Disturbing dilemma

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mm23292
Posts: 446
Joined: Wed Dec 01, 2010 10:57 am

Disturbing dilemma

Post by mm23292 »

My daughter started her new school in Sept and absolutely loves it. As it is a small year group (Independent), they have been quite a close knit group, very supportive of one another and all seemingly sensible and mature for their age, which has been great. One of the other girls in her year has been a little rebellious in school, and all the girls in my daughters group had tried to avoid her without being unfriendly of course. However, one of her friends did become close to this girl, and her new rebellious ‘friend’ started many malicious rumours etc, and to cut a long story short, was successful in alienating her from the group. While some of the Mums have been up in arms over some of this girl’s antics, I have kept well out of it. However, at the weekend my daughter showed me some pictures that had been posted on a social network site by these two young girls, and DH and I were just shocked. The pictures were taken by themselves posing in a mirror presumably, and were extremely provocative, short inappropriate clothing, enhanced cleavage on show, stockings and all..more in place on one of those readers wives displays than on an 11yr olds page. And the captions they had titled these pictures were even more disturbing. I didn’t even know that my daughter had ever heard of some of the terminology that was used. In short it was shocking, these girls are 11 yrs old! I don’t know if it is my place to say something. I just think this is so disturbing, and if I was this girls mother..I think I would want to know..but on the other hand..it is such a sensitive matter..so what should I do??
scary mum
Posts: 8841
Joined: Mon Mar 15, 2010 3:45 pm

Re: Disturbing dilemma

Post by scary mum »

Horrid. They are officially too young to have a facebook account anyway, and I guess this is why. Your daughter can report the posts to Facebook although I'm not sure what happens then. Personally I would have a word with the girl's mother. I would certainly want to know - after all it's not as if you have been sneaking around to find out, it is on a public forum (I wonder if these children have any privacy controls?) and something your daughter has mentioned to you and is obviously concerned about. I suppose the other option is to talk to the girl's tutor at school, but I think I would talk to the mother first. Not an easy conversation to have, mind you. I would get your daughter to print out a copy of the page as when I had cause to complain to another mother about the things her daughter was calling mine on facebook she called me a liar and said that her daughter would never do anytign liek that. Fortunately I had a copy. She was banned from Facebook for at least 3 days :cry: :evil:
scary mum
pixiequeen
Posts: 378
Joined: Thu Nov 27, 2008 12:06 am

Re: Disturbing dilemma

Post by pixiequeen »

Oh that's awful. Her mum definitely needs to know. We had a similar, but less extreme situation with one of DD1's friends last year. This girl, along with one of her other friends had posted a video on Youtube. It was only of the girls singing, but it gave their names, and of course Youtube is public, and any one can post a comment, which was what worried me. I like these children and had no desire to get them into trouble, but when my DD1 showed me the video I felt I couldn't just ignore it. I asked DD1 to ask her friend if her mum knew about the video (DD1's immediate response was 'Oh of course she knows, she gave X permission to do it!') and in the same sentence I mentioned that I wondered if I ought to ask the Head teacher at the school to remind the children about the dangers of posting personal information on the internet.

Any way (sorry I am rambling...) at school the next day my DD1 did indeed quiz her friend about the video and my DD2 piped up 'because my mum's going to tell Mrs X about it! ' Apparently child in question was so worried I was really going to tell the Head teacher she went home and confessed to her mum who rang me up to say thank you! Permission had apparently been expressly denied but DD1's friend had failed to understand the consequences of what she had done and thought that only people with a password to her account would be able to view the video.

I do sympathise with you, it's a horrible position to be in, but I think it is definitely OK to say something. I was lucky, and my 8 year old accidentally did the job for me. Can you find a way to let the mum know without appearing to 'tell tales?'

Hope you manage to sort it out.
DenDe
Posts: 390
Joined: Wed Jul 07, 2010 1:45 pm

Re: Disturbing dilemma

Post by DenDe »

Crikey, what a difficult situation!

If I were the girl's mother I would certainly want to know. However, I'm not sure, in your position, I would want to be the one to have the difficult conversation. I also wouldn't want my daughter to be at risk of bullying for being the one to have "told"

Could you perhaps speak to the form teacher about what you have seen on the site without mentioning any names and suggest the year group have a talk about e-safety and what is appropriate to post on social network sites?

Good Luck.
mm23292
Posts: 446
Joined: Wed Dec 01, 2010 10:57 am

Re: Disturbing dilemma

Post by mm23292 »

The site is not FB, funnily enough, we all agreed that this should wait a year or two, the Mum of this girl included! It is another well known site, but I wasn't aware it could be used so similarly to FB. And also ironically, the school had a talk regarding internet usage a few weeks back. It is one thing drilling home the safe usage message and ensuring privacy controls are in place, but how do you deal with young girls who actually portray themselves in such a public way that most self respecting grown women wouldn't dream of doing! That's what I find disturbing. My daughter has also told me what these girls say they have been upto with boys much older than they are, and some of it was shockingly graphic. Definitely not something she could have heard on tv! It's difficult knowing how to approach someone about their daughter, when you don't know them well enough to know how they might react. So then I wondered whether the best thing to do is to approach the school in confidence, as they are presumably better equipped to deal with this than I am. It certainly helps to know what others might think..so thank you for your replies.
Tailsmo
Posts: 96
Joined: Tue Aug 02, 2011 1:52 pm

Re: Disturbing dilemma

Post by Tailsmo »

Shocking, and something I dread happening with my DD in the not too distant future (she's 10).

If it were me, I would do both - speak with the school, but also speak with the mother. There would be nothing worse than knowing that other mothers had seen my DD in this situation, and I was unaware of it.

It will be a v difficult conversation, but you're doing it to protect the DCs, not to get them into trouble.

Good luck :)
mum23*
Posts: 417
Joined: Tue Mar 02, 2010 1:28 pm

Re: Disturbing dilemma

Post by mum23* »

Tell the mum asap and maybe they can do something to get it removed before even more people see it. Just approach it by saying "I really hope you don't mind me speaking to you about this but I think you would want to know...." It is just so, so important that these girls learn about safety and privacy. I have heard of one or two things like this at DDs school and the school have even involved the police to speak to children/parents about the seriousness of this sort of thing.

I would possibly be inclined to have a quiet word with the school. Children's safety is a very important issue.

Isn't it awful but with the absolute rubbish on tv and music videos by women that these girls look up to it does not suprise me. Young girls magazines are full of articles about things I don't really want my 12 year old to be thinking about and the language in mags like the NME is routinely foul. How depressing! Anyway don't worry about upsetting the mum by telling, I am sure she would be more upset that no-one told her at all.
scary mum
Posts: 8841
Joined: Mon Mar 15, 2010 3:45 pm

Re: Disturbing dilemma

Post by scary mum »

There is an interesting article in The Times today. Not directly about this, but in a similar vein about young children (aged 12) "sexting" each other. One good piece of advice that I have already passed on to my children is "don't post or text anything that you wouldn't want to put on a t shirt and wear it to walk down the road".
scary mum
Fran17
Posts: 1440
Joined: Sun Mar 07, 2010 10:16 pm

Re: Disturbing dilemma

Post by Fran17 »

I agree with earlier posters. I think it would be right to have a quiet word with the parents concerned. However, don't take it for granted that you will get a favourable response. A friend of mine approached a parent recently with the same intentions and received a very frosty reception. You can only do what you think is best and hope for the best.
Daogroupie
Posts: 11099
Joined: Wed Mar 04, 2009 3:01 pm
Location: Herts

Re: Disturbing dilemma

Post by Daogroupie »

Sometimes you really wish you did not know something. I was taking some boys from the year home from an event and they were talking in the back of the car about a girl in their year who was sending messages to boys asking them to have S E X with her. One boy said he had received over fifty messages from her. Then he mentioned her name and to my horror I knew her and the family. I agonised for days on what to do. I was sure the mother would shoot the messenger. In the end I decided I would never forgive myself if she ended up pregnant so I did tell the mother. It was a really horrible akward conversation. I pretended that it might not be true but it was clear that we both knew it was. I am glad I did it but I hated having to do it. We are the parents, it is our job to protect them and keep them from doing something stupid. Phones and social networking make it possible for them to have this other life that we dont know about but they are far too young to have the coping skills to know when it is all going wrong. There is no family time anymore, it is all being invaded by this inane rubbish. And they put themselves in such danger. There was a big vice ring cracked recently and they were trawling shopping centres looking for girls with phones and short skirts and sending in 17 year old nephews to pretend to want to be their boyfriends , then it was I need you to do a favour for my uncle as I owe him money and then they were hooked. And the parents did not find out because the sort of family that allows young girls to hang around shopping centres with short skirts and phones tend to be the ones who dont check up on what they are doing and where they are going. Really shocking and girls as young as 13. DG
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