Reply to I got an email telling me my daughter is a mean girl.

Forum Index » Tweens and Teens

Reply to "I got an email telling me my daughter is a mean girl. "

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]The instinct to call a whistleblower "threatening", "unhinged", or "unstable" is common. This is always the first defense people reach for when they don't want to confront an allegation of wrongdoing. It is always easier to blame someone making an allegation for being crazy than to even take a minimal amount of time to investigate and see if there might be even some truth to the allegation. Accusing the accuser is cleaner because it absolves you of having to do anything.

It's a bad instinct, though.[b] After all, if you investigate and there's nothing to it, you've lost nothing.[/B] You've had a conversation with your teenage daughter about bullying. That's it. No harm. If anything, looking into it and finding nothing is better than doing nothing at all, because it means that if the allegations get escalated (to the school, for instance) you can say "Yes, I looked into this and this is what I found -- there is nothing to it." You should of course look into it.

Of course, if you investigate and you find something, you have an obligation to do something about it. That's what freaks people out.

Better to just call this letter writer weird, immature, or accuse her of issuing threats (the letter contains no threat of any kind, just an empty warning that treating people poorly may not be something that can be done indefinitely without consequence -- it is the letter writer's hope that there will be consequences for bad behavior, not a threat). Then you don't have to do the hard thing and actually address bullying behavior if it is occurring.[/quote]

But this is nothing like a whistleblower. A whistleblower would be providing very specific details, proof of the claim, and evidence to support the claim. People may doubt because they don’t want to believe the hard evidence but only way someone gets properly classified as a whistleblower is [i]with[/i] hard evidence.

Here, [i]there is no evidence[/i]. OP said that the email included identifying information, but that’s not evidence that what the email claims is true. And, simultaneously, the email includes an overt threat towards OPs daughter (which you are bizarrely downplaying, and I don’t understand that position at all). So what we have here is an anonymous email without detail making grotesque claims and with a threat to OPs daughter. That’s not a whistleblower email. That’s a threat to OPs daughter.

Also, the bolded is not true whatsoever. There is an enormous relational cost to the relationship between mother and daughter if OP gives this anonymous threatening letter writer credence. There is no way for OP to ask about this without OP telegraphing that she believes there is a possibility of truth behind the anonymous writer. That will permanently harm OPs relationship with her daughter. This isn’t like a whistleblower complaint in HR where HR can investigate and then close the investigation if it’s not substantiated and everyone goes on their independent way. If OP appears to give any serious weight to the claim, it will permanently damage her relationship with her daughter. If the email had verifiable specific information, my response here would be different. But it appears it doesn’t: it is just vague wording with a threat. That is nothing like a whistleblower.

What OP could do is say “I’ve received an anonymous email about you that I believe is threatening to you. I am very worried about your safety. Do you know anything about this?” But even that comes at a risk for OP, because it appears to give credence to the letter writer. I’m not sure whether I’d go down that path at all. [/quote]

Why are people assuming that OP would confront her DD and accuse her of bullying? If you can’t think of how to handle this without just treating it as the unadulterated truth and blaming your DD for the whole thing, then you aren’t much of a parent.

The options are not (1) DD is a terrible human, this is all completely true, you should lock her up, or (2) the letter writer is a crazy, unstable stalker who is lying about the whole thing. In fact, both of those things are very unlikely.

I would not assume my DD was a vicious mean girl based only on this letter, but I’d look into it a bit because it’s a serious accusation and even if my DD had done nothing wrong, it indicates that something she’s doing is upsetting someone a lot. It’s worth investigating.

I would not jump to the conclusion that my DD was unsafe because nothing in the letter indicates that.[/quote]

Someone is talking about DD behind her back.  If it was my kid, I'd let her know.  She needs to know.  The child who wrote it probably feels excluded or ostracized.  None of this is an indictment on OP's kid necessarily.  But worth relaying to her and talking about.  Does DD have idea who it might be?  Should OP be kinder?  Or could it be that child misinterpreted simply being a mere acquaintance, or could the email be faked by a nerd, who knows.  [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics