<p>I was just notified that someone wrote a letter to my son’s summer sports tour asking that he be removed. It was typewritten and it said it was from me! Its a creepy prank, I believe, by a boy in my son’s class who’s been bugging him this whole entire year, and they’re arch rivals in sports as well. I don’t have any proof that its him, and I’m busy getting my son reinstated today. I think I"ll ask that he not be teamed up (paired) with this kid to cool things down. I have no way of proving its him, and telling his parents may make it all worse. I’m so angry I could spit tacks. The boys are middle schoolers…diabolical.</p>
<p>Since there is no proof as to the identity of the prankster, I wouldn’t speak to the boy or his parents or make any public accusations. (The boy in question might not be the guilty one). I’d just have a quiet word with the coach and request a different pairing for your son.</p>
<p>I’m basically giving a ditto to what Coureur wrote. It is a very rotten passive agressive action. But you don’t have proof that this boy sent it (but if you ever get proof, then you could act on that). So, for now, you need to get your son reinstated and explain to the program/tour that someone sent this letter posing as you and you don’t know who it was but it could be another participant. In the meantime, I would also request that your son not be teamed up with the boy whom you believe has been bugging him all year. That is a fair request.</p>
<p>Thanks, guys. I think that that’s really all I can do regarding the requesting. If I go around making accusations it’ll just backfire on my son. (who we haven’t told, and won’t…he’d freak out.)</p>
<p>Wow. That’s a rotten thing to do. Did you see a copy of the letter? Did they contact you because it seemed to be written by a middle schooler? Or might they have enlisted the help of an older friend or sibling.
Unfortunately, you might need to make sure any correspondence sent by you to anything your son’s involved in might have to be verified by phone. I’m sure glad they contacted you directly. Agree that your son doesn’t need to be made aware of it. If he makes no reference to it during tour then the prankster won’t get any satisfaction. In fact, he may end up revealing himself. Having had 2, I know MS boys aren’t sophisticated enough to keep secrets ;)</p>
<p>Shortlist, the tour sent me the original letter back with a handwritten, “we’ll miss him!” written at the bottom by them, along with my uncashed check which I’d sent in last month when I registered him. The letter is quite professional, but no signature (by hand) and no request for a refund which is certainly something I’d do if I were withdrawing my son!</p>
<p>Hopefully it wasn’t your son that sent that letter because he didn’t want to go!</p>
<p>We sent D to a music camp (she loves music, but really didn’t like this program at all) when she was in middle school. I think if we tried to send her the next year, she’d tell them she didn’t want to go…she’d figure out how to “unregister” herself. It would probably be an email though, from my email address. ;)</p>
<p>She wouldn’t ask for a refund either, as long as she didn’t have to go. :D</p>
<p>Is this other boy also going on the tour or is he just involved in sports at the same school as your son? The question I would have is: who benefits from your son missing out on the tour? Who would want to see him miss out on that experience? Who would be treacherous and ballsy enough to write such a letter and write it well? I guess what I’m getting at is, do you think the boy’s parents are partners in his rivalry with your son? Are they intense about the rivarlry? (I’m thinking along the lines of the Texas cheerleading mom thing.) This is a creepy prank all right. Better watch his back in the years ahead.</p>
<p>This strikes me as being beyond what a middle school age young man would do…I sense someone else’s hand in this as well…</p>
<p>The fact that the letter was highly polished suggests an was adult involved. But at the same time it’s hard to believe that an adult would think that this prank could actually keep your son off the team. An adult would/should anticipate that the victim would readily get reinstated, as he in fact is. I wonder if this was done by the rival kid with the letter being written by an older sibling or friend who could manage a fair imitation of adult writing.</p>
<p>My kids have both been very active in sports.</p>
<p>I don’t know what a “sports tour” is. Is it affiliated with the school at all, or is it like a summer camp? Do you have to qualify for it?</p>
<p>I’m being vague when I use the term “sports tour” because I don’t want to be recognised by anyone in our area. Yes, this is a sport which both boys play at school and outside of school, and are in direct competition with each other, and will be for the next four years until college. They are on an equal level skill-wise. Getting my son off of this summer tour would be the worst thing for him that you could imagine. This sport is his life, basically.</p>
<p>I wish I could say that this was an isolated incident, but I’ve seen this kind of prank before.</p>
<p>Several years ago I was working in my college admissions office answering the phone. An international student from Asia called to ask why she’d gotten a rejection letter after her acceptance. I looked the student up and she’d been denied admission, plain and simple, so we asked her to describe the “acceptance letter” and fax it to us. It was obviously fake, with grammar mistakes a native speaker wouldn’t make, and the college logo and letterhead were badly forged…but the student’s English wasn’t great, and her whole family had been taken in. She received this phony acceptance letter a couple of weeks before the denial reached her through international mail (this was before internet notification). So for weeks she and her family told all their friends she was going to college in America, were planning a trip to visit, etc. When we told her the acceptance letter didn’t come from us, she was devastated.</p>
<p>Hanna, that story makes me wince. Just terrible!!</p>
<p>dke,
You’ve received great advice already so I have nothing more to add, but I did want to express my outrage and sympathy! Mothers of daughters have always insisted to me that middle school girls are the worst, but as someone with 3 sons I have seen some pretty horrible stuff from the boys, much of it related to athletics. I hope this just dies down and your S never finds out about it and has a great time “on tour.”</p>
<p>thanks, M.O.3…always good advice on CC, I agree! Its validating to hear that others find this as outrageous as H and I do!</p>
<p>Hanna, that’s truly a horrible story…that poor girl, her poor family…</p>
<p>That is a terrible story, Hanna.
DKE, I agree with the other posters that there was another hand in this. That makes it even MORE creepy. Thankfully you received the notification before the deadline to accept.</p>
<p>Oh dke, I truly feel for you and your family. I remember your thread on bullying, and I couldn’t help but wonder if this was an escalation of the previous troubles your family experienced. Our family had a situation eerily similar to the one in your original bullying thread, and we in fact experienced this type of escalation. </p>
<p>Do you think they are related? The advice about how to handle it may be different if you believe they are related.</p>
<p>Anyone ever hear of the football mom? Think again. Adults are VERY competetive, and if this kid’s mother or dad thinks that OP’s S is a threat to his position on the team, etc., this sounds like a great way to eliminate him. Don’t say anything to your son, or to anyone else. If the person who did this thinks that they would have succeeded but for your intervention, then there will be other dirty tricks. If they just think it didn’t work, then they will feel defeated. Nothing is working! Best way to bug them.</p>