Anonymous wrote:It does track that DCUM is filled with posters who make a habit of sending anonymous emails and who are unhappy to learn that normal people view anonymous emails as creepy and threatening.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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. After all, if you investigate and there's nothing to it, you've lost nothing. 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.

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 with hard evidence.

Here, there is no evidence. 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.

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.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I received an (anonymous) email telling me my daughter is a mean girl. That she is gossipy, exclusionary and forces others to ostracize people she does not like. I am pretty sure the email was written by a peer based on the writing style and language.

How would you handle this? I don’t even know if this is real and telling my daughter about it could upset her. I do have not an inclination this is true, though I do know my daughter is popular and gets frustrated that there is an expectation she is everyone’s friend. But it’s also unsettling to get an email like this and the tenor of the email seemed sad and frustrated more than anything else, which makes my worry about the sender and what motivated this.

Sweet baby Jesus. You're the problem here. This is the reason she's a mean girl. "you don't want to upset her".

I’d be upset if I got an anonymous letter with outlandish accusations that included a threat but no substantive facts to support the outlandish accusations. Who wouldn’t be upset?

These are not “outlandish accusations.” This is behavior that can be found in most middle and high schools to some degree or another.

Also, it’s not a criminal indictment. What do you expect this person to do, get video footage of the bullying for you? Just because someone doesn’t have a CSI file on an event doesn’t mean they are lying about it. Most people do not walk around collecting hard evidence of every crappy thing someone does.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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. After all, if you investigate and there's nothing to it, you've lost nothing. 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.

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 with hard evidence.

Here, there is no evidence. 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.

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.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I received an (anonymous) email telling me my daughter is a mean girl. That she is gossipy, exclusionary and forces others to ostracize people she does not like. I am pretty sure the email was written by a peer based on the writing style and language.

How would you handle this? I don’t even know if this is real and telling my daughter about it could upset her. I do have not an inclination this is true, though I do know my daughter is popular and gets frustrated that there is an expectation she is everyone’s friend. But it’s also unsettling to get an email like this and the tenor of the email seemed sad and frustrated more than anything else, which makes my worry about the sender and what motivated this.

Sweet baby Jesus. You're the problem here. This is the reason she's a mean girl. "you don't want to upset her".

I’d be upset if I got an anonymous letter with outlandish accusations that included a threat but no substantive facts to support the outlandish accusations. Who wouldn’t be upset?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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. After all, if you investigate and there's nothing to it, you've lost nothing. 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.

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 with hard evidence.

Here, there is no evidence. 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.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I received an (anonymous) email telling me my daughter is a mean girl. That she is gossipy, exclusionary and forces others to ostracize people she does not like. I am pretty sure the email was written by a peer based on the writing style and language.

How would you handle this? I don’t even know if this is real and telling my daughter about it could upset her. I do have not an inclination this is true, though I do know my daughter is popular and gets frustrated that there is an expectation she is everyone’s friend. But it’s also unsettling to get an email like this and the tenor of the email seemed sad and frustrated more than anything else, which makes my worry about the sender and what motivated this.

Sweet baby Jesus. You're the problem here. This is the reason she's a mean girl. "you don't want to upset her".

Anonymous wrote:I received an (anonymous) email telling me my daughter is a mean girl. That she is gossipy, exclusionary and forces others to ostracize people she does not like. I am pretty sure the email was written by a peer based on the writing style and language.

How would you handle this? I don’t even know if this is real and telling my daughter about it could upset her. I do have not an inclination this is true, though I do know my daughter is popular and gets frustrated that there is an expectation she is everyone’s friend. But it’s also unsettling to get an email like this and the tenor of the email seemed sad and frustrated more than anything else, which makes my worry about the sender and what motivated this.

Anonymous wrote: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. After all, if you investigate and there's nothing to it, you've lost nothing. 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.

Anonymous wrote: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. After all, if you investigate and there's nothing to it, you've lost nothing. 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.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It could be true, it could also be a mean girl trying to make someone even more miserable

OP here. All possible, but what do I do, now, as the parent and recipient? Because I feel like this is a teen, I feel some responsibility to act on it in some way. I just not sure how.

Anonymous wrote:I had this happen to my son

I had a meeting with the boy, his mom, the school counselors and my son.

It went like this.

Counselor: Joe do you feel Rob excludes you on recess.
Joe: no Rob like soccer and football, I like to look for bugs.
Rob: I like to look for bugs would you like me to join you sometime
Joe: no not really

End of meeting.