there and the girls seemed to have a good influence on the boys. Later on the school went co-ed.

It must be awful for girls to be harassed and intimidated by boys in that way. It's not uncommon at all and those boys who watch porn and have pictures are growing up with an unrealistic idea about relationships.

Yes, God knows what toxic attitudes they are taking into adult life. I feel for their partners.

Can you show her this thread OP?

@Plumtree391

I've heard that boys do better in co-ed schools and girls do better in single sex schools.

well why does she have to stay there.
it's like enduring torture or the fear off it, every day.
if that was a job, i'd leave.
you or shecan't fight the system alone, meanwhile she is suffering.
why does she have to go to university this year.
why not leave it and apply again next year.
or can she study at home for the rest of this year.
take her to GP, who will probably support alternative arrangements re study.

@alexdgr8

well why does she have to stay there. it's like enduring torture or the fear off it, every day. if that was a job, i'd leave. you or shecan't fight the system alone, meanwhile she is suffering. why does she have to go to university this year. why not leave it and apply again next year. or can she study at home for the rest of this year. take her to GP, who will probably support alternative arrangements re study.

She's the victim in all this. She shouldn't have to retreat, leave the school, cancel university let alone see her GP because of some porn obsessed boy with sexually inappropriate / criminal behaviour. If anyone needs to leave the school, it's the boy.

Of course she needs support and there's a huge issue with the transport system. But we can't tell young women to remove themselves from life in the face of this - the adults need to step up and control / sanction / remove boys / men who are behaving in this way.

Your poor DD. And poor you having to navigate this.

Once you’ve dealt with the school, I think the focus of your attention should be on DD. What a tragedy if an academically stellar girl is put off going to university to better herself, because of criminally awfully behaved boys. That’s wave upon wave of unfairness, as you think upon it. You only need to browse the relationship board here on MN to fast forward to where these boys and girls might end up 10 years from now.

And the worst of it is that they are wrong and your DD is 100% in the right.

Please tell your DD from me, a random middle-aged woman on MN who’s dealt with her fair share at the hands of boys and men, that girls like her make me immensely proud. If she can come through this, with your support, a strong young woman on her way to the university of her choice, with excellent grades, and a clear conscience that she’s done the right thing in the face of heavy adversity, I PROMISE her that she will start her adult life with levels of confidence she might not be able to imagine at this point or even fully appreciate until she’s much older. She will know what it means to stand up to bullies, to stand up for what’s right and come through that; and the confidence she will gain from knowing NOBODY will ever be able to take that achievement away from her will be character forming.

But it might be a tough year: exams, college entrance stress, navigating this and all its consequences after recent bereavement. It’s a lot, undeniably. But she has you, and I’m sure you will support her.

Let this be the making of her. We need young women like your DD.

Good luck to you both

This is why my dds are in girls only school.

I'm sorry this has happened to your dd OP