QOTD: To Tell or Not To Tell
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QOTD: To Tell or Not To Tell
| Thu, 10-23-2008 - 12:25pm |
I don't know if any of you watch Oprah. BUT.. last week she had one her skypers (which annoys me to NO end) on the show and she asked a What Would You Do? question. Her 12 year old son received a text message from a 12 year girl (he showed it to his mom)

Yes, she should tell the child's parents. How else will they ever know that they need to address this issue with their child?
My son had a similar experience in that rude messages were being sent through his phone, not by him but with his knowledge. I am forever thankful that the parent on the receiving end intercepted and called me, in fact they had my dh and I over to their home and had us look at each message! I don't want to go into details about how it all happened (out of respect for the children involved), but suffice it to say that it was a HUGE learning lesson for my son (NEVER let anyone else borrow or use your phone to text!) and it surely was a lesson for the family of the child who sent the messages (and yes, I reported it to them).
I also think it is important for parents to teach their kids that what goes through via text is traceable, is real, and can be hurtful. I teach my kids never to text or email anything that you wouldn't say directly to someone's face. So for us, this experience was another way to reinforce this.
All the kids involved are good kids, just caught in wolf pack behavior and I'm so very very thankful for open communication between my kids friends families. Without that, we can't truly shape our children's value systems.
Now, it could backfire if you don't have a good relationship with the other family, or if they just don't care. If that were true, then I would work to limit contact with that child.
Ok, now I have to ask what is an Oprah Skyper?
I was using Kurt's phone the other day and he got a text from this creepy looking kid in his class that said F^&* you. it was during the school day too. This kid also texted and phoned him like 10 times one day to see if kurt could go to his house, even after I said no the first time. I also saw a Facebook message that talked about pornos from him.
I didn't tell his parents because they are kind of icky and don't seem like the type to care either way but I did tell Kurt if I ever saw another text or message from this kid, he'd lose his phone for good.
If it was a suggestive message from a girl, I would think about telling the parents because I personally think that is more serious than a boy being annoying. However, I probably wouldn't since most parents think their girls kids would never ever do anything bad. Whenever anyone tries to call attention to a problem with their child, they get all defensive and blame anyone else. Hmmm, tough call.
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SAHM to Emily 14.8, Jordan 9.10 & Carys 5.5
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Skype is a free videocam phone service that Oprah uses to have people "on her show" in the comfort of their home. (long run on sentence I know).
http://www.skype.com/
I would tell the parents because I would want to know if it were my child. I don't care if the parents got an attitude or not. I would also tell my son to stay away from that girl because she is TROUBLE and would tell the parents the same.
ITA. As the mother of a 13 year old girl, I would definitely want to know if she did anything like that. What usually happens though is that someone's kid will do something bad, and everyone but their parents will know about it. Then the gossip mill starts and all the lines are buzzing with mothers saying stuff like "I'd keep away from that Carla, she's trouble" or "I heard Carla's parents let her go on the ski trip anyway even after she sent that topless picture to Adam." And so Carla's parents never get a chance to teach her and Carla keeps on with her bad behavior.
But, on the flip side, I have also seen parents who knew about their kids and got really defensive when other parents called them on something. My attitude is like yours on that--So what? The parents need to know and I'm telling them. If they don't think it's an issue, that's their problem. I'll just tell my kids to stay away (and really, really try not to gossip!
I don't know. While I'd want to know if my child did this because it seems so out of character for her, it's very uncomfortable to bring something like this up to another parent.
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I'm SO glad that the parents who intercepted my son's texts didn't assume he was "trouble", instead they informed us and we were able to unravel things and realized that he wasn't the one who sent the messages, and he certainly would never have sent them on his own. Perhaps someone dared her, perhaps someone else sent it, perhaps she is a horrible nasty girl...there are many scenarios.
I think assuming the girl is bad is declaring her guilty without a trial. I think all kids deserve to learn from their mistakes.
Perhaps this particular girl IS trouble. But not necessarily. Since our incident with our son I have come across a half dozen other kids who had a similar experience of someone else using their phone and getting them in trouble!
Bottom line is that I'm glad these parents invested the time in our son by calling us. Even the kid who DID send them is a good kid, just made a bad choice.