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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:
Monkeybird · 14/03/2008 13:32

when I was 14 I did all kinds of things I later regretted. I would not have told my mum a single one of these. I think she would have then, and would now, concur that if I'd told a teacher about it, the teacher should respect my wishes for confidentiality. I can say with confidence that she would have been grateful for an outside professional's support in the background. She might well have said 'but why didn't you tell me?'. She would never, ever have said to the teacher 'why didn't you tell me?'

Why? Because for all her mistakes she is a good mother in that she respects the changes her children had to go through to become adults, which is what being a teenager is all about.

duchesse · 14/03/2008 13:32

Diddley- I have to disagree with you there- many teenagers tell adults things "in confidence" because they want the teacher to tell their parents for them. It's a tough judgment call deciding which these are, and which ones really don't want their parents to know. The adults concerned are not always going to get things right. As I said, it's a very grey area. Even if you follow policy scrupulously you will not get it right every time for every child and young person.

Monkeybird · 14/03/2008 13:36

I don't have daughters. I have lots of sons. I'd hope they would be able to tell me if they got into trouble. If they, say, got a girl pregnant at 14, I'd prefer to know so I could help out. I would want their teacher to encourage them to talk to me. And actually I would, I think, though I don't have teenagers yet, hope they had a 'safe' place to go because I think their job as teenagers is to develop independence from me. Even at 14. And yet I will always be their safety net when they choose to make use of it. If they don't I'll wonder what I did wrong. But I think I'd be a bit pissed off with the school if a teacher told me about my son having sex with a girl who'd then had a negative pregnancy test and nothing had come of it. I'd be quite worried about their judgement and their overprurient interest in telling TBH.

duchesse · 14/03/2008 13:40

With respect Monkeybird, although boys might expose themselves to STDs, there are physical issues surrounding teenage pregnancy and possible infertility from hidden STDs that make the debate a little more crucial and emotive for the girls.

NorthernLurker · 14/03/2008 13:44

I've only read the op - sorry - but I think it is absolutely right she be disciplined. Applyinng confidentiality at work is not supposed to be easy or comfortable - sometimes it will be bloody hard, but you still have to do it! As a mother I sympathise, as a working woman - I don't.

casbie · 14/03/2008 13:45

ahhh, but the teacher should follow the rules!

Ineedacleaner · 14/03/2008 13:45

Of course as a parent you would want to know but in reality how many teenagers are there out there that do tell their parents everything...very few. When my dd was that age I would hope that she could come to me but if she couldn't I would hope there was a teacher out there that she could confide in.

I would however be extremely upset if she got herself into a sitation she needed support with and felt she couldn't come to me but also had no teacher to confide in because she was frightened of that trust being betrayed in this awful way.

I would rather (if she couldn't come to me) that she could go to a teacher she could trust than feel she had nobody to trust at all.

NAB3wishesfor2008 · 14/03/2008 13:49

I don't believe you have answered my question, NiceTry. What was the teacher doing discussing this with you?

meemar · 14/03/2008 13:51

If what the teacher has done becomes common knowledge, then she has undermined the whole school policy surrounding confidentiality.

Children will be reluctant to tell teachers anything, including sexual matters, bullying, or problems at home for fear of their parents being told.

She should certainly be disciplined.

Unfitmother · 14/03/2008 13:51

That's awful

What was she thinking of? She is clearly in the wrong.

minorityrules · 14/03/2008 13:52

Nicetry, you keep banging on about underage sex, what if the young girl in question hadn't had full penetrative sex, maybe 'just' fooling around. It is is rare to get pregnant in that way but it can happen. Maybe she had been scared by how far she had gone and her period wasn't eve late when she asked for help??? Did you 'friend' go into all this with her? Or just go running and gossiping

A good (most) teacher will talk and support the teen and try to get them to speak to a parent but if not, try to educate the teen in contraception, relationships, STIs etc

Duchese, I am a mother of teenagers and I would want them to feel safe and to be able to trust other adults in times of need. The biggest thing we learn as parents of older children is the need for trust and respect, we need it from them and they need it from us

NAB3wishesfor2008 · 14/03/2008 13:55

As mothers we can't be everything to our children. Sometimes they need other people.

choosyfloosy · 14/03/2008 13:58

Nicetry, of course I am concerned about 14-year-olds having unsafe sex, or having sex at all. I just don't think that teachers breaking confidence in this way with a child who IS having unsafe sex helps - it's counter-intuitive but it DOESN'T. I note that the teachers who are on here agree that the situation is not always as black and white as all that, but that they would NOT have told the girl's family - they would potentially have informed another professional. If a child has reached 14 and feels unable to talk to her parents at that stage, well, that's what's happened - it is not the teacher's job to force her to talk to them come what may.

Thinking about it, the 3 times I've taken the MAP have all been after attempts at safe sex that have failed on me! so she may have been being more responsible than we think.

CountessDracula · 14/03/2008 14:02

Surely there should have been an assesment to see if she was Gillick competent???

I think your friend was wrong to say something without consulting someone else and talking it through..

CountessDracula · 14/03/2008 14:03

\link{ confidential.oxfordradcliffe.net/Gillick\here}

CountessDracula · 14/03/2008 14:03

here

ibelieveindreaming · 14/03/2008 14:09

I think your friend should be disciplined.
The girl will no longer be able to talk to any of her teachers in confidence in the future for fear her parents will find out.

Did your friend know the result was neg. when she told the parents.

nappyaddict · 14/03/2008 14:16

duchesse - if the girl has said please don't tell my parents i think it's pretty obvious she didn't want her parents to know at that moment in time. had it been positive she might have then said i don't know how to tell my parents, will you help me or some such but as it was negative she probably didn't see the need for her parents to know and frankly neither do i as long as he was given good advice about contraception, sti's, not being pressured into anything etc etc. all that;s probably happened now is that she has a lot less freedom and is likely to try even harder to get independence because of this.

nappyaddict · 14/03/2008 14:20

there may not even been a real possibility of pregnancy. even now at 19 sometimes when i'm late i think shit i'm pregnant and then think don't be stupid nappyaddict you haven't even had sex recently.. perhaps like someone said there was just fooling around, then she was late and she got scared so thought she better do one just incase even though she hadn't even had sex.

theyoungvisiter · 14/03/2008 14:22

wow, do you know, I think this is the most unified AIBU thread I've ever read.

Nicetry, doesn't it tell you something that virtually every single poster on this thread, despite the fact that we all have kids ourselves and are wildly differing in our moral outlooks, ALL think you and your friend are wrong?

suedonim · 14/03/2008 14:23

But Duchesse, this isn't about what the parents want, it's about the girl. Of course parents want to know about their children but sometimes, for whatever reason, a child would prefer to confide in someone who is emotionally uninvolved.

NiceTry, it's preferable that under 16's aren't having sex but let's live in the real world, shall we? Short of putting our daughters into chastity belts, there will always be some under 16's who decide to have sex.

MotherFunk · 14/03/2008 14:27

Message withdrawn

theyoungvisiter · 14/03/2008 14:28

I agree Sue.

And with regard to the comments about child protection, telling the child's family won't necessarily safeguard that.

What about protecting the child from her family's reaction to the news? It's perfectly possible that her otherwise respectable and outwardly loving father might have beaten the living daylights out of the girl when he heard the news. Or she might have been thrown out of the house. Or she may be shunned by her family and community. In certain communities she might be considered "dirty goods" and be seriously at risk from your colleague's actions.

If your colleague was worried about child protection she should have informed someone qualified to make an assessment - ie a social worker.

nappyaddict · 14/03/2008 14:29

14/15 year olds are sexually mature. their body is telling them that they are ready for sex. that is why it is not rare for 14 year olds to be having sex.

scaryteacher · 14/03/2008 14:38

I think that teachers are in an invidious position here - we are all agreed I think, that we wouldn't have told the parents, but may have passed it on to the HoY or the CP teacher. However, I feel uncomfortable at being expected to dish out advice on STDs, contraception and safe sex to teenagers, especially as most of them know more about it than I do. I teach humanities fgs, not sex ed, nor have I been given training in the latter. The other point of course being that it is a child protection issue, as sometimes the child needs protecting from her/himself and other children, not just from adults.

Loved Duchesse's description of a secondary school - spot on, except mine was 1400 students.