So this past Wednesday, I received a phone call from my daughter's on-again-off-again boyfriend. Honestly, they are very good friends who are very fond of each other. Anyway, when she said she wanted to come over, I figured it was about the argument my daughter and her son had had a couple days before. Things got heated, and her son called my daughter a terrible name. But I had things under control, and figured she just wanted to make sure we were on the same page, as far as what we were teaching our kids.
However, that wasn't what she wanted to talk to me about. In fact, she had worked late and didn't know, yet, about the breakup, so we had to chat about that as well. But what she wanted to talk to me about, was far much worse. Her son, had received a text message from one of his friends that said, "don't worry, I got your back" and then a forward. This forward was a very disturbing text from my daughter's bestfriend. At that time, we were both very concerned about how this text message could affect her son's day. We agreed that I'd follow up with her after I spoke with Ana and that she'd go to the school to check on her son. At this point, we were both hoping the text message hadn't gone very far and that no one would act on what the text message was asking.
Unfortunately, the situation quickly got worse. The friend of the boyfriend, who received the text message, immediately showed the teacher when he got to school. So, at that point, the cat was out of the bag, and there was no way we could keep this between just the parents of the children involved and the kids.
At this point, I knew very little and had to wait until my daughter got home from school that afternoon to read the text messages on her phone to know if she had anything to do with the text message that went out.
I was relieved when I read the text messages, that it appeared that Ana had nothing to do with the text message, but it was bittersweet. It turned out that my daughter's best friend had taken it upon herself to try to rally a day of bullying against my daughter's ex-boyfriend. Her friend also lied to my daughter, telling her that she was the only one to whom the text message went to. This was after my daughter told her friend that she didn't like the text message and that she needed to tell everyone she sent it to, "nevermind", and to not do anything to the boyfriend. My daughter's friend said that it was just a joke between the two of them, when she knew that she had already sent it to other children. Also, she admits that she had sent out similiar text messages atleast once before, trying to get others to call the boyfriend names, and that she had gotten into trouble for it. Finally, she said that if they did get into trouble, she'd just say that she got the message from someone else. To which my daughter replied, "no lying".
I was devastated that my daughter's friend had done this and disappointed that she lied to my daughter. I wanted to do what I could to help her parents, which included letting them borrow my daughter's cell phone so they could read the text messages themselves. I thought I was doing the right thing, and I trusted them. That was my mistake.
Over the next two days, I kept waiting for the school to call me. The school never did. I now know why. The parents of my daughter's friend had taken photographs of the text messages of the conversation on my daughter's phone and given it to the school. I didn't find this out until after the school was done with their investigation, after they had interrogated my daughter without my presence; after one of the school administrators had told my daughter that her friend told him that she sent the original message and that he felt my daughter was lying. (GRRRRR)
My daughter was betrayed by her best friend. And I feel that I was betrayed by her parents. I feel like I should have been told that they took pictures of the conversation. But by violating my trust, they took me completely out of the picture. By giving these pictures of the text messages to the school, the school didn't call me for the conversation, and didn't give me a chance to protect my daughter from illegal and shady interrogations. I didn't get a chance to give the school my take on the whole situation prior to them making a decision.
My daughter didn't do anything wrong. She was venting to her bestfriend. We all confide in our friends. She didn't do anything different from what the majority of us do. We are all "guilty" of saying that we want to do something to someone else when we are angry or frustrated. We have all done it. And the majority of us never follow through with those wishes, because we know it's wrong. Ana knew it was wrong, she was just venting, and when she thought her friend had done something wrong, she tried to stop her, only to be lied to her by friend.
That's not to say that I don't understand why the school is punishing Ana for. They feel that Ana's words enticed the actions of her friend. Ironic, really. Everyone likes to talk about how we all need to take responsibility for our own actions and that we have no control over the actions of others, but we need to react responsibly. Well, my daughter reacted responsibily to her friend by telling her that what she was doing was wrong. But yet, my daughter is also taking partial responsibility for the actions of another person. The hypocricy is so frustrating.
In fact, much of what the school system has done in the past few weeks is contrary to what they claim to teach and support. But yet, I'm made to feel by many of my peers that I'm doing something wrong. Why? Because I expect the system that is employed to TEACH my kids to live up to a high standard of values? Because I expect the adults that are respected and adhered as role models in my children's life to conduct themselves in a professional manner, which includes acting with integrity? It's all a learning opportunity alright. I will continue to teach my children that they are responsible for their own actions. But I also intend to use these adults' bad behavior as learning tools too. My children are not ignorant or oblivious to the mistakes that are made by those around them. And I can point those mistakes out as things that my children should not do.
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