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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To be annoyed that my friend ( a teacher) may be disciplined for telling parents one of her pupils took a pregnancy test?

506 replies

NiceTry · 13/03/2008 22:04

The girl had confided in her and the test was arranged, via school nurse but my colleague decided that the girl's parents should be informed and may now face disciplinary procedures because the girl had not consented to this (the test was negative by the way). Obviously the girl (and parents) are very upset. But did she do the right thing?

OP posts:
duchesse · 14/03/2008 12:48

It's not quite as simple as you might think to stick rigidly to rules in a place full of teenagers...

Imagine 1000 shape-shifting people in one place, who are sometimes adults and sometimes toddlers, and you have an idea of a secondary school.

motherinferior · 14/03/2008 12:51

I do see that, and my children are still quite little. But I also remember being 14 myself...

Original poster
NiceTry · 14/03/2008 12:58

I believe that any parent would want to know this about their daughter however they discovered it (TheHonEnid) in order to protect and advise their daughter. Also lots of other pupils at this school knew about the test thanks to some of her so called 'friends', how awful for the girl not to have the support of her family throughout all of this.

OP posts:
dizietsma · 14/03/2008 12:59

NiceTry, you mentioned you have girls the same age as this girl, are you perhaps trying to justify your own excessive overcontrol of your kids with this thread? Just a speculation.

FWIW it was completely out of line for your "friend" to tell this girl's parents, I hope she gets sacked. No matter how well the teacher thinks she knows the family. Many abusive families put on a very good show for outsiders. This girl could've been raped by a family member, for all your "friend" knows.

on the poor 14 year olds behalf.

PrincessPeaHead · 14/03/2008 13:01

It was not her job to tell her parents. If I was the 14/15 year old I would think it was an appalling breach of trust and would think twice about confiding in anyone ever again. I think it was an enormous breach of confidence AND breach of confidentiality (two different things) and she should be disciplined.

Now I'll read the rest of the posts and see what everyone else thinks!

solo · 14/03/2008 13:02

My cousins daughter was playing netball at school when the teacher noticed a neat little bump as the girl jumped up for the ball. Marched her off to the office for a pregnancy test, called her parents to the school...she was 7 months pg. She was 14. She didn't know she was pg(I never understand how that works)and just about turned 15 prior to giving birth. Regardless of whether or not a confidence was/should've/shouldn't have been broken, I believe that people, especially families - parents and kids as well as teacers and sex educators plus the kids don't talk enough about these things. If they are going to have sex, then surely we should be talking about it and encouraging safe sex, taking away some of the worry about pregnancy and STD's for them as well as the parents/adults...HIV isn't going away, nor are all the other undesirable things that are on the increase on this planet, including underage pregnancies.

Lulumama · 14/03/2008 13:03

but Nicetry, she chose not to tell her family, if she felt she could have asked for their support, she would. But she chose to tell a teacher in confidence, who then broke that trust.

lennygrrl · 14/03/2008 13:04

Message withdrawn

NAB3wishesfor2008 · 14/03/2008 13:06

As it has been said many times, the teacher was wrong wrong wrong to break the confidence. Did she do this off her own back or with any staff memebers knowledge?

She couldn't live with not telling the mother? She needs to grow up. It wasn't about her.

The test was negative, why did she have to tell?

She was totally in the wrong and should be made to apologise to the girl.

Another staff member should do the job now as no other child will confide in her.

PrincessPeaHead · 14/03/2008 13:06

Oh good
THe only person who seems to take a different position as me is the person who (clearly) dobbed the poor girl in in the first place.

skidoodle · 14/03/2008 13:07

So pathetic to try to use issues of child protection to utterly control teenagers and refuse to give them any rights to privacy.

Utter, utter hypocrisy.

If there is such a teacher I hope she loses her job. If she had any concern at all for this child's wellbeing she would not have told her parents against her will.

beaniesteve · 14/03/2008 13:07

Just totally wrong, totally unprofessional, completely the wrong thing to do and she deserves to be disciplined.

TheFallenMadonna · 14/03/2008 13:07

NiceTry - if you honestly believe that about all parents then you are kidding yourself. There's a reason why schools have systems in place with respect to child protection, that don't involve immediately passing on everything a child says to the parents. Unfortunately .

MegBusset · 14/03/2008 13:08

It was absolutely not your friend's place to tell the parents. No matter how much we'd all like to like in an ideal world where nobody has sex til they're 16 and in a loving relationship, we live in the real world where 14yos do sometimes need the protection and support of trusted adults (in confidence) to help them out of a shitty situation.

I used to work on a magazine for teenage girls and whenever we had letters from girls who had got themselves in some kind of trouble (whether unprotected sex, drink, drugs or whatever), their number one concern was their parents finding out and going mad at them. This was more likely than any other factor to stop them from seeking help. So your friend's attitude (and yours, by the look of it) is simply going to make matters worse.

Lulumama · 14/03/2008 13:08

a 14 year old who is pregnant might have a hundred different reasons not to tell their family:

it might be they are scared of disappointing them and letting htem down,

or they are scared of proving hteir family right about how 'bad' they are

it might incur serious consequences if an interracial relationship

as someone else has pointed out,it might be that a family member is responsible for hte pregnancy

i doubt she took the decision to confide in a teacher rather than her parents lightly, and now she has been dropped in it

TheFallenMadonna · 14/03/2008 13:09

Yikes. That could be misleading. The was that such procedures are needed, not that they are in place.

duchesse · 14/03/2008 13:10

Teachers are not vicars lawyers or doctors and do not have a duty of confidentiality. Much of what we do is governed by policy, which not legally binding, but if breached may well earn you an internal disciplinary. Maybe this teacher did what she thought was best in the circumstances- she stuck her neck out for the good of this particular pupil, and is going to suffer the wrath of her school. But maybe the girl concerned will be spared a pregnancy or an STD at 14 through her actions, for a modicum of discomfort. I think it is unreasonable to expect her teacher, who is in loco parentis, not to act as such. What if it were her aunt who had found out she was having sex? Would anybody condemn an aunt for reporting the fact to the child's mother?

It's a very very grey area, with no absolutes.

mrspnut · 14/03/2008 13:13

Even if your colleague believes that underage sex is a child protection issue then she should have followed the child protection guidelines which state involving the teacher with responsibility for CP or the head teacher - not taking it upon herself to call the child's parents.

So she breached child protection guidance as well as breaching a young person's right to confidentiality.

It seems like this so called teacher is the worst possible type of professional - one who believes that they are always right and everyone else is wrong despite the policies and procedures.

As a social worker and a parent, I am pretty horrified by her behaviour and I think she deserves the disciplinary measures.

TheHonEnid · 14/03/2008 13:14

Right, okey doke, she was utterly wrong wrong wrong

ok

next

Monkeybird · 14/03/2008 13:15

but by the sound of it nicetry you don't really believe it is a child protection issue do you? What you really believe, I'd wager, is that the girl was morally wrong for having sex in the first place and that is why you/she told the parents. In most issues of child protection and sex, the concern is over consent. In many cases of 14 year old sex, girls are consenting whether or not we like it. In other countries, the age of consent laws reflect a grey area to do with consent and age boundaries and age of both parties. In the UK the law is much more black and white (and therefore unhelpful).

If the girl had told you she'd had sex with a much older man against her will, then it might be a child protection issue. But telling her family might still not be the first choice either. But she didn't tell you/your colleague this.

So you/she had no right whatsoever to divulge this information. I almost think you/she are getting a vicarious thrill from spilling the beans and you've talked yourself onto some kind of sad moral highground. But you're wrong. Wrong.

NAB3wishesfor2008 · 14/03/2008 13:22

I have just had a thought - what was she doing telling you?

skidoodle · 14/03/2008 13:25

A teacher is not an aunt. An aunt will have split loyalty between their sister/brother and their niece. A teacher's only responsibility is to the wellbeing of the person they teach and as such they should honour confidences.

FWIW I would not think well of any adult who betrayed such a confidence of a teenager but I think it is unforgivable for a teacher to put her own moral qualms ahead of the wishes of a young woman and her right to have her own choices with regard to her own body respected.

I think this applies even if the test had been positive. Teenagers have the right to keep pregnancies and any related medical attention from their parents if they so choose.

duchesse · 14/03/2008 13:27

I think that many of you who are so opposed to Nicetry's position are imagining your own position as teenagers.

If instead you tried seeing your own now infant daughters having sex, being scared and unable to discuss it with you in 8-10 years' time, it might put a different slant on things. Would you want to know that your daughter was maybe getting into something she didn't really feel ready for? Would you want to know if a teacher knew that your daughter or son was taking drugs and you hadn't noticed? My betting is that you would. In fact it would be a child protection issue for you not to know. Surely the potential negative effects of underage, unprotected sex are almost as great that?

Kitti · 14/03/2008 13:28

I woudl want to know if my daughter took a test and if the teacher knew about it I would want her to tell me - However I know that's not the policy that the child has the protection of the school for confidentiality and therefore the teacher broke that confidence and now no-one is going to trust her again. The fact that the test was negative as well is even worse. She should have had a good chat with the girl to find out the full story behind the pregnancy and why the girl was having unprotected sex (or sex at all) and then given her as much information as she could about STD's, pregnancy, birth control, protection and of course telling her it's against the law and to advise that perhaps at some point she should at least talk to her mum about the situation she has found herself in. At least then she could feel she had done all she could and was allowed to do as a teacher.

Bumdiddley · 14/03/2008 13:28

She was scared and lonely and knew that if she spoke to a teacher she would be 'safe'.

What a betrayal. If that had happened to me at 14 I would probably would have seriously thought about killing myself.

Your 'colleague' deserves what she gets.

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