WWYD? Child’s friend and their social media

[Pl242]

At a birthday party we held for our son earlier this summer, one of the girls brought a phone. I ended up having to take it off her as she was distracting other kids away from the party, taking videos. I was sure I saw her uploading something too. They are 8/9.

When the parents came to pick up I had a bit of an awkward though fine chat with the mum. She apologised and said she should have not left the phone with her. When I mentioned uploading she was adamant that this didn’t happen. It was just taking videos on the phone.

However I have since discovered that this child does have an open social media account with these videos and countless other things uploaded. Nothing massively inappropriate in itself but I feel this is wholly unsuitable given the age of the child.

So do I speak to parents given they stated no uploading happening? School? Just keep quiet? I wonder if parents do know and just wouldn’t say to me. Wwyd?

Report to the school. It’s a safeguarding issue.
The school will speak to the parents of all the children involved.

My DD was nine in 2020 and had a TikTok account where the security setting were set so only I and her half a dozen or so friends could see her posts.
she did LOADS of videos. Filled the days!
TikTok took it down!
I had to contact customer services and have it recovered to have the content … it was a lot of our memories.

point being though I was in total control & knew who could see what. 9 years old don’t need OPEN social media.

our rule was and is if you wouldn’t really have them in your bedroom, don’t let them in via social media.

Mum either knows and isn’t bothered one bit that these videos are on TikTok and available for all and sundry to see, or she doesn’t bother to check her child’s phone regularly - which I’m very surprised about at age 8/9 - and doesn’t know they’re online.

I think I’d just send a wee message saying you’re not comfortable with your child’s party being put online, especially with other kids in it, could she please delete.

That does sound potentially a minefield. It depends on how close you are to the mum. If her reaction will be hugely defensive and if you mind her falling out with you. I agree it seems inappropriate. I'm just not sure whether I would know how to raise it. I guess I might just report it for being underage on the sly. Bit cowardly I know.

But why do they need to upload the videos to an online sharing platform?

You do realise that once you've shared access with just one other person, they can copy and re-post them anywhere they like online and you will have no control over who else can see or comment on them.

I'm always amazed by friends who say 'my account is locked down to family only, it's completely safe'.

People get their accounts hacked all the time and then everything's available! 🤷🏻‍♀️

Thanks everyone. Really appreciate the replies. It’s a minefield and difficult to know what to do.

if I tell the school without speaking to this parent (and the parent of the other kid who has the YT account - they didn’t post anything from party but have commented on the post therefore showing they too have a sim YT account) it seems a bit like grassing them up without giving them the chance to address this.

But if I speak to parents/report accounts is there just the risk that the accounts may go
away and they just come back again.

Or do I do all things in parallel - report accounts, speak to patents, flag to school?

my relationship with parent is ok/friendly. We have no relationship outside the kids but no issues either. There have been a couple of things that she has done parenting wise that I’ve been a little hmmm about but nothing that has hugely worried me until now (where these worries are now in a different context).

this sounds incredibly harsh but my impression is that she’s lax/ignorant. I don’t think she’ll outright defend the YT account etc but I’m unconvinced that she would take appropriate action.

all these posts have been made right under her nose as well so if she doesn’t know about it then it’s worrying in another sense as well.

Honest to God! why does a 9 year old need a phone?? let kids be kids! My son asked me for a phone when he turns 8, its out right no from me. till he goes to Senior school. no need for a phone whatsoever! He has an ipad that is strictly monitored and YT been removed from said ipad and the app from the tv. Kids on social media is so dangerous! not only on it, but what they might see on there!

I can't be done with pussyfooting around. Tell her parents you want the videos deleted, report the profile and tell the school for their records in case theirs are behavioural incidents in the future due the child being exposed to adult content.

I would also discourage the friendship with my child and never have the girl invited to my home.

As a foster carer and also the mum of four adopted children, I would urge you to contact the school. There may be children such as mine for whom it would be really dangerous to have any videos or photos of them online, and for whom it could lead to major safeguarding issues. And if this seems extreme to others please know that birth families often search school or other children's social media in order to try and track their child down. It has happened to me.

I get that it's not nice to be "the parent who complains" but it's about children's safety here and that comes first.
If anyone moans just point them towards all the websites thr school recommends that illustrate how dangerous this all is for children.

Has anyone experienced impact of being “the complaining parent “ on the kids? One of my concerns is that in raising it with the parents they may relay this to kids and then their kids bully/exclude my kid off the back of it. Same concern re raising it with school as if it’s then raised to the parents, it will probably be obvious that I was the one to flag it with school.

Say nothing more to the parent, but phase that child out of your child’s friendship circle.

My worry is that the majority of the friendship circle has this attitude re phones/games etc.

I was a few years ago, my eldest daughter was in year 5 at the time and mentioned that people were playing fortnight in her class. I told the school via email and they had an extra PSHE lesson on Internet safety, arranged a parent assembly, sent an extra parent email out with links to police websites with info for parents.
Some parents claimed they "didn't know" it wasn't appropriate for their kids to watch/play, others didn't care.
My daughter was embarrassed but then got over it. She is now in secondary school and has a phone with no Internet on, I would say it impacts her more now in terms of logistics for arranging stuff with friends but her group text her instead, and she just says her parents are strict. It's been easier than saying "I want to leave this WhatsApp group because you stress me out with 67 messages through the night including penis pictures" to her peers.

I don't mind her being embarrassed, her safety is worth more to me.

I don't think my daughter was bullied or excluded, but it did a bit of sieving in terms of friendships as she couldn't relate as much to girls who were fully into tiktok/makeup/boys/hair by the time they were ten.
Which, if I'm honest, was an added bonus😁

I would also say my daughters read at least twice as much as their peers, they genuinely love books because they can't go on social media. They also love listening to music, I'd say my eldest has gone more down a tomboy sport/music/books route as a result of our stance on zero smartphones.
I get the irony as I'm on social media discussing this.

The school won’t tell anyone who reported it, but they will address it with the parents. Don’t worry. You are doing the right thing. This is a serious safeguarding issue.

my niece is only allowe to watch kids youtube an even then only at home an shes ten so i dont gt all these 8 year ol filming each oter an putting it online

Thanks for all the comments/advice. I know I need/should say something and I will.

I think I’m just struggling with whether to talk to just parent, just school, or both, and if both in what sequence.

This. Kids this age don’t understand potential repercussions of putting other kids on social media and don’t get appropriate lessons in school until secondary age. We were never allowed to post pictures of my son’s football team on social media as there were some kids in care in the team. Sometimes it’s not just as simple as people not liking it.

Unless you want to get into a ruck with the parents, I’d just contact the school.
They should make sure their accounts are shut down, so the videos of your event will disappear as a matter of course, and you get to retain a relationship with your child’s friends and parents.

I'd tell the parents of the other children in the video. It would be more powerful if it comes from them.

I’m a teacher and deal with this stuff day in and day out. It falls on deaf ears sadly.

I would chat to the parent first.

I would also chat to school and make them aware and ask if they can do a general talk on internet safety as a result (my son just started Y3 and the police come to school the first term and start to circulate the online safety message).

I honestly didn’t realise kids aged 8 had phones with internet access. I wonder what the parents rationale is there. Bizarre.