I'd originally posted about this issue in the teen forum under the title "Some freaky weird back to school drama" -- but have not gotten much response, possibly due to the lengthiness of my original post or maybe less traffic in that forum. At any rate, I'm feeling a need for more input and am hoping that more people might see it and share their thoughts if I put it here, in a (hopefully) more concise post.
My older dd is 14 and in the 9th grade in our district's fine and performing arts magnet, and she and one of her (former) good friends are both theatre arts majors and therefore have all but one class together. I've been informed by the counselor that this will be the case all through high school, since they both have the same major, so my main hope now is that it works out for dd to start Early College Academy in her junior year, which she is really wanting to do anyhow, so that she can have some space from a really difficult situation that's been literally thrust on her.
Last year, this former friend, who'd just come off suicide watch before starting school, kept threatening to kill herself and getting mad at dd for always reporting her threats to a teacher. She ended up having to be put back on suicide watch after one of these incidents, and spent about a week in the hospital. She'd previously told dd that she hated being on suicide watch and never wanted to go through that again, and yet she kept making suicide threats directly to my dd, knowing full well that dd was going to tell an adult.
The other girl's mother got so upset with my dd last spring that she even blocked dd on Facebook for a while, saying (according to her daughter) that dd needed to "learn how to mind her own business and stop spreading other people's business." But by summer, the girls were friends again and the other girl's mom let her chat with dd on Facebook all summer.
Well, this past Wednesday, dd came home from school very worried because this girl told her that her dad had been manhandling her mom and threatening to kill the whole family. Dd told her to call the police and she said she was afraid that the police would kill her dad.
I told dd that I was taking the matter out of her hands, and also that I wouldn't tell her exactly what I did so that if questioned, she could honestly say that she didn't report it and she didn't know who did.
Although I've never been one to want to report other people, this father forcibly yanking the mother out of a car to yell at her, and threatening to kill the whole family, seemed like indications that people's safety could be at risk. So I decided to make an anonymous call to the school counselor.
He, as a mandated reporter, made a report to the authorities, and later that day, the police went to the girl's house. If I'm understanding everything correctly, they found the little sister, who I think was about two or three, home alone, and took her into state custody, but left dd's classmate with the family.
This girl went to school on Thursday very angry with my dd, and was talking badly about her to the other kids, and dd heard her say that she'd told the school office that dd had lied. I'm proud of dd for managing to have a pretty good day in spite of all this; she just sat with a different friend at lunch. One mutual friend came and asked dd what was going on so dd told her.
While dd was still at school, the father called us and claimed that our dd had fabricated everything because she didn't want his dd to be friends with anyone else but her. Which of course is crazy because dd has other friends. The father claimed that the school had "written proof" that our dd had threatened his dd that she'd make stuff up to harm her family if she wasn't exclusive with dd.
I finally had to cut him off and say that I was going to call the school to check things out. I called the counselor and let him know that I was the parent who'd made the anonymous call, and that the father had just called us, and I told him what he'd said about dd. The counselor said he'd never heard anything like that about our dd. I'm guessing that the "written proof" was whatever spiel his daughter had spewed out about our child, which I'm sure was written down by the interviewer, but certainly wasn't "written proof" that anything of the sort had happened.
Dd is very happy in her school and has no desire to change her major. I wanted to let the theatre arts teachers know about the situation, since they are in that class together for two hours a day, plus often have play practice after school and on Saturdays. But dd said she'd rather just talk to the teachers herself if there was a problem, which actually makes me rather proud of her.
Although she's not thrilled about the way this girl is treating her, she seems to feel comfortable with the way that she herself has handled things. She's also had a busy few days, going shopping with a friend yesterday after school, going to the Renaissance Festival today, and spending the night with a different friend tonight. So maybe she'll just focus on all the other interesting stuff in her life and not be too affected by this situation. And maybe I'm overreacting by not being able to mentally drop it yet?
My older dd is 14 and in the 9th grade in our district's fine and performing arts magnet, and she and one of her (former) good friends are both theatre arts majors and therefore have all but one class together. I've been informed by the counselor that this will be the case all through high school, since they both have the same major, so my main hope now is that it works out for dd to start Early College Academy in her junior year, which she is really wanting to do anyhow, so that she can have some space from a really difficult situation that's been literally thrust on her.
Last year, this former friend, who'd just come off suicide watch before starting school, kept threatening to kill herself and getting mad at dd for always reporting her threats to a teacher. She ended up having to be put back on suicide watch after one of these incidents, and spent about a week in the hospital. She'd previously told dd that she hated being on suicide watch and never wanted to go through that again, and yet she kept making suicide threats directly to my dd, knowing full well that dd was going to tell an adult.
The other girl's mother got so upset with my dd last spring that she even blocked dd on Facebook for a while, saying (according to her daughter) that dd needed to "learn how to mind her own business and stop spreading other people's business." But by summer, the girls were friends again and the other girl's mom let her chat with dd on Facebook all summer.
Well, this past Wednesday, dd came home from school very worried because this girl told her that her dad had been manhandling her mom and threatening to kill the whole family. Dd told her to call the police and she said she was afraid that the police would kill her dad.
I told dd that I was taking the matter out of her hands, and also that I wouldn't tell her exactly what I did so that if questioned, she could honestly say that she didn't report it and she didn't know who did.
Although I've never been one to want to report other people, this father forcibly yanking the mother out of a car to yell at her, and threatening to kill the whole family, seemed like indications that people's safety could be at risk. So I decided to make an anonymous call to the school counselor.
He, as a mandated reporter, made a report to the authorities, and later that day, the police went to the girl's house. If I'm understanding everything correctly, they found the little sister, who I think was about two or three, home alone, and took her into state custody, but left dd's classmate with the family.
This girl went to school on Thursday very angry with my dd, and was talking badly about her to the other kids, and dd heard her say that she'd told the school office that dd had lied. I'm proud of dd for managing to have a pretty good day in spite of all this; she just sat with a different friend at lunch. One mutual friend came and asked dd what was going on so dd told her.
While dd was still at school, the father called us and claimed that our dd had fabricated everything because she didn't want his dd to be friends with anyone else but her. Which of course is crazy because dd has other friends. The father claimed that the school had "written proof" that our dd had threatened his dd that she'd make stuff up to harm her family if she wasn't exclusive with dd.
I finally had to cut him off and say that I was going to call the school to check things out. I called the counselor and let him know that I was the parent who'd made the anonymous call, and that the father had just called us, and I told him what he'd said about dd. The counselor said he'd never heard anything like that about our dd. I'm guessing that the "written proof" was whatever spiel his daughter had spewed out about our child, which I'm sure was written down by the interviewer, but certainly wasn't "written proof" that anything of the sort had happened.
Dd is very happy in her school and has no desire to change her major. I wanted to let the theatre arts teachers know about the situation, since they are in that class together for two hours a day, plus often have play practice after school and on Saturdays. But dd said she'd rather just talk to the teachers herself if there was a problem, which actually makes me rather proud of her.
Although she's not thrilled about the way this girl is treating her, she seems to feel comfortable with the way that she herself has handled things. She's also had a busy few days, going shopping with a friend yesterday after school, going to the Renaissance Festival today, and spending the night with a different friend tonight. So maybe she'll just focus on all the other interesting stuff in her life and not be too affected by this situation. And maybe I'm overreacting by not being able to mentally drop it yet?