Femboy

[Kozaa]

Bare with me this is a lengthy post.
So my 12 year old son has come out to me as bi sexual.
I obviously do not have a problem with this at all.
My concerns are the following.... Up until 6 months ago he was a happy, confident normal 12 year old. He hit puberty quite young and it hit him hard.
I don't think lockdown helped as his last full year in school was year 5 he bypassed year 6 and year 7
his first year of comprehensive school due to lockdowns.
He is now half way through his 8th year.
He has made some new friends and doesn't seem to bother with his childhood friends anymore.
Anyway his best friend is female in his year at school and we always assumed she was his girlfriend as he has never shown any tenancies to be bi or gay.
Recently he has become withdrawn, quiet, and has started skipping meals (which isn't like him as he has ways loved his food).
After a few weeks of me trying to talk to him and get to the bottom of this recent change in his behaviour/personality and attitude I grew increasingly concerned to the point I was not sleeping or eating.
I noticed his phone was unlocked one night while he was sleeping and I decided to go through it.
I found conversations between him. And his "girlfriend" very sexual.
I also found conversations between him and another boy also very sexual.
I kept digging and found tik tok, twitter, reddit accounts of his, with photos uploaded of him in "femboy" clothing.
He has never been the type of kid to dress up, and has always been quite masculine.
This has come as a huge shock to me.
I also found conversations with this girl and she seems to be encouraging this behaviour and talks about harming herself and sends him pictures of her slit wrists and thighs.

I'm unsure if he is this person or if she is just leading him down the this path.

As I have stated he has never shown any signs of being a "femboy"

And she has been giving him clothes and telling him to wear them.

She has also been encouraging him to meet up with random boys.

I don't know how to deal with this behaviour.

I have spoke to my son and he confirmed straight away he was bi sexual and has never wanted to actually meet up with these boys.

When I spoke to him about the women's clothing he just shrugged.

I will confirm that I have a very good relationship with my children and they have always come to me whenever there has been a problem. We are a very open family and he knows we will not ever judge and will alway support, love and help.

I fear he is doing all of this out of peer pressure.

This girls attitude isn't the type of attitude I would want around anyone's child.

Can i just clarify my son is 12 years old, 12 it's an extremely young age to be talking sexual and meeting up with boys for sexual stuff.

I have cried myself to sleep every night at the thought of him meeting strangers as anything could happen.

I have put all parental restrictions on his pc and all other devices. And I have limited his screen time.

I don't want him to feel like I am punishing him as I don't want to push him away but I also need him to understand that certain aspects of this behaviour can not and will not be tolerated as he is 12 years old.

But he loves this girl so much I fear he will do anything to please her.

Please don't judge me as a parent as I am trying to deal with this the correct way without destroying my relationship with my son.

You need to tell the school everything.

This girl sounds like a real Amber

Nasty comment!

OP, this is a safeguarding issue, as a PP says, you must tell the school everything.

Wow it’s clear that this girl is a powerful negative influence on him.

1. Report the girl to school re safeguarding.
2. Take the phone away. Using it to upload sexualised photos of himself to the internet is not what you bought it for.
3. Ban him from seeing the girl.
4. Move schools, give him a few months of home education to find himself again, then start him at a different school.

That is what I would do.

Thank you all for your replies.
I'm so glad I'm not over reacting here.

This all came out only 2 days ago. Friday I refused to let him go to school as I knew he would be with this girl. I explained my reasons to him and he seemed happy to stay home and was actually his old self again and has been since I spoke to him.
I know this is because I have kept him away from her.
Unfortunately his school isn't the greatest of schools and is the only comprehensive school in the area, the nearest school other than his is 2 hours away and he isn't in the catchment area so he has been refused twice. I will be contacting the school Monday to tell them what's been going on.
Not so long ago in my area a young boy was beaten and hospitalised for doing what this girl is encouraging my son to do.
As a mum I do have the tenancy to overthink situations and my mind goes to the worst case scenario so you can only imagine the stuff that's been going through my head.

He has confirmed to me he has never actually done anything sexual and it's all been talk and although I'm relieved it's still sickening the thought of him talking about this stuff at his age.
The pictures that were uploaded were taken by this girl (they share the accounts)
I have obviously removed the pictures from the apps, reported the accounts and removed them.

OP you also need to steer away from thinking of this girl as a predator/villain in this scenario - she's 12. Behaviour of this nature in a girl that young is almost always an indication that the child is being abused. She needs help too, please don't paint her as the bad guy.

What's a real amber?

I understand this, and I am trying my hardest to see her as a victim also. Unfortunately I don't know anything about the girl or her family. I will pass on all information to the school and see if they can help her. But for the meantime my son is my priority and I will concentrate on making sure he is OK and safe.

I'm assuming it's a nasty, snide reference to Amber Heard.

I would be very concerned about this. I have professional experience of child safeguarding and would want to report this to the school and try to find out if the girl is being abused or groomed herself.

I would definitely be as concerned as you are! This girl sounds really manipulative. I have been in a similar situation with my DD (16 at the time) and a female friend who was manipulative. In our case the girl had her own mental health struggles, threatening to kill herself if my daughter didn’t dance to her tune and encouraging my DD to consider herself transgender and chop her breasts off as soon as she is old enough!! My DD was depressed, clearly dealing with sexuality issues (says she’s bi but we think she’s gay) and vulnerable. We only found out what was really going on when we had a bad feeling about this friend and went through our daughter’s phone. We were shocked- we have never disliked any of her friends and just had a gut feeling. In the end we made her cut this friend out completely - it sounds awful but honestly she was almost relieved once it happened because I think she didn’t have the will to do it by herself! We later found out that she has done it before to other girls - another Mum described her as like the ‘single white female’ in the movie (I’ve never watched it but I read about it!)
Trust your gut- your son is only 12 and way too young to be involved in anything sexual quite aside from the fact that it’s illegal. Sending you strength to work through this- this site is invaluable for good advice I found!

She absolutely is a victim too and the comments on here blaming her are repulsive. Self-harming and sexualised at that age means she's probably been sexually abused. You need to pass that information on to the school.

Taking away the screens is one thing. But spending more time together, do things that are fun together, find other activities. You have to replace the screens (and the girl) with good things in his life.

@Kozaa you are absolutely right to be as concerned and upset as you sound. Out of interest, have you met the girl you refer to? Or have any clue as to who her family are? It may hold some weight when referring the incidents to the school - you say they aren’t the best school - so all the more reason to push and as them to demonstrate how they have properly followed their safeguarding process to protect both young people involved.

OP in your shoes if not possible to move him to a different school I would home school him myself, even if that meant giving up my job. I had a colleague who's child got involved in drugs and she actually moved to other end of country to get her son away from dealer. She said it was to save him.