<p>Have you ever wanted to go and tell another parent what you saw their teen doing (or heard about from a reasonable source), but decided not to because you didn’t want to suffer their overt or thinly veiled resentment or wrath? </p>
<p>It is a terrible thing when teenagers, who are putting their safety or college careers in jeopardy with poor choices (driving, drinking, drugs, promiscuous behavior, vandalism, etc.), have parents who make it very clear that they do NOT want to hear about it. </p>
<p>I am not talking about creepy kids and families who lurk under rocks. I am referring to families with athletes and good students, successful families where the parents are so prideful that they make their adult peers extremely reluctant to bring them good information which could prevent a decent kid from really getting off track. </p>
<p>In a perfect world, we would all bust through the wall of denial and chosen ignorance, and bring these parents the information they should have. In reality, however, not everyone always wants to suffer social consequences when these types retaliate. And they really do. I have watched resentful moms, a number of times, bad mouth even friends who tried to tell them the truth about something a child was doing. </p>
<p>When our own self-esteem is wrapped up with a need to have perfect-seeming kids, it can be a very dangerous thing.</p>
<p>My daughter ran into this. Her ex b/f was permanently drunk and doing drugs and sending ‘do people go to hell if they commit suicide’ texts to my poor daughter and another ex g/f. After much agonizing she was concerned enough to contact his parents whose response was to tell her she was a 'vindictive ‘b*tch’. To be honest we were not at all surprised as these parents defended every appalling thing this boy ever did with ‘oh he’s stressed’ or some other nonsense. Several months later they found out the hard way she was telling them the truth when he OD’d. He survived but has not changed his ways, and I think they are still in denial.</p>
<p>It’s also hard to know how much faith to place in even a “reasonable source.” There may be a grain of truth to some gossip, but it’s hard to know how much. I have chosen not to tell a parent things I’ve heard about their child. If I had concrete evidence of wrongdoing - if I saw a kid buying liquor or drugs, or driving dangerously, for instance - I’d tell the parent. But never based on something I’d heard. I’ve heard too much that later turned out to be exaggerated or untrue.</p>
<p>I think parents should welcome information in either case. There are too many good kids without hard core issues who end up getting in trouble (or even appear in an obituary column), trouble which could possibly have been prevented if a parent had only known what was going on early on. Certainly, it is best for a parent to at least have a chance at averting disaster. Suffering consequences - *getting caught<a href=“especially%20by%20parents,%20rather%20than%20by%20the%20school%20or%20the%20law”>/i</a> - can be the best thing that can happen to a kid.</p>
True, but parents should still want to hear it. Better to hear the information, and enter a discovery and communication period with the teen, than to stick one’s head in the sand. </p>
<p>Information which can save scholarships or even lives sometimes comes, unfortunately, in the form of gossip. Getting some bad information once in a while is the lesser of two evils.</p>
<p>Most of my info comes from my children, so if I tell a parent about a problem, it is obvious where I got the info from. In the one case where I said something to a very good friend, there was payback for my child. IMO, it is not worth risking my relationship with my child.</p>
<p>^^ Yes i have been in that situation a couple of times. one time my daughter told me something quite shocking as I was dropping her off at band practice. I stewed on it untill I picked her up and told her I didn’t know what to do with what she had just told me. She told me not to do anything with it or she wouldn’t be able to trust me to share stuff with me. I did discuss it with my husband and we decided not to do anything with it but it was a hard call.</p>
<p>Anyone who knows a family who has lost a teenager…How would we feel if there was something - anything - we could possibly have done to prevent it?</p>
<p>When this issue came up with a friend of my S, I ended up contacting the guidance counselor. In that particular case, it worked out fairly well. The counselor contacted the parents, and S’s friend subsequently started therapy.</p>
<p>I recently talked to an acquaintance who asked me if I knew anything about a girl in my son’s class. Her year-younger son had recently befriended this girl who had notoriously performed a sex act in a local restaurant bathroom and who has a reputation for being a “ho” and for falsely accusing her still boyfriend of rape. This mom, out of concern for her son, but compassion for the girl, went to the assistant principal at their school to voice her concerns. The assistant principal shared general info about the girl saying, basically, that the girl is trying to turn herself around and is actively seeking a new peer group.</p>
<p>I never would have thought of talking to the assistant principal, but maybe that’s what to do with the should-I-or-shouldn’t-I-tell info too.</p>
<p>I’ve told my kids “it is not your job to ‘fix’ other kids who have issues”. That being said they know that they are to tell an adult; me, a teaher at school, a guidance counselor etc…if they are ever concerned that someone is doing something dangerous to themselves or others. What kind of mom would I be if they told me something out of concern and then I did nothing? What happened to “It takes a village”?</p>
<p>I guess that in order to spare “outing” our own kids as the source, speaking to a guidance counselor or principal/vice-principal is a viable alternative. The bad thing about such a choice is that it messes up a kid’s reputation with the very people whose support he will need to get into college. A small cost as compared to a possible loss of life, but most situations don’t come to that. A conversation with a receptive parent would have been so much more appropriate.</p>
<p>Too bad there isn’t some kind a website (iwantthetruth.com) where parents can go and sign up in order to pledge to</p>
<ol>
<li><p>a willingness to be receptive to well-intentioned information sharing (without getting angry or resentful)</p></li>
<li><p>an agreement to protect the source of that information 'till the end of time</p></li>
<li><p>a commitment to respond appropriately to their child’s misbehavior (handle things in a healthy way) by not overreacting and being overly punitive to the child.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>You get some compelling information, you check the site, and you know then that there is a more reasonable risk that it will all turn out OK if you speak to the parents who made the pledge. PTA’s across the country ecourage all parents to sign up. </p>
<p>Will something like this ever happen?! I am dreaming here, of course.</p>
<p>I’ve agonized over this twice, decided not to tell both times, and I’m still not sure it was the right decision. In fact, I think it was the wrong decision, made because I’m a chicken. In one case I have seen the Facebook photos of a child chugging liquor, in the other case a kid was drunk-calling my D. With the phone calls, I asked D where the caller was and if he/she was ok, and D reassured me the caller was with friends who were going to take care of him/her.</p>
<p>3 years ago a concerned parent told me what they had heard about one of my kids. I thanked her for telling me, thinking she was just letting me know that people were saying bad stuff about my kid. Eventually I found out some of it was true, and was able to help my child. It wasn’t anything the kid was going to volunteer to me on his/her own!</p>
<p>There’s a mom near us whose daughter died after a drinking party in the woods after a football game (she wandered into a swampy area while trying to get back to the main road to get a ride home and drowned). There were other parents at the football game who saw the daughter drunk at the game, but didn’t let the mom know. That mom would give anything if one of them had called her and she could have prevented her daughter’s death.</p>
<p>I often think that teens wouldn’t ge away with half the stuff they do if we parents had the nerve to talk to each other, and not to let our kids intimidate us out of it. (“Don’t call his mom! It’s none of your business! He’ll hate me!” That kind of silence allows kids to get away with stuff, even though “everyone” knows what’s going on.)</p>
<p>I have struggled with this. I have a fairly good friend and had heard some serious things about her D from my son and his friend. My son made the comment in passing on several occasions that she was crazy and into some serious drugs. I knew the family had some clue that their D was involved in some unhealthy activities. I could not tell if they knew how severe. I also had no proof that my son was correct. He had never seen her do the drugs that rumor had it she was doing. I also knew my son would not be happy with me passing the information along to the parent. What I did was when the Mom shared things with me I would insert things I had heard about drug use in the community. One night I did see her D who was 18 but a senior at the time coming out of a store. She was with a college age male. The male had a large bottle of Vodka and her D had a litter of soda. I passed this info along to her. (she had brought up her D drinking with people she worked with). I felt comfortable passing that info along since I had seen it with my own eyes. Also I felt the Mom was willing to take my information. Since that time the girl has been open with her parents about her drug use and I no longer have to think about sharing that information with them.
I also on one occasion shared with a Mom I know really well. Someone I considered a good friend. I shared a concern I had about her child. It was not taken well. We talk when we find ourselves at the same place but we are no longer close. I still feel I did the right thing.</p>
<p>What if the other parent is of the mind that “boys will be boys”, or some such, and will not take some kinds of self destructive behavior seriously? I’m not going to argue that they should.</p>
<p>It seems that spideygirl’s worrying about the “social consequences” and “overt resentment and wrath” of bearing the bad news to the family who doesnt want to hear it isn’t all that different from the teen’s worrying about being known as the tattletale. I guess the difference is that as an adult, I don’t have to care what other random parents think and I can make the decision based on my own conscience or desire to get involved.</p>
<p>Was at a school function last week, and was talking to a mom about a recent drinking incident some kids in our childs grade who had been drinking. neither of our’s were involved, both kids had told us. EEEK! one of the moms who had a child involved was within earshot, we never mentioned names, we never realized she was there. She came up to both of us, expressed her horror of embarrassment of her child partaking. She as well as I both have older children know it goes on. the other mom was very much, "Oh my kid would NEVER do something like that, and indeed maynot. However, I gave the other mother my support, and said one NEVER can say my kid wont. I don’t put it past my kids ever not to partake, I hope they wont, but PLEASE tell me if either ever do hear/see one of mine.
Just because kids inform, it may also be to take the focus/heat off of them. The mom with the child who did partake said she has 4 kids, and out of her 4, if you asked her 4 years ago, if it were to happen which of her 4 would, she said he would be the kid. I said yep, I too could pick one of mine to be a participant if the opportunity arose.I hope not, but could easily see one of mine be able and willing. Thats the one I have a VERY short leash.</p>
<p>“Scare” is not the reason I would not share info about kids with the parents. Sometimes, you are not sure of the info, and sometimes the fallout with the parent is just not worth it to tell the parents something. </p>
<p>Many of parents are pretty clear that they know their kids are drinking and are resigned to it. So it serves little purpose to tell them that you saw their kid drinking. </p>
<p>There was a big brougha about a kid who acted goofy and drunk at some event,was reported and of course, indignant as can be. You don’t always know the situation. </p>
<p>If I flat out caught a kid doing something illegal, I would tell a parent, teacher or whoever in charge. A suspicioun is not good enough unless it is something truly dangerous. There is common sense involved as to when to tell and when not to tell.</p>
<p>I have known any number of kids whose parents well knew of the type of activities their kids were doing, and the disaster still occurred. Fortunately, most of the disasters were not life threatening, just trouble.</p>