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

the grooming will have alienated them from their parents and families and the rest of societal norms.

And no-one will have got even a tiny hint?

The difference with the girls being groomed in Rotherham/Oxfordshire is that parents did realise something was up. They went to the police/social services and asked for help and SWs told them that the girls were doing it of their own free will.

This is not the case here. The parents are saying that they didn't realise anything was wrong. If they'd had the letter home that the police gave the girls, what difference would it have made? Are they saying that suddenly everything would have fallen into place?

I'm not sure it was even over a long period of time, teenagers are still so naive about the real world and easily influenced. I'm sure it was sold to them as a romantic view of life as an ISIS wife. It would seem like an adventure and involve boys (and playing house with a husband), they probably do not understand that they will never see their families again.

Yanbu

Nameforposting Mon 09-Mar-15 10:41:47

how old is your child? its terrifying.

There was a man on the radio at the weekend outlining what will have happened to the girls on arrival. They would be taken to a 'safe house' outside the city (more brainwashing), then sent to live in the city (given flat, money, husband), given a burkha (can't go out without full covering) and told never to leave the city (women under 45 years of age can't for some reason). The ruthless ones will be given jobs in authority - training other women or enforcing moral codes (apparently British women are some of the most fierce, violent and aggressive ones, so they get 'morals police' duties).

I wonder how long before these teens on a big romantic adventure become scared kids crying for their mums.

We're just getting the bits the media is reporting. And actually it's unlikely the parents would feel the need to sit in front of cameras and say "It's all our fault". They'll be saying that at home
We can't tell how much they are blaming the police/anyone else and how much they're blaming themselves.
What they want to get across may be along the lines of "we were worried, but had this information got to us we would have taken action rather than just worried."

Have you never had with your dc a suspicion that something isn't quite right? Maybe health wise? But you don't think you can ask for help because it's a feeling, nothing concrete that you can present to someone to get them to believe and help you. When that bit of evidence comes, you move like a flash, because it's been worrying you for so long. But without that evidence you can't see anyone believing you, and really, you do hope it's in your mind, because it's nicer to feel that way.

I know I have.

I don't blame the parents and I don't blame the police. I blame the arseholes feeding these girls bull shit, brain washing and manipulating them into going.

I do think the school and police could have done more towards educating the parents what to look for. But if a teenager wants to keep a secret they can and will.

I feel sorry for the parents because as NoChocolateforLentt wrote

...... 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.”

These things will have been their parents worst imaginings; I daresay that they would never in their wildest dreams thought that their girls would run away to Syria.

The boys who are not so closely controlled are brought up to believe the same things. So the other side of this coin is the boys believe the ‘alien’ culture is inferior and this enables them to carry out sexual exploitation. I think people make a bad mistake if they believe that only the British are racist. I’m not sure how we could do it but we must try to ensure that all our children are brought up to believe in the kind of tolerance and equality that are at the base of our society.

EmEyeFaive- but part of being a parent is to raise kids who have some degree of self protection and awareness.

And part of being a parent is the sudden, cold trickle down the spine realisation that they are not programmable entities where the right input = perfectly matching output.

Especially when they reach an age when it's not just that they've realised we're not perfect..... but more a case of they are amazed we have managed to survive to adulthood at all, considering how little we understand/know about anything, ever, at all.

I think as parents the aspect we most often overlook as having been one of the factors in what is evidently happy outcomes for our children... is dumb luck.

I'd love to take 100% credit for DS not having done something insanely stupid, dangerous and reprehensible (so far) and I've worked damned hard to capitalise on the (thankfully easy going) raw material that got dragged screaming from my belly. But certainly looking at the position those parents are in I am busy being grateful that my child doesn't fit the profile of potential recruitment material in the time and place in which he was born. DS's Great Uncle ran off and became a partigiano at not much older. Thank the heavens I don't believe in for DS being born in the same place, but now rather than then.

This shit is not new. The names might be. But the grooming of potential recruits is most certainly not. It's been going on as long as we've had impressionable adolescents who serve a purpose for adults with a cunning plan and a need for cannon fodder, comfort women or dreams of breeding programmes of the right kind of babies.

We should certainly all do our level best to make our children resilient on many levels. But thinking that'll deffo do the trick and if somebody else's kid does do the unthinkable, then their parents MUST have fucked up, is just something that makes us feel better. By allowing us to think it couldn't possibly happen to us, or our kids, as long as we get it right as parents.

Reality is that good parenting, while a very very good and necessary thing that improves their/our chances, is not an infallible vaccination against them giving us various heart attacks and profound heartaches. Ups their chances of resisting blandishments/temptations ? Absolutly. But eliminating the risk entirely ?

Not so much.

Which sucks. Becuase we love them so much and they hold our fragile hearts in their hands. One hard squeeze, and it's game over as all the light is vacuumed out of our lives and replaced with a never ending hailstorm of pain and fear when they are at risk of suffering and death. Powerless to do anything to help them.

It's understandable that we don't like to think that luck has the potential to be all that stands between us and the above. It's normal to want to think we have the complete power to keep that at bay just as long as we work hard enough at being a good parent.

Just wish it were true.

But, DeeWe perhaps having them on the news saying they are partly to blame and should have done more, might do more than blaming the police.

At least then other parents might turn around and think... "hmm, it is my responsibility to ensure my children are being raised in a loving, secure home, educated and encouraged to be open with me."

Just blaming the police, schools etc means other parents will assume the authorities are stepping into full control of managing radicalisation. So why should they bother to be involved and discuss risks, lifestyles, the news and so on? That is the job of the police, surely? "Oh dear, my child ran off to Syria, them police are just shit!"

Yes, I agree. It's totally sickening that the parents are taking this stance. I'm not being funny, but those girls knew full well what they were getting into and imo are accountable for their actions. They're terrorists!!! The parents should be making a public apology on behalf of their daughters.

Those girls should never be allowed back!

I can't believe that teenagers with a new found political dogma would be silent and not give out any clues about their radicalisation. Especially in the early stages.

I remember my teenage years it was all about Greenham common, anti-apartheid, environmental awareness etc

I'm not being funny, but

Those girls should never be allowed back!

They're British citizens. It's not as simple as not 'allowing' them back.

I can't see how any of these girls could even come back if they wanted. I bet passports have been confiscated / no money / don't speak the local language etc.

Beyond - My DD is 13yrs and yes it is terrifying, today's children have much more complex challenges in keeping safe than I ever had.

My child 'gets' the risk from Adults to some degree but really struggles with the concept that her own peer group can be a risk to her safety. She is quite disbelieving that children her own age may want to or may actually cause her harm.
So although I can protect her to some degree, I can't protect her properly when she doesn't believe the risks exist (and believes I'm on old -fashioned nag who doesn't get it!)

Back to the grooming issue though, quite often the criminals involved provide 'secret' mobiles/tablets etc so parents think they are monitoring their child adequately without knowing about this other access (done outside of the home)

If these young women were brought up not to argue with or challenge their parents and elders, and if being quiet and obedient were seen as desirable qualities in young women then I don't imagine political debate across the dinner table would be encouraged either. So how would the parents be aware that their daughters were being radicalised?

'I can't believe that teenagers with a new found political dogma would be silent and not give out any clues about their radicalisation'

It's not a newly found political dogma, it's brainwashing and grooming which will at some level have involved manipulation, desensitisation, emotional abuse, threats and systematic destruction of these girls core belief system.
Keeping 'silent' will have been very much part of the instructions.

These criminal groups prey on vulnerable people, they identify and then groom them through a combination of psychological manipulation and emotional abuse.

Again, not just my opinion but given as 'fact' from the specialist agencies involved in counter terrorism.

I thought it was interesting when they were interviewing one set of the parents and the wife wasn't wearing a headscarf yet it looks like the girl did from the picture. I wonder if this is how some of these kids rebel against their secular parents by being more hardcore religiously.

Aren't these parents having any kind of frank discussion with their kids about islam and ISIS?

I don't get why they had their passports?

Also why the passports weren't flagged immediately and they detained in Turkey, or why no one picked up on the three of them with their British accents in country.

it was indeed grooming and brainwashing.

desperately sad. And desperately sad that girls can be so brainwashed as to willingly walk into a life of sexual and domestic servitude. Let us hope the lesson from this is that other children get the idea that this is not a 'holy cause'

When a child is murdered or abused by its parents, there is a chorus of blame for social services. We tend to lose sight of who are the real villains here.

I wonder if this is how some of these kids rebel against their secular parents by being more hardcore religiously.

This is absolutely the case, IMO. And it makes it very difficult for the parents to 'clamp down' on that sort of rebellion when it is expressed through extreme religiosity.

If the parents hadn't forced their medieval bullshit on them in the first place, they'd still be at home.

I agree.