secondary school friendship groups and politics

Retro…. Have you informed your sons tutor yet?

I’m just thankful that he feels comfortable confiding in us. I think it’s the lioness in me that just wants to swoop in and make things better for him but as my husband says he needs to find his way with guidence from us when it’s needed

This.

Inform your sons tutor. (They do need to know.)

This

lol @johndo, that’s so true – one of my grown up friends is getting into that habit, but he’ll get slapped down with some true ribbing..

Off topic, but is anyone else incensed by middle class parents giving their little darlings alcohol and even drugs in some cases when they go to teenage parties. Insane! Surely sourcing narcotics of any kind themselves is a right of passage for any kid, developing the resourcefulness, duplicitousness and scheming necessary for adult life.

So thought I’d update. My son came home upset again and there was more messages on what’s app accusing him of being a liar and on other groups that he didn’t like my son. In the end we rang the boys parents who we do know and arranged that the boys meet and sort out their differences with us there to mediate if necessary. It did go well and when asked if they wanted to continue their friendship they both said that they wanted to and went off on their own to talk. The boy has been banned from social media and they have come away with a truce to agree that if they have any disagreements then the best thing to do is talk them through rather than hide behind a keyboard. Let’s see what tomorrow is going to bring…..

Hi Retro……

Have you considered letting your sons Tutor know what is going on?

I haven’t let the tutor know as I think meeting the parents helped greatly. I’m going to see how it goes over the next few days. I’m under the impression that this lad has been falling out with a few people and due to that has been taking his frustrations out on my son. The joys of growing up.

Talking to parents and tutors won’t sort it out, the only thing that sorted this kind of stuff out at the comp I went to for a while was beating the living shit out of one another.

Reading this thread (and i have just been through something similar with one of my daughters)it occurred to me that when I was at school (80`s) there was a sort of natural pecking order established. The big hard kids picked on the little weak kids and everyone in between just tried to stay out of the way. If anyone was out of order there would be enough kids on the other side to “sort it out” it was like the playground used to police itself.
Now, with a zero tolerance to “bullying” there is no natural order its a free for all and any kid that wants to give someone else a hard time has no peer barriers in the way.

It’s also because British and Yank kids are arseholes generally, my wifes horrified by the level of bullying that goes on in anglosphere schools.

Just in case you weren’t aware: the minimum age on Whatsapp’s T&Cs is 16.

It’s also because British and Yank kids are arseholes generally, my wifes horrified by the level of bullying that goes on in anglosphere schools.

I can assure you, as a parent of a girl in 5ème (yr 8) in a French college that we had similar experiences last year. It’s certainly not exclusive to Anglo Saxon culture, adolescent girls can be just as nasty and cliquey in other languages.

@Cougar I’d guesstimate that over 90% of secondary school kids under 16 have WhatsApp installed on their phones.
When we were kids, we’d rent 15 and 18 certificate films. I was a huge fan of David Cronenberg when I was 13.

I can assure you, as a parent of a girl in 5ème (yr 8) in a French college that we had similar experiences last year. It’s certainly not exclusive to Anglo Saxon culture, adolescent girls can be just as nasty and cliquey in other languages.

Anglosphere because neither of us has experience with European schools, but the Asian schools my wife went to were a completely different kettle of fish. The kids cared about classroom harmony more, whilst there was some bullying – her descriptions and her friends experiences make me think that it was a lot lot less prevalent.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/bullying-cyber-england-schools-headteachers-students-oecd-talis-survey-a8965606.html

As so many others have said – you need to inform the School even if you don’t want them to do anything.
If this situation flares up again, or morphs into something else an evidence trail is key to getting it sorted..

Emailing the screen shots to his tutor gives you a time-stamped evidence trail.

I’ve got a 13 year old daughter who is having some issues with another girl in her year – this kid was obviously the Alpha girl in her primary School friends group and is convinced my daughter is trying to break into this group and challenge her authority.
Whilst i know my daughter isn’t perfect i honestly believe this other kids is the root cause, and it annoys me greatly that i cannot intervene.
The parents in this instance are also fuelling the fire by trying to Engineer friendships – which never works.

School are aware and monitoring it.

Cougar I’d guesstimate that over 90% of secondary school kids under 16 have WhatsApp installed on their phones.
When we were kids, we’d rent 15 and 18 certificate films. I was a huge fan of David Cronenberg when I was 13.

Sure, and likewise.

It’s difficult, and I’m not a parent so I don’t honestly know what I’d do in this situation. I’m a firm advocate of allowing kids access to technology, but the rest of the world hasn’t yet caught up with them having that technology. You’ve got barely-pubescent teenagers with pocket computers that with a couple of clicks can deliver hardcore grumble or worse directly into their eyes.

I don’t know what the solution is but I’m not entirely convinced that “well everyone else does it” is a particularly compelling argument. Even then though, what do you do? You ban little Johnny from having a smartphone at school, his mates will just share.

I’ve got a 13 year old daughter who is having some issues with another girl in her year – this kid was obviously the Alpha girl in her primary School friends group and is convinced my daughter is trying to break into this group and challenge her authority.
Whilst i know my daughter isn’t perfect

I have the exact same scenario festering – if your daughter’s situation came to a head in a netball match a fortnight ago…🤔

I’m not sure there is a solution other than close supervision, which can’t be done 24/7. No laptops in bedrooms, charging phones in other rooms, not taking it to school, etc work to only a certain degree. Although that last one lost her phone privileges for a week! Turns out that good old fashioned parental authoritarianism still works occasionally.

Methods of communication have evolved so much since we were kids. Adults haven’t properly got the hang of it yet, we know all too well how some grown ups behave on social media and forums!

Off topic, but is anyone else incensed by middle class parents giving their little darlings alcohol and even drugs in some cases when they go to teenage parties. Insane! Surely sourcing narcotics of any kind themselves is a right of passage for any kid, developing the resourcefulness, duplicitousness and scheming necessary for adult life.

😄😜😃

Even then though, what do you do?

You do your best.
There’s no manual for kids and it’s a constant balancing act between trying to teach them a responsible attitude to phones / social media / alcohol / sex etc. without making them into the weird kid at school with Victorian parents who chain them up in the coal cellar.

You don’t always get the balance right but you do the best you can and hope they turn out all right in the end.

The kids often fail to see the line you’re trying to walk and that doesn’t help either.

In the last couple of weeks i’ve tried (and most likely failed) to impress upon my nearly 17 year old daughter the subtle difference between drinking a few glasses of Echo Falls in her friends garden, whose parents I’ve known since school and drinking cans of Dragon Soup in the middle of the woods at night, miles from home, with the same friends.
She can’t see the difference. Yet.

That’s teenagers for ya.

drinking cans of Dragon Soup in the middle of the woods at night, miles from home, with the same friends.

I had to google that. I’d be concerned too, that’s a shitload of caffeine.

Dragon Soop 😲 things have come on a bit since Hooch and Two Dogs!