WWYD? Struggling to help my devastated teen DD whose friends/teammates pranked her.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Dear OP - is there some kind of a student honor council in your school, where people are brought to for cheating? I could file a complaint there after informing the coach that you intend to pursue that route. Copy the school principal and the assistant principal on the letter of complaint which should include all the emails as well as what your daughter was told in person. You should interview your daughter about the sequence of events, and save it in a dated e-stamped document, to make contemporaneous testimony.

Save this post, too. It is timed and dated.

I would, without a doubt, encourage your daughter to quit the team. If the school does the right thing, the team should be disbanded for the season anyway after this event is made public, or at least the JV should be. The two girls who organized the prank should be made ineligible for school sports, with a note on their transcripts. I would not accept anything less as a parent. If those or similar terms are not met, I would contact the news media .

Also, do not hesitate to contact the celebrity athlete in question. I would fully expect that he or she would want to vindicate the situation.

This post is too much.

The others are all right on target.

The reason this post is not "too much" is simple. If any actual action against the perpetrators will be contemplated by the school, the girls, their groupie friend, and their parents will dispute the sequence of events. It will suddenly become "an accident". The OP needs a documented sequence of events, to limit discussion on what happened and why. The reason it needs to be time-stamped in some manner to to demonstrate that the sequence of events was documented at the time and not weeks later.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You can also file a bullying report. (That’s what this is.)

OP, I’m so so sorry this happened to your daughter and to you. I think you definitely need to contact the parents of the children involved and definitely contact the coach. You can’t let this go. This was not a prank. This was a very deliberate cruel action. Are they at same school too?

[Anonymous]

"Always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor never the tormented." -Elie Wiesel

No silence, OP - I like some of the PPs who say that you should model for your child how to be a leader in a really awful situation. So, take it seriously, but don't allow yourself to further victimize your child *or* to let your anger lead. Try your hardest to distance yourself from the personal outrage & hurt your child experienced and do allow the coach/administrators to determine the appropriate school/team response. If your child wants to quit, tho, I'd 100% support her in that decision. I just wouldn't sweep it under the rug. All of the kids playing that sport for sure saw her humiliation -- so your bringing it out into public view for redress isn't the problem, it's the original nasty bullies who created the problem.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Would talk to coach. Honestly those kids should be kicked off the team instantly.

+1 Unsportsmanlike behavior.

At the very least they should be suspended from a few games. Or be given punishments like running laps. Something.

The coach absolutely needs to know.

Having them suspended or made to run laps is not going to help OP's daughter - who may choose to stay on the team. She needs those witches off the team, not to be treated worse in the future by those girls for getting them punished. Her daughter chose that sport because she enjoys it. She should be allowed to continue to enjoy it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is not a prank, this is bullying and total bs. I would call the other parent and the coach. How the team acts as a whole is a concern of the coach, and this involved the entire team singling out another team member. WTF?!

Amen to this. This is a situation that SHOULD be handled by the adults because it is truly bullying.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Would talk to coach. Honestly those kids should be kicked off the team instantly.

Something so public and so deliberate can’t be ignored. Sometimes I would say don’t say anything but in this instance because it was so public and so deliberate, for your daughter’s sake you must say something To the parents and to the coach. Watch and see. Once other parents on the team find out this happened they will step in hopefully and make their daughters do something to make this up to your daughter. That’s what I would do in the situation. If I found out someone did something like that I would step in and try somehow to do something to make them feel welcome and remedy it.

[Anonymous]

And do NOT talk to the other parents! They have nothing to do with this. They will just put pressure on OP to not report it.

OP just needs to raise it with the coach and the school principal, and make it clear what she expects to have happen.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To clarify, it was not a sanctioned team event -- it was during the weekend outside of regular after school practice.

The parent should have emailed all the parents the information. It was on the parent who allowed their child to behave that way. However, I'd find a new team. The coach should know and she is clearly not wanted on that team and continuing is only setting her up for future failure. That is not a prank. That is just cruel.

That is not how high school kids make plans. The kids organize everything without parents.

There is a very good chance that mean girl told her mom that OPs daughter could not make it to the event.

I agree with the other part though that the coach should know.

OPs daughter should not quit.

Mean girl should be (at the least) benched for a while.

This is different - I was the parent manager for my DD's high school team and there were events like this and they always went through me to email out to everyone. Not sure how it works on OP's team, but even though it wasn't an "official" team event, it should have been done that way.

[Anonymous]

What sport was this? Lacrosse?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP back -- I don't believe the coach knows and my DD has asked me not to mention it.

I agree that this is on the parent and I am befuddled by this. I wonder if parent knew or didn't.

In high school, the child needs to self-advocate. Do. Not. Get. Involved.

[Anonymous]

At our school we also have an Athletic Director who oversees all school teams, I would copy them and principal on email to coach.

[Anonymous]

I suggest meeting with the coach and principal. I send an email to both indicating something along the lines of,

Dear xx and yy

Larla, my daughter, was recently the victim of a bullying incident that is primarily attributable to the actions of team members Jerk1 and Jerk2. However, all team members were aware of the plans both before and after the incident.

I would like to meet with you both tomorrow to discuss how this will be handled.

Sincerely
One P’d off mother.

At the meeting I’d want a clear understanding of the protocols for bullying and what the next steps are.

This is a teachable moment for your daughter about sticking up for herself.

[Anonymous]

Tell so called friend's to "F" off and find new activities and new friends

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP back -- I don't believe the coach knows and my DD has asked me not to mention it.

I agree that this is on the parent and I am befuddled by this. I wonder if parent knew or didn't.

In high school, the child needs to self-advocate. Do. Not. Get. Involved.

A high schooler can't possibly be expected to challenge the two cool girls and "stars" of her sports team AND possibly their parents AND the coach and maybe even school administration on her own. That's ridiculous.

This situation is serious enough to warrant OP getting involved to start the ball rolling to demand that the girls be kicked off the team. But it has nothing to do with other parents - let the school administration drag them in or not, as they choose.

[Anonymous]

This is terrible. I feel sorry for your DD.
I wonder if she would have done the same as the others if it was someone else who was singled out.
Talking to the coach and the other parents is important to figuring out if this is part of their team's culture.
You should also have an honest conversation with her as well. Sometimes, people don't care, or will be complicit, until they are the victim.