frogs_of_war (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
frogs_of_war) wrote2012-03-12 12:20 pm
frogs_of_war) wrote2012-03-12 12:20 pm
Entry tags:
So what has your week been like?
Last week my sister quit her job, pulled her kids out of school, packed up her family, and drove their RV over five hundred miles into a different state. This decision didn’t come easily, but it’s one I endorsed. You see, a few weeks ago my sister found out her oldest daughter, a B+ student, was failing all her classes. Something was up in her life, but my sister and her husband didn’t know what despite all of them living in an RV. They took away my nieces phone and computer and looked through the records.
She had corresponded with one certain boy 14,000 times in the previous five months. That’s almost a thousand a day. She would tell him not to touch her, she didn’t like the touches and she has a boyfriend. He was say he wouldn’t, but according to the next day’s email, he hadn’t kept his promise. He also said things like ‘I could kill people without remorse, but I’m better when I’m with you.’ Emotional blackmail.
As the days and weeks went by, my niece gave into him more and more. At first when he’d ask what she was wearing, she ignored it, but over time she started explaining her nightgowns. My sister, who was molested for five years as a teenager, read in horror and much of the time through tears. Predators know their prey. They are good at manipulation. Adults thought this boy was an angel. Younger kids thought he was the coolest kid in school because he could do almost anything on a computer.
Over and over again he’d tell her she was the only thing keeping him from becoming violent. She’s only fifteen; she couldn’t see his words for what they were.
My sister worked at the small private school as a computer skills teacher and as someone to watch over the middle schoolers after school to pay for tuition. No one watched over the high schoolers. The boy would talk my niece into leaving the others. In one class, gymnastics, the teachers spotted her reactions to his touch (she’d jump away), so they separated them, but all the other adults considered my niece a loose, two-timing girl.
My sister told the principal about all this and gave him highlighted copies of the most damning thousand emails. He sent a memo out that my niece and this boy were not allowed to talk to each other, but as I said no one watched them after school.
People who have never been abuse or taken advantage of or used might not understand how emotion blackmail works. This is the same thing that kept my sister from telling anyone for so long. It’s the same things that makes a small child follow the person they know is about to hurt them. It’s the same thing that makes the abuse victim feel they deserve it and sometimes even think they like the abuse. (When my mother when through her part of therapy to get my sister back, she was shown a story written for sexually abused children about a child who hit on the head with a hammer so often that they think they like it, so the child could deal with those same feelings about the abuse.)
My sister couldn’t deal with these half measures, so she took her family on a long weekend. By the time she returned, the principal had actually read the emails and suspended the boy for a few days. They would have a meeting about when and whether he’d come back to school, but only about the violence, because since my niece replied to his emails, she consented to the boy’s attentions.
My sister talked to people about this including her daughter’s best friend’s mother. Nearly to a person they agreed that my sister had raised her daughter wrong. It was all my niece’s fault.
The day before the meeting, a lawyer for the church the school was affiliated with talked with the people making the decision. The few sympathetic voices changed their tune. The church spokesman said my niece was a girl of her time, with loose morals who engage in loveless sex. A woman my sister had considered a friend said my niece didn’t scream, so she must have liked it.
The boy was being allowed back in school. Even though this was not his first offence.
(It was only days later that any of these people saw the evidence.)
After the meeting, my niece contacted her friends and asked them if the boy had ever touched them inappropriately. Several girls said yes, but one told the principle and my sister received a threatening email from the principal. So my sister quit, packed up, and left two weeks before the end of the semester.
Then came the next moral question. She’d saved her daughter from this kid, but he was nearly as bad to my niece’s friend. Would she be able to live with herself if she heard on the news that his boy (maybe years from now) and shot up his school or became a serial killer. (His email showed he had no concept of right and wrong or even what was and was appropriate.) Plus as a worker in a school in our state, she was a mandatory reporter. If anyone sees any signs of child abuse, they can be charged with not reporting it, even if they are a janitor or lunch lady. And just because this boy was a child himself, did not make him any less dangerous. At age six, my mother was raped by a twelve year old. Predators come in all ages, shapes, and sizes.
I asked her how much more she had to lose. She said once your job, your friends, your church, and your reputation were taken from you, what else did you have to lose?
So my sister filed a report with Child Protective Services. The next day they sent her a reply. They were sending the report on to the county the boy lived in and someone was going to check on the welfare of the boy’s younger teenaged sister. My sister feels guilty for not thinking of the girl before.
But now it’s safely in someone else’s hands and my niece is out of his clutches. So all is better with the world.
After all this, my sister googled the principal’s name, so she could send him a letter on what she’d done. She still respects these people for some reason. She found out he was involved in another case. The school was being/had been sued for allowing a boy with known problems access to a little girl. Sound familiar?
You’d hope people would learn from their mistakes.
She had corresponded with one certain boy 14,000 times in the previous five months. That’s almost a thousand a day. She would tell him not to touch her, she didn’t like the touches and she has a boyfriend. He was say he wouldn’t, but according to the next day’s email, he hadn’t kept his promise. He also said things like ‘I could kill people without remorse, but I’m better when I’m with you.’ Emotional blackmail.
As the days and weeks went by, my niece gave into him more and more. At first when he’d ask what she was wearing, she ignored it, but over time she started explaining her nightgowns. My sister, who was molested for five years as a teenager, read in horror and much of the time through tears. Predators know their prey. They are good at manipulation. Adults thought this boy was an angel. Younger kids thought he was the coolest kid in school because he could do almost anything on a computer.
Over and over again he’d tell her she was the only thing keeping him from becoming violent. She’s only fifteen; she couldn’t see his words for what they were.
My sister worked at the small private school as a computer skills teacher and as someone to watch over the middle schoolers after school to pay for tuition. No one watched over the high schoolers. The boy would talk my niece into leaving the others. In one class, gymnastics, the teachers spotted her reactions to his touch (she’d jump away), so they separated them, but all the other adults considered my niece a loose, two-timing girl.
My sister told the principal about all this and gave him highlighted copies of the most damning thousand emails. He sent a memo out that my niece and this boy were not allowed to talk to each other, but as I said no one watched them after school.
People who have never been abuse or taken advantage of or used might not understand how emotion blackmail works. This is the same thing that kept my sister from telling anyone for so long. It’s the same things that makes a small child follow the person they know is about to hurt them. It’s the same thing that makes the abuse victim feel they deserve it and sometimes even think they like the abuse. (When my mother when through her part of therapy to get my sister back, she was shown a story written for sexually abused children about a child who hit on the head with a hammer so often that they think they like it, so the child could deal with those same feelings about the abuse.)
My sister couldn’t deal with these half measures, so she took her family on a long weekend. By the time she returned, the principal had actually read the emails and suspended the boy for a few days. They would have a meeting about when and whether he’d come back to school, but only about the violence, because since my niece replied to his emails, she consented to the boy’s attentions.
My sister talked to people about this including her daughter’s best friend’s mother. Nearly to a person they agreed that my sister had raised her daughter wrong. It was all my niece’s fault.
The day before the meeting, a lawyer for the church the school was affiliated with talked with the people making the decision. The few sympathetic voices changed their tune. The church spokesman said my niece was a girl of her time, with loose morals who engage in loveless sex. A woman my sister had considered a friend said my niece didn’t scream, so she must have liked it.
The boy was being allowed back in school. Even though this was not his first offence.
(It was only days later that any of these people saw the evidence.)
After the meeting, my niece contacted her friends and asked them if the boy had ever touched them inappropriately. Several girls said yes, but one told the principle and my sister received a threatening email from the principal. So my sister quit, packed up, and left two weeks before the end of the semester.
Then came the next moral question. She’d saved her daughter from this kid, but he was nearly as bad to my niece’s friend. Would she be able to live with herself if she heard on the news that his boy (maybe years from now) and shot up his school or became a serial killer. (His email showed he had no concept of right and wrong or even what was and was appropriate.) Plus as a worker in a school in our state, she was a mandatory reporter. If anyone sees any signs of child abuse, they can be charged with not reporting it, even if they are a janitor or lunch lady. And just because this boy was a child himself, did not make him any less dangerous. At age six, my mother was raped by a twelve year old. Predators come in all ages, shapes, and sizes.
I asked her how much more she had to lose. She said once your job, your friends, your church, and your reputation were taken from you, what else did you have to lose?
So my sister filed a report with Child Protective Services. The next day they sent her a reply. They were sending the report on to the county the boy lived in and someone was going to check on the welfare of the boy’s younger teenaged sister. My sister feels guilty for not thinking of the girl before.
But now it’s safely in someone else’s hands and my niece is out of his clutches. So all is better with the world.
After all this, my sister googled the principal’s name, so she could send him a letter on what she’d done. She still respects these people for some reason. She found out he was involved in another case. The school was being/had been sued for allowing a boy with known problems access to a little girl. Sound familiar?
You’d hope people would learn from their mistakes.