Makaela was 12 when this situation happened. At that point she had had Instagram for about a year. Social media is a hard decision as a parent, when is the right age, what should they have access to, etc? We both felt like she was too young but was being pressured by her to get Instagram because a lot of her friends had it, so we rewarded her for good grades by allowing her to have it, with a lot of conditions attached. Social media is a privilege not a right and can be taken away at any time. We both follow her to see what she is posting, to ensure its age appropriate, etc.
Makaela had a sleep over with a girlfriend and another friend the night before she was flying out to CA before our big summer trip (summer of 2017). That night the girls were doing "live" feeds on Instagram (I'm not a fan of live feeds but it's hard to monitor what is happening at someone else's home). They started yet another live feed around 9:30, which is when a boy commented on her feed, and before she saw what he posted her mom happened to be online and was able to remove it. Her mom then texted her to remove the kid from her contacts on Instagram immediately but would not share with Makaela what he said. Makaela, curious, sent him multiple messages asking what he said and he finally replied with "I said you're UGLY, BITCH!".
All of this happened after Jason and I were asleep. We both woke up with multiple missed calls from Makaela around midnight the night before. We jumped on Instagram, assuming that whatever happened probably was Instagram related. We saw where she called this kid out, posting their dialog, showing what he said, etc. Jason and I both took screen shots so we would have them and then called and text messaged Makaela to see how she was. She was still sleeping at the time so we were unable to get a hold of her until later that morning but in the mean time we discussed what to do about this situation, do we contact the parents? What is the right thing to do? We decided to contact the parents because if the situation were reversed and Makaela had been the one to hurt someone else we would want to know. We were able to locate the parents' names, phone numbers and emails (thank goodness for school directories and having other friends' parents help us in the search).
That evening we decided that I would make the calls (it appeared that the parents were no longer together since there was separate contact information). I called both parents, got the mom's voicemail so left her a brief message just asking to call me regarding an Instagram situation and the dad's number was no longer valid. Jason proceeded to email the dad the next morning, and his email was no longer valid either. The mom called me first thing in the morning, I explained the situation as I understood it, reiterating that more than anything I just wanted them to be aware of that situation. She was mortified about what her son had said to Makaela and said that she would call her ex-husband to explain the situation. The dad called me immediately after their conversation. During the conversation with the dad, he asked for permission for his son to call Makaela to apologize and we agreed. The son called to apologize, of which his apology was just that, but at least his dad had him do it. I approached both conversations as one parent to another, and that we would want to know if our daughter said something this hurtful to another child or classmate. Both parents were extremely receptive in my approach. Even though I was very angry with their child for hurting our child, especially at such a sensitive age, I wasn't going to come at them for their child's actions and was hoping that this approach would be welcomed and it was.
Later on we told Makaela that we talked to his parents and ultimately she was fine with us reaching out to them. Even though this was a sad experience for Makaela it was a good learning experience / conversation for us to have. This reiterated our rule of no electronics after a certain time for just this reason, a lot of bullying, texting, peer pressure, happens in the evenings.
This situation also allowed us to have another serious conversation with her about making good choices when posting things online as someone will have a screen shot and she will have the consequences of her words and actions if they are not appropriate. We were also able to reiterate that we have a zero tolerance for bullying and that she is responsible for everything that is put online so if she makes bad choices there will be consequences for her actions.
Social media is an ongoing discussion and we struggle with knowing what is right but at the end of the day we need to start trusting Makaela and as any issues arise we'll address when the time comes.
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