Want to defend my child but don't want to expose them

For starters my 14 year old IS in therapy. He was the victim of a crime and has been struggling a little. He's been having nightmares so he's been sleeping in my 17 year olds room in the bed with him. My 17 year old told me today that my 14 year old has been crying and emotional because he's on our towns just arrested Facebook page. Our police department posts arrests in their and the man that victimized my son was posted on their and his mugshot and it always has a link to the article about their crimes. Why he's upset is because Facebook is crazy and there's always going to be people commenting some crazy shitty things and some people are victim blaming him or accusing him of meeting up with this old guy for consensual sex. My 17 year old said he's been obsessing with reading the comments and it's just causing him more distress. His identity was kept secret and even security footage from him being helped his face is blurred. I am angry and want to say something but don't want to expose him because it will hurt him more. I want to also take his phone away so he can stop looking but he will see that as I'm punishing him. I've already put him in therapy. Idk how else to help make this easier for him.

151 views • 0 upvotes • 2 comments

COMMENT (2)

Mr

Posted at
He doesn’t need your defense. He needs your support, he needs you to keep him out of the comment section and off Facebook. He’s 14, he doesn’t need to be accessing social media right now. Therapy and full support is what’s needed.

A

Posted at
He doesn’t need defending, he needs support. That example of showing him to pay attention to people supporting him instead of “feeding the trolls” in the comments will be much more healing and valuable. I would honestly take the phone or at least tell him he has to stay off Facebook. Even if he sees it as a punishment, if it’s becoming an obsession that is harming his mental health, it’s more important to put a stop to that than preserve his phone/app privileges. He needs to understand those people are lucky they’ve never known the pain and evil of this world. They’re ignorant and pathetic, no use even paying mind to it.