Another vote to get this done immediately. That is so outside the boundaries of ordinary roommate behavior that it is pretty clear to most here that you’re putting your son at risk if you wait any longer.
If you can’t get there TODAY, then tell DS to stay with friends or in a hotel TONIGHT.
I have read “The Gift of Fear” and nowhere would it advise the reader to hang around a dangerous situation while other people without the reader’s best interests at heart “investigate the situation”.
Everyone saying to drag him out of the room, that’s not going to happen. Where would he go? He spends as much time out of the room as possible. I’m not making excuses. I need to make sure I do the right thing. He’s not in the situation every second because he avoids it.
As far as contacts. I have met his mother. She is a respected professional in their town.
He can go tons of places. A hotel, another dorm room, the place doesn’t really matter.
This is the last I am commenting on this. It seems that unlike every single poster here, you are not seeing the seriousness of the situation.
So I’m out. Hope it ends well for you.
So the mom is a respected professional in their town - great starting point. This does not mean her son doesn’t have serious problems. Do some digging - I’m certain that there are people out there who know more than you do about this young man. I think it’s information you need to find out.
It seems you need to “work this problem” on several fronts.
You wanted advice and you got it. If half of what your son says is true, I would yank him out of there since there are physical threats.
If somebody threatened your home and said they were going to kill you, what would you do? Just wait and see what happens?
Can you answer the question about your son missing classes because the roomy turned of the alarm, but your son saw it?
Rarely is there almost complete agreement on College Confidential but here you have it - many parents from different walks of life, different regions, different backgrounds telling you pretty much the same thing. Take action!
Unless you are pulling our legs here…
Not sure how this is helpful. Parents aren’t always objective in regards to their children. Adam Lanza’s mom sure wasn’t…
Some asked about this and I was replying to them.
I’m with everyone else. Get your son out of that room ASAP. Maybe he can just come home for the weekend…since tomorrow is Friday.
If it were me, I would be there first thing tomorrow morning…and I would email the appropriate university contacts that you MUST see them on a very urgent matter.
@Groundwork2022 thank you for clarifying what the book didn’t say. I couldn’t imagine any responsible adult would recommend leaving a kid in harms way.
@Territapper please stop rationalizing this. Your son gave your some pretty explicit and disturbing details. If you trust that what your son said is true, then please help him…now.
Re: the roommate’s mother…so what? It doesn’t matter who she is.
I would like an answer to this.
The roommate has turned off my son’s alarm at least twice (my son watched him do it) and denied it, causing my son to miss his first class."
How did your son miss his class if he saw the roommate turning off the alarm, at least twice?
“How did your son miss his class if he saw the roommate turning off the alarm, at least twice?”
Presumably the days he saw the roomate turn off the alarm were not the same days he missed class.
OP, why are you fighting us all on this? I don’t get it.
Some of you are being totally unkind. I am not pulling anyone’s leg. I am distraught and understand the seriousness of this. However, I AM ALSO TERRIFIED OF PROVOKING THE ROOMMATE INTO SEEKING RETALIATION. Removing my son from the room only changes his bed location. He will still be at the school and so will his roommate. His roommate knows my son’s schedule, where he works, and the friends he hangs out with. It would be easy to track him down even if my son wasn’t in the same dorm room. Taking him out of the room does not take him out of harm’s way. He has also already signed a lease for an apartment for next year (without the roommate).
My son says he has it under control and is handling it. He spends a lot of time outside the dorm room and sleeps at his friend’s dorm many nights. I also fully understand he may not be telling me everything. If I betray his trust, he will never confide in me again and it can do irrepariable damage to our relationship when he has asked me not to interfere. Yes, I know if his roommate is in fact dangerous, it’s better to be safe than sorry. But I could actually blow this whole thing up if I take the wrong action. I don’t want to run in like gangbusters and create turmoil. I wanted opinions and I see my fears are not baseless. I appreciate the helpful advice and I am trying to decide what the best course of action is. Running there and pulling him away (when he’s not even in his room most of the time), is not going to help anything and could make it worse.
My son only saw him turn off the alarm once (the second time), which confirmed for him that he turned it off the first time (when he missed his class) on a different day. It seems like people are trying to poke holes in my story. As long as my original post was, I left out a lot of things.
You may be struggling to convince your son that this is a very serious situation because your lack of response and involvement implies that you don’t feel it’s a very serious situation. If this is what you appear to think it is - roommate obsessed with your son, appears to be stalking and making threats - you need to be more involved in getting quick, decisive action from the university and possibly the police.
You’re sending mixed signals but your actions are what is being read. And you are not acting.
And I say this as someone who is not a helicopter parent. I’ve let my kids fail at important things and one of them upon hearing the definition of helicopter mom broke out laughing and told me “mom, you’re the polar opposite of a helicopter… you’re more a submarine mom.”
So… from a submarine mom who lets her kids fight their own battles, this is one of the very, very few examples of a situation that I would 100% and immediately become involved in. If you really believe what you’re writing here - that your son’s roommate is obsessed, crossing physical boundaries, stalking and making threats - you need to take action now.
Edited to add: I was typing and didn’t see your last response. I still don’t understand what exactly you’re waiting for. If you’re terrified about what roommate will do, that’s all the more reason to get this addressed today. It definitely would keep your son safer to be in a different dorm room (or hotel, Airbnb, whatever) immediately and that’s a reasonable, achievable goal. Get your son out and worry about the rest if it continues or escalates. But don’t let him sleep there one more night.
Can’t the police be made aware of the concern about retaliation?
IMO, this is “see something, say something” territory.
OP, I am so sorry for your situation and totally understand that you are afraid. Aside from “pull him out,” PLEASE find someone professional to talk over this situation with ASAP, whether that is police, Residence Life, a college advisor. There must be professionals who are equipped to handle this situation keeping safety and lack of retaliation foremost in mind.
So, if you can’t get there and move him out and want to still give your son some say in this, I would call and say: “Listen, avoiding this situation is not solving it. Just staying out of the room is not a solution. You can’t do this all year. I would like to do the following: come down to campus and accompany you to campus security where we can discuss the issues of stalking, touching, inappropriate photography and the threat of retaliation. As the parent here, I can see this is likely more dangerous than you think it is and I really believe it’s time to intervene.”
Any of the counselors on campus know both the law (when to intervene) and when to maintain patient/therapist confidentiality. If your son has not escalated this to health services, he needs to ASAP.
Do you really think your son is the only person in the dorm feeling unsafe right now?
You can’t let him stay in an unsafe situation because he’s afraid that once he moves out, the roommate will stalk him. That’s what an order of protection is for. But the law (or campus protocols) can’t protect someone who won’t tell anyone in authority that there’s a threat!
I think if your son reports the inappropriate touching and the photos while sleeping, the school must immediately move one or the other under a Title IX complaint while they investigate. It may be very inconvenient for both like at my daughter’s school where they’d move both because they didn’t want one roommate ‘winning’ and getting to keep the room after a complaint.
It’s a safety issue and the school can’t just wait to investigate. An assault to happen while they are investigating. Have your son file a Title IX investigation immediately.
I totally understand that you are under a lot of stress and some of these responses may feel overwhelming. I think everyone means well. There is just a lot to sort through.
I understand your fear of escalating the roommate. If he is a stalker, it’s true he can stalk from anywhere or do something rash. I also understand you have to respect your adult son and work with him.
What about starting with a private investigator? This way you might uncover some information you can share with your son and the two of you can decide together what to do next. I really don’t think it would be that expensive. Have you checked this young man’s online footprint? Anything?