To be really shocked at this behaviour in a 12 year old.

[Quiddichcup]

My daughter knows someone at school, maybe just 12, possibly 11.

We are aware she self harms and I contacted the school out of safeguarding concerns when dd came home from school and told me..dd was shocked and worried and had a few sleepless nights over it..

Dd is back from her dad's and has shown me a text this girl sent her about attempting to comitt suicide. Dd didn't reply and is really shaken up. I have emailed the safeguarding lead at the school.

11/ 12 is so young, I'm really struggling to get my head around it and it's not something I think dd should be exposed to, it's not something anyone should have to deal with, but 11/ 12 year olds?

Next time I'll take no action and just ignore it. Because if this is what happened when you act responsibly and are shocked and saddened for the poor girl, then it's not for me

What an extraordinary response. I have read the entire thread and can not find a single criticism of your action nor of your daughter's in reporting the incident. Not one. Even those posts that you have taken offence at (like mine) have supported your DD's action and yours in reporting.

There may be comments and responses that you don't agree with and don't like relating to other aspects of your post but that's what happenes on a forum (especially AIBU)

When I read your posts, I don't get a sense of compassion from you regarding this girl. I get a sense of anger that this girls 'behaviour' has upset your DD. Your OP includes it's not something I think dd should be exposed to

Of course as DD's mum you don't want to see your child upset but to say that your DD shouldn't be exposed to something that is sadly a fact of life is futile.

When I suggested that you might want to find out more about child and adolsecent mental health problems you got angrily defensive. But, as the other poster have pointed out, you continue to make cofused and worrying statements such as using the phrase "showing off".

Quiddichcup

Why are you angry? People are just concerned for the child.

Don't be angry, be happy your child is not in this position and probably
never will be.

Be happy you as a parent that will never end up in A&E with their dd after a suicide attempt, the pain and anguish, and to feel terrified that one day they will be successful and you will lose them forever.

Feel happy that all you had to do is call and inform the school, nothing more, you can move on with the rest of your life.

Feel happy you are not that poor girl that most likely has a bloody life time of MH issues to deal with (if she makes it through to adulthood)

Feeling angry and talking about you get a kicking on here, somehow makes it sound all about you when it isn't about you at all.

I think maybe when people read the post and then loads of comments the original post gets confused with others comments and maybe they get the wrong idea.

It's also very hard if you have first hand experience of self-harm to be completely objective and naturally their empathy goes to the self-harmer because they relate to her.

Many people are saying you and your daughter did the right thing and you did.

If you want the comments to stop, I would suggest leaving the post alone and not continuing to read. Take the positive and forget the negative. It will die out soon.

You are the lucky one here op, all you have had to do is put in a call to the school and walk away.

I disagree with Nomadic, I don't think anyone has got confused.

I, myself have read all the posts and am very aware which poster posted what.
Also I wasn't confused as to which parts of OP's comments, other posters were quoting.

Exactly summerinthecity

Op I am very sorry that your daughter and you have had to deal with this and I think you did the absolute right thing in reporting it. As you have now reported it the responsibility of that is handed over to the school and the relevant services to deal with. You need to support your child now and maybe get some advice on how to do this because this situation is upsetting and troubling for anyone to deal with especially a child.

I would urge you though to read back over your posts and your descriptions of this child which are not very pleasant at all. To me you are describing quite a troubled and confused young girl but you seem to have a nasty and judgemental tone about it.

I have never met the girl.
This speaks volumes you seem to know a hell of a lot about this girl and her actions at school etc but you have never even met her so I am assuming all you know about her comes third party just be careful about making assumptions based on this. Kids are known to exaggerate and see things in relation to themselves so you may not be getting a true picture about this child at all

Nomadicmum - why do posters need to be 'neutral'? Surely the whole purpose of a forum is to be able to gain insight from people with varying experiences and perspectives?

Challenging an OP does not automatically equate to giving them a kicking ...

My dd is in the same year as yours I suspect. Sadly we have had one girl attempt suicide and she talks of little else (her mother is a friend of mine and is going through hell) three with self harming issues and two with eating disorders. We are a mixed school and boy heavy (so this is out of 35 girls or so)

It is common.

I wish they were all playing and making crafts and experiencing the kind of childhood we would all hope for, but many are not.

I didn't say they need to be neutral. I don't think they should.

I think there's been a very important discussion here about child mental health and self harming which should be had more readily in the media, etc.

But clearly this lady is wanting positive comments and getting very upset about anything that might be interpreted as criticism so my suggestion is purely constructive to her. If she doesn't like what she's reading, she doesn't have to read it. I'm sure she's already gained a huge amount of insight from the many comments she's already seen.

If everyone wants to continue the discussion they can but she doesn't have to read and respond.

"had more readily in the media, etc."

Fortunately, I think it already is. Well, here, at least.

All the local schools here and in all the 4 local boroughs are very hot on this.

Both my ds's at primary and secondary have been exposed extensively to a great deal of information and support on topics such as:

Mental health
Friendships
Mindfulness
Bullying

"Of course as DD's mum you don't want to see your child upset but to say that your DD shouldn't be exposed to something that is sadly a fact of life is futile."

Actually, it's not futile. I would do anything I could to prevent my 11 year old being drawn into a friendship group with the girl the OP describes.

That's very good, I'm very happy about that.

I haven't lived in the Uk for 5 years so maybe I'm outdated.

bertandrussell

The milk of human kindness runs freely on here today

So the poor girl on top of all of this finds herself socially excluded and isolated as well. Nice.

bertandrussell lets hope it doesn't happen to your child.

Bertand I have never advocated that OP's DD should be in anyway involved with the girl or that friendship group. That's not what the OP asked about and not what I have commented about.

"So the poor girl on top of all of this finds herself socially excluded and isolated as well. Nice."

Because that is exactly what I said.

id contact school or local social works saying you are concerned about a child. Some of it can be attention seeking but best not take a chance
as soon as my daughter started secondary she became friends with kids from other schools ... within days they were saying they were going to jump in front of cars or out of a window KMS ( kill myself) a few cuts themselves with sharp pointed item or pencils one even using blade out of sharpeners
My daughter was told they would kill her if she told anyone .. but she was up worrying about it through the night This went on for months .. one stopped another started
these kids were 11 / 12 yr olds

8hks* hideous situation

hks

My niece killed herself last year. She was 12.

It will be too outing if I go into the background, but she was being brought up by her father & his new partner after spending her early years with her birth mum. Her father wouldn't allow any contact with her birth mum or her family, and birth mum wasn't in a position to enforce contact. Birth mum was told not to go to the funeral.

There was much talk of her being bullied at school, and of her being far from a victim herself. She could be hard work, but that's not uncommon for girls of her age. I think the suicide was a cry for attention that sadly went wrong. She desperately needed some stability and love in her life.

I wish someone had realised how unhappy she was, and spent time talking to her.

Next time, thanks to this thread I'll do nothing. I now understand why people don't speak up, because they get blamed for the whole thing.

Just wow. What an odd response. The whole time reading the thread I was thinking that you handled it perfectly with regards to your daughter and the other child, and then this. Which sadly makes me realise you're not as well equipped to handle issues of this nature as you believe you are.

You handled the situation fine. But the entire thread, as a whole, your tone comes across very much as 'isn't my DD amazing? She's such a star! She handled it so well. So did I. We're great' without barely any compassion for the actual child in such a dark place she's self harming.

Your reference to 'DD isn't into this sort of thing' I.e. Having poor mental health, self harming, was crass.

I think that is what is getting people's backs up. You actually asked 'AIBU to be shocked?' Some said yes you are, and explained more about it from their own perspective. Others said no, it is shocking to them too. You got your answer. But I'm not sure what the point was of the rest of the thread other than wanting a pat on the back for how well you and DD handled the situation.

Which you got. And now you say:

Next time, thanks to this thread I'll do nothing. I now understand why people don't speak up, because they get blamed for the whole thing.

So next time you come to realise a friend of your DD's (use the term 'friend' loosely at that age, based on them having shared their personal details and communicating outside of school) is self harming or may be desperate for help, thanks to your defensiveness at answers on an anonymous message board from unrelated anonymous adults you'll choose to do nothing. Despite being very pleased with yourself for how you handled it this time.

That is bizarre, and horrifying.

Threads should be supportive of one another and aim to educate I tried to educate by sharing my dd's experience. I thanked the op for helping, I said I hoped someone would be around to do what op did if my daughter disclosed. I told the op that I reread what she wrote about drama and changed my response. I thanked her and said her daughter was lovely to help.

I was jumped on because of the one comment where I agreed that this poor girl believes she & op's dd had a friendship. It appears the op doesn't want her dd linked to this girl.

I agree Bertrand and it goes into adulthood. Sometimes you can do good to someone who is so embroiled in their own behaviours. I can and do offer help to people with MH problems, what I cannot help with is high drama seekers because whatever you do it will never be enough. That help needs to come from people much closer to the sufferer.

Rather than do nothing next time just don’t post it on the internet