Aibu to think the parents of the Syria girls need to take a bit more responsibility?

[exmrs]

On the news today the parents are demanding an apology from the police as the police knew apparently a friend of theirs had already gone to Syria and the police didn't contact them.
I find it strange that they don't take a bit more responsibility to the situation.

Why didn't they know what was going on in in their daughters lives?
They are the parents and they seem to blame everyone but themselves or the girls.
To blame the police is ridiculous , the girls made the choice to go

It seems to have become the norm doesn't it - it's always "someone else's fault".

So many people don't take responsibility for themselves or their children any more. It's someone else's fault - the schools, the police, the council, the Government, the NHS.

Our school now sends an email telling the parent that a letter has been sent home with the pupil.

Also given that the grooming occurred online, it's pointless and irrelevant to warn schoolmates isn't it. It could just as easily have been a girl in the next district they chose to groom next.

And the letters weren't warning letters, they were to help with enquiries.

EmEyeFaive- but part of being a parent is to raise kids who have some degree of self protection and awareness. We don't end up with utterly vacuous and unthinking teens.
Instilling some critical thinking and awareness of vulnerability will protect our kids.
Raising kids within an ideology of religion erases some of these self protective mechanisms.

So, the parents can't possibly control their children or know what they're doing online (even though twitter is a public platform and it's not hard to notice that your child is sending tweets to terrorists) but everyone else should have known what was going on? Get real.

IMO it's far more likely that the parents were a lot more aware of what was going on than they can state publically. If your child was getting into seriously radical religion and you weren't a religious radical yourself it would be pretty obvious.

I'm not saying that parents necessarily knew their daughters were off to Syria, but equally I don't imagine they were all libral in terms of their faith, and that having strong religious views probably not in keeping with general western norms are what contributed to their ignorance and failure to notice what their children were doing until it was too late.

If we constantly take this attitude that parents aren't responsible for what their children do and that they can't be held to blame because they too have suffered a loss then what is the point of having age of consent, etc?

If your under age child joins a terrorist organisation without your knowledge, flees the country and runs off to marry a terrorist then as a parent you need to question where you have gone wrong, either through failure to educate your child propertly in the rightsand wrongs of falling in love with a murderer who beheads people as a day job, or being so absent in your child's life that you can just casually wave them off to a wedding with no knowledge of who/what/where and not realise they're missing...

Of course the parents are responsible.

The parents' reaction in this case is a bit ridiculous I'm afraid as I can't imagine the actual letter in their hands would have made the slightest difference.

"And what do you know about this girl who has run away?"

"Nothing."

Exactly. Are we really to believe that upon receipt of a letter asking them to help with enquiries, they'd have suddenly taken action in their own homes? Why would they have done that? It would have been seen as an isolated incident wouldn't it.

I suspect they are scared, and we are living in a blame culture.

But then, how did they not know that the girls friend had hopped over to Syria? Do they not speak to their kids or other parents? Wouldn't it be school gossip and in the local press? Wouldn't the mosques flag it up at prayers? How did their siblings - there must've been at least one brother or sister at the same school who heard - not think it worth mentioning?

For goodness sake, every generation has its red flags, and I would have thought that for the parents of teenage girls in such a culture, being brainwashed and lured away would be as bug on the agenda as booze, fags, unsuitable boys and drugs.

But bringing up girls with the attitude that they are living in an alien culture/society where the food 'they' eat, gods they worship/or not, clothes they wear, music and entertainment they enjoy are all wrong/evil/indecent/ whatever, and as long and you cover your hair, eat halal, avoid boys/other groups, don't become 'westernised' and don't disgrace your dad... That's just not right.

Did not one of these girls shared a bedroom with a sister (we all know how little privacy that means)?

Trying to excuse abysmal parenting by shifting the blame. It is a parent's duty to make themselves aware of what is relevant in their children's lives. Sounds like the parents were pretty insulated from British culture.

YANBU (and I have thought the same thing), but in their place, I wouldn't be behaving reasonably, either. I would not be surprised if they are in an absolute stew of grief, panic, terror, self-recrimination and utter guilt about what has happened. They will be blaming themselves, and wanting to blame everyone else, too.

It's typical of the blame and entitlement culture in this country. It's always someone else's fault.

I suspect if letters went home saying that a classmate was suspected of going to Syria and that the kids were helping police, and to please contact them with any news, it would be seen as scaremongering, harassment, racist, etc and binned.

Its clear from this thread that many posters have no idea what it is like to have teens. Teens do stupid things whether they are white, black, christian or muslim. Sadly as parents we are not always able to protect our children from their mistakes.

White girls sometimes get pregnant at 15. White boys sometimes get drunk and do stupid things. Why should we criticise brown people when their childen make serious mistakes?

I feel that the families of the girls deserve support rather than judgement. Mumsnet should be supportive of all families.

Sorry ReallyTired but you can't call eloping to Syria to become a terrorists wife a 'teen mistake' on a par with getting drunk or pregnant.

They are worlds apart. I was a teen, I know teens, I'm related to teens. They aren't a weird species that none of us have ever met.

Everybody makes mistakes in their youth. But the vast, vast, majority of teenagers do not run away from loving secure homes to live in war zones.

this has nothing to do with race.

It has everything to do with parents who think that others are responsible when they clearly think they are not.

and there's a vast difference between getting pregnant at fifteen and knowingly joining a terrorist organisation and running off there.

The Government recognises radicalisation as a Safeguarding issue, it is considered to be the exploitation of vulnerable adults/children.

When looking into the background of people who have been groomed into terrorism (including Far Right extremist groups) they quite often have a history of (undiagnosed/diagnosed) mental health issues, learning disability, substance misuse or were children when the grooming began.

The 3 girls mentioned will have been groomed, probably over quite a period of time, the grooming will have alienated them from their parents and families and the rest of societal norms.
It's akin to brainwashing.

None of the above is my 'opinion' , It is factual information provided by Government experts in Anti-Terrorism. Grooming is the term used by these Safeguarding agencies when referring to these girls.

How could it be anything but Grooming?

Mumsnet should be supportive of all families.

Why? I don't care whether the people involved are brown, white, green, pink or black. It's not a race issue, it's a parenting issue. If your teenager has been radicalised and runs away to promote terrorism then why should I feel obliged to be supportive? You've failed as a responsible parent. You don't deserve my support.

I sympathise, I do, I have a teenager and can't imagine how I would feel if my daughter ran off to Syria. But I sure as heck wouldn't be blaming everyone but myself.

how on earth did they not already know one of their friends had run off to syria?

"The 3 girls mentioned will have been groomed, probably over quite a period of time, the grooming will have alienated them from their parents and families and the rest of societal norms.
It's akin to brainwashing."

Its not just akin to brainwashing, it is brain washing. It is similar to a child being recruited into the Moonies or Heaven's gate.

Maybe the girl's parents have failed, I am sure they are doing a lot of soul searching at the moment. Condeming them does nothing to help.

I know how secretive teenagers are, being one myself many moons ago, but surely you would notice some changes in your children? I would think to be turned towards ISIS and their way of extreme thinking means you would find it hard to hide your new found disgust of the world, little comments when the news is on showing something about ISIS etc. Especially remembering my teenage self and feeling the need to lecture my family about anything I suddenly learned about - nuclear power, animal cruelty, why I needed that Levi's jacket... If it was a cousins wedding why weren't the parents going too, and wouldn't they be aware if the girls didn't turn up, would some relative not call and say where is xx?

What I don't understand is the airline part, ok 16 I guess you can legally travel off somewhere, but at 15 can you just board an international flight without being accompanied or without having arranged one of those services where the airline looks out for the child?

I suppose what I'm saying is that, this can not be compared to any other type of behaviour (Teen or otherwise).
The girls going to Syria is the end result of months, or maybe years of targeted brainwashing or grooming methods.
The people at the other end of this are dangerous, sophisticated, high level criminals.

I think the media portrays these issues in a very unhelpful light, they give the impression that the decision or agreement to commit a terrorist act or join a terrorist movement just 'came about in conversation' but it most often is the result of very subtle implanting of ideas, exploring how far the victim can be manipulated, systematic destruction of the victims core belief system, emotional abuse, threats, control, isolating of the victim from family and friends and the rest of society, desensitising the victim by exposing them to violent images and concepts. De-humanising the victim and the victims of the terrorist acts.

Grooming is grooming, some groups do it to commit sexual abuse and some do it to commit acts of terrorism.

These girls are 15 and 16, therefore legally still children. Their parents had every right to monitor their Internet usage.

Teenagers are easily led, easily influenced, and under incredible pressure from their peers. I understand that the parents thought they were just talking to friends online but they should still be watching them like a hawk, all be it from a distance. Also like any big issues, education starts at home. Like telling your kids how to protect themselves from sexual violence, or religious extremism, these parents should have hit home the fact the horrors groups such as IS and Boko Haram pose.

Also, the police are trying to handle an issue not experienced before. They don't really know what the best approach is yet. So far, they have done a crap job and they can only learn from the mistakes made in this case. A better way to communicate is by email because the parent can pick up emails anywhere these days. At our school, group emails are sent to a primary parent contact. Most parents have email, so it's asked for on the parent contact form.

I agree that the girls might have hidden the letters as they were already planning to run away. By that time it was already too late.

I work in a field where Safeguarding is high on the agenda - My child is not allowed on FB, I monitor her social media use as far as I'm able without being intrusive.
I have taught her (in plain terms) the risks posed by people who may wish to harm her.
She is encouraged to tell me anything she wants and in whatever language she chooses to use (no telling a off for using crude words ect).
We have rules about internet use.

And yet, she has been exposed to frightening things on the Net, which she hasn't told me about until much later (weeks in some cases) which have scared and worried her,
I can honestly say that even though I am mindful of the 'signs', my child is very adept at masking her feelings if/when she wants to.