Learning Lessons

Does anyone out there have a twelve year old son that on the one hand, he is the kindest, gentlest, sweetest soul.....but then on the other hand, he can do something that seems heartless, thoughtless, cruel and stupid?  Am I the only one with their hand raised at this question?  These last few days have had me thinking, where in the hell is the child that I have raised?   Oh yeah.  He's in seventh grade now.  That explains a good bit, I do believe. 

I will admit.  My son has all kinds of electronic gadgets.   Gameboys, Nintendo DS, iPod, Wii, Kindle Fire.  Three out of those five were gifts from grandparents.  The Kindle Fire....yeah, that was all me.  I had good intentions.   Books, I said.  Yeah, well no.  He now has a cell phone.  My husband and I thought about this for a long time before getting him one.  Trust me.  It's not one of them smart phones.  It texts and dials numbers and that's it.  I learned a lesson from the Kindle Fire about him having access to the Intrawebs and checking his history and such.  I wasn't about to let him have access to that on a tiny device that he can carry in his pocket.  Pocket porn to view by a twelve year old....um, no thanks. 

 

Things were going good.  Every couple of days I would take his phone, check his messages.  He was doing pretty good.  The Big Sexy and I have had many discussions with him about what is appropriate "text talk" and what is not.  "Be smart with it" we would say.  "You can't read someone's tone."  we would say.  "Once you hit send, you can't go back."  we would say.  Apparently, that advice didn't stick.  Here's what happened:

 

Friday Morning:  I get up and I'm getting ready for work.  I grab my phone to check Facebook (yes, first thing in the morning) and I don't know about you, but I get all excited when I see that I have message on Facebook....you know...just for me.  "Hi Mrs. Jennay. This is Atreyu (not his real name, of course) one of <The Little Man's> FORMER friends. He seems to like cursing at me and my MOM. Please message me back or message my mom.  Her name is <Princess Leia>.

 

huh?  The Little Man was with me last night until 8:00 then he was in the tub, then he was in the bed and I had taken his cell phone in my room (we do this so he's not texting people all night long), what the hell?  So, I emailed Princess Leia because I'm weird about interacting with children, privately, on Facebook.  To make a long story, even longer....she explains that her son, Atreyu had shared private information about another kid (we'll call him Gollum) with my son and some other kids at school.  My son then took to texting this Gollum kid (cause they are friends) and Gollum's mother then called her all upset.  So then Atreyu (her son), who shared the information in the first place, then texted the number that he had for my son, asking him to lay off of Gollum.  Then my son told her son to um, well...fuck off and mind his own business.  Then when Atreyu told my son that he wanted MY number so that his mom could call me, my son texted back and said, "fuck you and fuck your mom."  WHAT?????  When did this happen?  I asked...."Last night", she said.  And had the texts in front of her.  WHAT????? 

 

I immediately go wake up my son.

 

 

Who were you texting yesterday?  <me scrolling through his texts and I just see one person that he sent messages to....a kid that he was going to do a sleepover with>

I was texting my friend about a sleepover.

Anyone else???

(At this point he knew something was up.)  Well, I texted Gollum. 

There are no texts to or from Gollum. <I'm looking through his phone, still>

I deleted them because I knew you would get upset if you saw them.

 

ohhhh.  He's caught on how to play the game.  Sneaky little shit.

 

And why would I get upset?

Because I said, "Whassup sex offender."

mmmkay.  And what else did you say?

Well, he didn't respond, so I sent another that said, "Yo...pedophile.  What's up?"

What in the hell were you thinking?  Why would you send that to a friend?

I wanted to know if what Atreyu told us was true.

And you thought that by sending those kinds of messages, that Gollum would tell you?  What was his response?

He told me to shutup.

So what about the texts between you and Atreyu and his mom?  Why would you curse at them for asking you to stop texting Gollum?

I haven't texted Atreyu, you can look at my cell phone.  I don't even have his number.

<scrolling through texts and contacts> you're right, but you deleted the messages to Gollum, how do I know you didn't delete the texts from Atreyu.

I swear, I didn't text him or his mom.  I don't know anything about it.  He's one of my best friends.  I would never curse at him OR his mom.  Cue the tears....big tears.

 

Needless to say.  I didn't believe him.  I was a kid once.  I lied to try and prevent myself from getting into further trouble.  I know how this shit works.  The mom had the text messages to prove it.  So, that's what I was going by. 

So, I sent The Little Man on to school and to the computer I went to pull up the account and see what numbers he had been texting and calling.   Sure enough there were only two numbers he had been texting for the last two days.  The friend about the sleep over and Gollum (whassup sex offender).  After looking at all of his electronic gadgets, we also determined that he had not sent anything from these.  (Let me insert here, that I am technologically challenged and I had no idea that there were texting apps that could be downloaded on iPods and Kindle Fires that would let you text phones from them....well, now, I know.)  It wasn't that I didn't believe that he DIDN'T send those messages.  I was actually trying to prove that he did.  Imagine my surprise (yes, surprise because I know that kids curse) when I proved that he didn't, instead.  We contacted the mother of Atreyu to get the number that these texts come from and the name of Gollum's mom.  Cause we had some fixin' to do.  Turns out...the number that Atreyu had for my son....not his.  How this happened....I don't know.  What I can tell you, with certainty, is that my son didn't get a cell phone until last month and the text apps....those numbers were nowhere near this one either.  So, instead of that person that Atreyu texted just saying, "you got the wrong dude", yeah, well, he chose to curse them out.  Did this get The Little Man off the hook ...Nope...not by a long shot.

You see, he took information....private information...and chose to harass/pick on/whatever another kid with it.  A kid who was supposed to be his friend.  His first mistake was not the text message.  It was him not standing up to Atreyu while he was running his big, fat, mouth about Gollum and saying, "dude....that's not cool.  You shouldn't be talking about our friend and spreading his personal stuff like that."  But he didn't.  Let's face it.  He's a kid.  They don't always do the right thing. They mess up.  At least mine do and I know it.  Instead, he chose to be nosy and try to go about finding out more information in a completely inappropriate and unacceptable way.  So while I was trying to find out how to contact Gollum's mom, The Big Sexy and I made The Little Man write two apology letters.  One for Gollum and his mother and the other for Atreyu and his mom.  He was going to read them, in person, to them. 

I didn't want to involve Atreyu's mom anymore than she already was.  I mean, she was dealing with the fact that her son ran his mouth about sensitive information.  So, I did a little research and was able to find Gollum's mom on facebook.  That was a hard email to send.  It wasn't me that messed up, but it was a twelve year old extension of me and I had to reach out to her so that my twelve year old could attempt to repair what he did.  I had no idea how or IF she would respond but thank the Goddesses she did.  She wasn't happy at all, but agreed for us to all meet face to face for The Little Man to read his letter and talk to them about what he did and when we did that yesterday, she was stern with him, but forgiving.  There were tears.  From everyone.  She told him that in her heart of hearts, she knew that he was a good kid and that she hoped that he learned a valuable lesson from this.  He did.  I truly believe he did.  Then we moved on for him to read his letter to Atreyu and his mom.  He didn't need to apologize for text cursing that he didn't do, but he did need to apologize for taking what Atreyu said and running with it.  If that first text had never been sent, none of this would have happened.  But it did.   And so, for him, another lesson was learned. 

Now, I know that I probably didn't handle this like most parents.  We all do the parenting thing differently.  I know that a lot of parents wouldn't let their twelve year old have all of the electronic gadgets and that if we had not given our twelve year old a cell phone, none of this would have happened.  And they are right.  It wouldn't have.  But, we did give him one.  We felt that he needed it.  I still feel that he needs it.  What I feel that I messed up on is not teaching him, a little better, the responsiblity that comes with it or more texting etiquette.  I failed to teach him the social skills that are needed with it.  And so, for ME, another lesson learned.

I don't know about you....but I would much rather have learned another lesson about Blue Waffles.  But that's just me.

This parenting thing is hard y'all.  But worth it.  I reckon.