Trauma at Chateau Cointreau last night - at about 9.45pm, just as the girls were going to bed, we heard hysterical sobbing from DD1's room. She had somehow got into conversation on Instagram with a boy from DD2's school (Y6), and he suddenly started sending videos of himself "self harming" (I use inverted commas because it wasn't clear if he was actually cutting himself, or fooling with a knife and pretending to). DD1 was begging him not to, getting more and more upset, telling him to confide in someone, at which point he said that if she told anyone he'd "hang himself".
To be honest, we really didn't know what to do. DD2 knows the boy by sight, but isn't in his class, and doesn't know his surname, or who he's friends with. I couldn't think of anyone to call....the messages continued after DD1 went to bed, becoming rather more abusive, but followed by profuse apologies. We decided after much thought to wait until this morning, and DH went into the school to see the head and show her the messages, and she has thankfully leapt into action. Apparently the boy had previously undergone some sort of counselling.
It's a strange one - I think if it had been regular "cyber-bullying" DD1 would have known what to do, but this boy was saying "I'll harm myself", and that sent us all into a panic. This is a boy still at primary school. DH was all for ringing the police last night, but I didn't want to over-react / cause a fuss etc. etc. Reading between the lines I didn't perceive the child to be in immediate danger, but what do I know? Was that the right approach? Gah! Poor DD1 didn't sleep a wink. Bloody Instagram.