My 11 year old son and his "relationships"

[PaperFlower]

Sorry for a repeat post but I just realised this may have fitted better in this forum.

My son is 11 and in his last year at primary. He has never been and probably never will be a "popular" kid but he's comfortable with who he is and he does have a couple of decent friends. Most of the time though he prefers his own space.
Anyway a couple of weeks ago I noticed he was guarding his mobile phone and taking it everwhere with him. Naturally I snuck a peek when I could and saw that he had been texting back and forth with a girl from school. This suprised me as the girl is quite "popular" and not DS's usual type of friend. But anyway a few days ago he asked me if it was ok to get rid of some of his possessions. I asked if he was intending to sell them and he said "no, I'll just give them away, someone at school wants them". I knew who he meant but I asked anyway and it was the girl he'd been texting. I said "No, some of those things are worth a lot of money, you're not just giving them away. If she really wants them, ask if she wants to buy them from you". He whinged but finally accepted that he wasn't allowed.
I snuck another look on his phone that night and there was a message from her saying "can't you just put them in your pocket and sneak them to school behind her back?"

Apart from this she has also had him searching the net for song lyrics and printing them all out for her etc.

I had a brief chat with DS about people who can sometimes "seem" like a friend when really they're just using you. Mentioning no names of course.

Anyway I also read a txt from him saying he couldn't sneak them into school (and I do trust him here, he's a sensible kid) and apologising.

Then tonight I've just read a text from him saying "so, we're still friends?" and she replied with "n o spells no"

Now maybe I'm jumping to conclusions here but it seems to me she has just proved my point entirely about people who "seem" to be a friend. I feel really sorry for DS who has obviously just had the piss ripped out of him all along but what do I do? I can't always interfere and wrap him in cotton wool can I? I know he'll be upset but do I just let him learn from it or what?

Its so hard watching people treating your babies like shite isn't it?

Sounds like bullying to me. I would speak to the school.

your poor ds it's awful to see them being treated badly.

TBH I think this is a form of bullying and I think it would be appropriate to have a word with his teacher

I'm trying to keep an eye on the texts but he's deleting them all as soon as he's read them (thanks to nosy younger bro )

Well, it's a great thing that you had your 'general' chat before she did the nasty on him. At least he can join the dots up for himself, thanks to you - vile though it is, for him.

It's odd that she's just popped into his life for the purpose. I wonder if she does this to a lot of the kids? In which case, she's a definite bully (with some rather sad-looking issues around entitlement & validation.) How possible is it to find out whether other boys have suffered the same at her manipulative little hands?

Horrid when you see your dc's beng used poor you and poor ds.

I'd be tempted to take his phone away and let the texts come in and show the school if you believe it is bullying. Bit harsh I know, but at least you'd have some evidence.

Other than that, have a good chat with ds about how he feels about the girl now and how he feels about her demands. Might be a good time to point out again to not go for the relationships where it s all one sided.

Well she joined the school half way through year 4 and when she joined, she got a "gang" together and whoever wasn't cool enough to be in the "gang" got bullied by "the gang". DS was one of the unfortunates that drew the short straw and at the time, I remember him saying how he couldn't stand her etc. She was really popular at one point, the most popular girl in the school infact - main part in all the plays, best sports person, most friends etc etc and then all of a sudden nobody likes her and she's no longer "Mrs popularity". That's when her and DS became "friends"

I knew she was upto something all along but what can you do when there's no proof that she has alternate motives for being "Nice"?

I would certainly expect the school to be asking some questions about this girl. She also seems quite young to be showing this type of behaviour?

deja, I thought the same thing but I think her parents encourage it. She has a fake tan ffs.

I remember during the last sports day I was sat near her parents and whenever she didn't pronounce a word EXACTLY right they shouted at her and said things like "speak properly for gods sake, you sound so common. Don't act like those around you, you're better than that" etc etc

ah. So there you have her motive. Poor kid.

Since you can't parent her, it seems the best you can do is parent your boy, such that he recognises her rejection has nothing to do with him & everything to do with her having ishoos.

I still think it'd be good to get corroboration from other parents, either to discuss with the school or to share (and de-shame) this ill-treatment with her other victims. Or both

I don't really speak to the other parents tbh ... maybe I should start

Anyway DS caught me with his phone last night and asked "why do you keep stealing my phone??" I made up some silly excuse, he saw straight through it and said "don't worry, I know what you meant now about people using you."

I told him to just learn from it and I told him I was proud of the way he handled it (not giving her the stuff to make her happy) and apparantly she'd sent him a text saying "I hope you're happy with yourself. I'm sat here crying my eyes out and all you had to do was bring those things to school"

So DS has had his first experience of female guilt tripping manipulation. Poor kid. I notice he's now taken her name off his contact list.

The poor kid - it sounds like you've handled it really well, though. My DS2 is a pretty socially naive 11 year old and I can imagine the same sort of thing happening to him - nightmare.

No advice - just wanted to say well done on handling the situation so well - I have a DS in Y6 and they're bewildering creatures - lovely, affectionate and sensitive but very complicated

Agree Yr6 boys are funny, Lynx-wearing, teddy-cherishing creatures.
I think you and your ds have handled this situation really well PaperFlower.