My 17 year old DD just told me something about my best friends DD, they’re in the same grade at school, that I need to tell my friend about. I want to tell my friend but also keep my DD’s confidence. What is the best way to anonymously tell my friend? |
Fake gmail account. Be brief, don't sound like yourself. Keep in mind that maybe your child's friend will know immediately the only possible person who could have told their mom. |
Depends what it is. |
If it’s important to someone’s health and safety, you tell your friend and they keep your kid out of it.
You explain to your child that you have an obligation to break her confidence, and why. If you can’t explain it to her with compassion but clearly, that may be a sign that you don’t need to do it. |
Yup. She will know. |
Don’t do it. Listen to the latest episode of Ask Lisa which addresses exactly this:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ask-lis...9066?i=1000638284525 |
If it is not life and death, don’t get involved. All you have is second-hand information. |
Don’t blow up your child’s world unless it’s life or death.
Chances are this will come back on your kid. |
If it's pregnancy, suicide, dropping out of school, anorexia, or a physically abusive relationship, blow up your childs world |
What is it? It is hard to respond when you don’t share what it is. Drugs? Pregnancy? |
Can you get the high school guidance counselor involved? |
I would not do this unless it is an urgent life or death situation. The girl will easily figure out who told, knowing that the moms are friends.
Is this something where 1/2 the school knows, or perhaps only your DD? Or somewhere in between?? If many kids are aware, I’d consider an anonymous email or note, or report to the HS counselor (take into consideration whether the girls behavior is anything illegal). It would be helpful if you’d just give the basic gist if not identifying- drugs, pregnancy, eating disorder etc. You’d probably get more helpful advice |
I hope your friend's kid is ok.
You may need to share what the general issue is and the severity to get a properly helpful response here, I'm afraid. But I guess if you and your friend are both DC-area families it could be rough doing so here. I had a similar situation recently. My kid and I talked about they knew and how serious it was. We jointly decided the social risk of me talking to the friend's parent was worth protecting the other kid. From what I hear, the kid is now getting the help that they need and that makes me very, very happy. And there was thankfully zero blow-back on my child. I know it very easily could have gone sideways at any point. |
Why did your DD tell you? Was your child expecting you to sit on the information? Have a conversation with your child and then make a decision if you're going to speak to your friend. |
This happened to me as a kid. My friend was doing something very upsetting and I told my mom to help "me" process the situation. That's one possible reason OP's kid told OP. I made my mom promise not to tell anyone and she promised. But ended up telling the mom anyway and I was branded a snitch in the neighborhood. It caused a real rift between my mom and me. Later, she said she had made a mistake and she should have told me it was necessary for the girl's health to tell the mom. I would have still been upset but would not have felt like my mom lied to me. Just adding that last part for OP in case she needs to disclose what the other child is experiencing. |