A single mother who found out her son had called a girl ‘fat’ and ‘ugly’ marched him over to her house to give a grovelling apology.
Samm Jane, from Nuneaton, Warwickshire, was ‘f****** livid’ when the school called to say her son, who has not been named, had been bullying his classmate.
When the 12-year-old boy came home, Samm, 32, discovered he had called the girl a a ‘c***’, ‘t***’ and ‘b****’.
The mother-of-five said: ‘I got a call from my son’s school to let me know he’d been throwing pencils in class.
‘Then the woman on the phone said ‘We don’t know what’s been said, but we’re aware that Dave’s been sending nasty text messages to one of the girls in his class’.
‘I asked who it was, but they couldn’t say because of data protection. So I was sitting on this information for three hours until my son got home from school.
‘I needed to know what he said. I never thought he’d be like this, I’d raised him to never disrespect a girl.
‘I’m a female, I’m a single mum, he should respect me and everybody else around him.’
When her son came home from school Samm, who works as a full-time carer, made him unlock his phone and she was horrified to discover the messages he had sent to the girl.
She recalled: ‘He’d sent this girl texts saying ‘I never want to see your ugly face in school. Your ugly face and fat body offend me.’
‘She’d text him back saying ‘Stop being horrible to me’. He’d sent voice notes as well going ‘Urgh, you’re disgusting.’
‘I was shaking with anger. I was livid. I was like ‘What are you playing at?’ and my son goes ‘She does my head in at school.’
Samm Jane, 32, from Nuneaton in Warwickshire, said she was ‘fuming’ when the school called to say her son had been bullying a girl in his class and made him apoloogise
Samm waited for her son, who has not been named, to come home before asking him to open his phone and show her the messages
Samm has been praised on TikTok after sharing the story of how she made her son apologise for bullying the girl, with people calling her a ‘brilliant mum’
Samm was mortified when she saw the messages her son, who has not been named, had sent to the girl in his class
‘And I said ‘I don’t give a f**k if she does your head in at school. What gives you the right to speak to her like that?’
‘I told him ‘She’s going to be looking in the mirror now and feeling so insecure’. I couldn’t let it go.’
Although the school wouldn’t give out the girl’s identity, Samm turned detective and found out where she lived.
‘I told Dave we were going around to apologise. Not only to the girl, but to her parents, to her aunts, to her uncles, to whoever was in that house,’ she said.
The mother also made her son take £10 from his birthday money to buy chocolates and flowers for the girl.
Samm said: ‘I walked him down to the girl’s house, and I was fuming. I knocked on the door and the girl answered.
‘I asked if her parents were in, and she brought them to the door.’
Then she made her son apologise for what he had done – and caught her parents up on what her son had been saying to their daughter.
‘The girl accepted the apology, he gave her the flowers and the chocolates. I said ‘He will never speak to you like that again’.
Samm said she was devastated to learn her son had been speaking to a girl in such a rude way, and has not raised him to be disrespectful to women
Samm’s son had called the girl ‘fat’ and ‘ugly’ while the girl told him she was hurt by his words
After making sure her son was sorry for the incident, Samm explained to him why his words were so damaging and the awful consequences of bullying
‘I reassured the mum and dad that he wouldn’t speak to anybody like that again. The mum thanked me, and she sent me a text message afterwards saying that I’d been really brave to go around.
‘I gave her my address and told her to come round if there were any problems so we could sort it out together.’
Vowing to make sure her son learns from the incident, she also took away his electronic devices for a week.
She also sat down with him to explain why his words were cruel and the devastating consequences bullying can have on people.
‘I’m raising a man. My son doesn’t have that male role model so I have to teach him how to be a man and make sure he’s respectful to people,’ she said.
‘As a single mum, I’ve tried to do my best by him. For him to disrespect a female, it feels like he is disrespecting me.
Samm, a single mother-of-five, found out the identity of the girl and where she lived and took her son over to his house
Samm made her son take £10 from his birthday money to buy the girl a bunch of flowers and some chocolates to make amends
‘I’ve always told him about body positivity, about how women come in different shapes and sizes. That’s why I was so angry – why would he say all these things when I’ve told him to be respectful?
‘He disappointed me. He’s absolutely taken it on board since. The two of them are friends now, it just shows how forgiving and kind she is. She’s a lovely girl.’
Samm added the incident brought back painful memories from her own childhood.
‘I was bullied when I was at school, I had to move. I didn’t fit in with the other girls, I didn’t have hair straighteners,’ she recalled.
‘My mum and dad were quite old fashioned, so I didn’t get to have make-up or anything like that.
‘I’ve always told my kids that it’s okay not to fit in and it’s great to be an individual.’
Samm shared the story in a TikTok video which has now been viewed more than a million times and she has been flooded with praise from other parents.
She said: ‘I wanted to share it so other people could see it and think ‘I don’t want my boy to be like that’. We’ve got to bring up the next generation.
After Samm posted a video about the incident on TikTok she was flooded with praise from people who admired her decision to make her son apologise
After Samm took her son to the girl’s house to apologise, she received a message from the girl’s mother thanking her for holding her son to account
The incident brought back painful memories for Samm, who went through bullying when she was at school
‘It’d be so much easier if parents taught their boys – and girls – to apologise and to make up.
‘I was so shocked by the reaction. I got teary when I saw people complimenting my parenting. My phone was going mad for like three days.
‘If a million people have seen that video, then a million parents can make a change.’
Thousands of commenters applauded Samm’s approach to parenting.
One TikTok user wrote: ‘Proper old school parenting, well done. You’re a great mum and a great person.’
Another commented: ‘Yes queen. If my boys ever do anything like this, I will be doing exactly the same!! So proud of you.’
One supporter said: ‘As a teenage girl, you are a brilliant mum for that. Thank you for making him unlearn his ways, so many boys my age are so disrespectful,’ with a fellow supporter commenting: ‘Top tier parenting I respect you a lot.’
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