Fey Child

[HoneyBeeMum1]

I feel I am in a difficult situation and would be grateful for the advice of the Mumsnet community.

My husband and I have been living in a remote and beautiful part of the Scottish Highlands having relocated from London a few years ago. We have five children, including a boy at university in England and four girls.

My husband is the love of my life and he loves me as deeply as I love him. Our children are healthy, happy and beautiful. We are fairly insular and - until recently - did not have much social interaction outside the immediate family. We have much to be thankful for and not a day goes by that I do not appreciate our good fortune.

So far, so good.

Unfortunately, there is a potential flaw in our blissful existence and I am in a complete quandary trying to decide how best to act.

My eldest daughter - who I will refer to as 'Emily' started at secondary school this academic year. Due to our remote location and the considerable distance to school, she boards from Monday to Friday and returns home for weekends.

Fortunately, she made a friend - who I will call Sarah - who lives only a few miles from us. We have become close friends with Sarah's parents and we share travel arrangements for the girls as well as regularly socialising with them.

Everything seemed to be working so well. However, I have started to have some concerns about Sarah. She is something of a 'fey child', given to flights of fancy and strange moods. I have noticed on occasions when she has been staying at our home that she has moments when she appears vacant and I suspect she might be experiencing petit-mal seizures. I have mentioned my concerns to her mother who insists that she is fine and puts her strange behaviour down to being an only child.

Unfortunately, Sarah's strange behaviour has been noticed by the other children at school and this has led to her being shunned. They accuse her of being a witch and some even claim to be afraid of her. Sarah is also prone to tantrums for which she has been punished by her teachers.

Emily is fiercely protective of her friend which makes me enormously proud. However, I fear she will be tainted by association and that this will affect her relationships with her teachers and other pupils.

Am I being selfish and unreasonable to feel that I would prefer Emily to make other friends and distance herself from Sarah? I realise that to do so will also jeopardise the newly forged friendship between our families which I would deeply regret losing.

Your advice and opinions would be of great assistance.

Thank you.

HoneyBee - I agree people have been ripping the piss out of you but where on earth do you get off on such a moral arsey attitude? You are considering encouraging your daughter to dump her friend you suspect of having undiagnosed epilepsy in case people call her a witch too. You are the one with the narrow minded attitude. If this tripe is real -
Contact the school about your concerns in writing
Emphasis you think this is a serious matter of safeguarding which denying a child essential medical care will be
Be thankful you have a mind, empathetic and accepting daughter who looks further and deeper at people than how they reflect on her
Stop putting unnecessary info in about your husband. It smacks of desperation and denial. Look at that issue carefully. I think you have a worry there that needs exploring

Hope that helps

OP was it yourself who posted a voupke of months ago regarding your dh amd your freind??

Bluntness 100, I believe I made clear from the start that I am glad of the friendship between our families and in particular the two girls. There has been no turnaround.

If I said I wanted my daughter to distance herself from her friend, it was unintentional. Nevertheless, I do not believe I did say that. I admit I was concerned that it might be the only solution, but I did not suggest it was a desirable or satisfactory solution. If I had already determined that was what I wanted, I would have no need to ask the question on Mumsnet.

I was concerned - I believe not unreasonably - that the situation, if not resolved, might have negative consequences for my daughter.

Fortunately, between the cheap jibes there has been useful advice and opinions. That an attempt to resolve the matter with the help of the school seems like reasonable advice to me. That is not a turnaround, it is acting on the advice I sought from contributors.

Despite the somewhat optimistic view of some contributors, not all schools deal well with bullying. However, I hope our daughters' school will prove to be one that does.

I am disappointed that for many people, my worst crime seems to be my relative contentment with my circumstances and my pride in my family. That makes me feel sad.

Thank you again to those who have responded positively and usefully.

Doesn'tfitthemould - what is a voupke? Your question does not make sense to me I'm afraid.

If I said I wanted my daughter to distance herself from her friend, it was unintentional. Nevertheless, I do not believe I did say that.

From Your post post OP

Am I being selfish and unreasonable to feel that I would prefer Emily to make other friends and distance herself from Sarah?

You said you wanted your daughter to distance herself and make new friends. Your words, in your OP.

Or did you write them by accident.

Ok, I've just reread your OP in which you quite clearly were concerned about how your DD would be affected 'by association' if she continued to be friends with the girl in question.

If the girl is being bullied, she needs the school to step up. If you can help to facilitate that, great, good job. Surely her parents should be supportive of her too.
She also needs good friends, proper friends, you know, the ones who stand by her when she's not popular, maybe even 'different' or with unrecognised needs (temper tantrums? - really??).

I truly and with the best will in the world don't understand what 'situation' you needs help with resolving?
Don't be under the illusion that parents have any influence on what friends their children chose to be with - I know my parents had no influence on mine (and I would have been outraged by the suggestion that they should) and that my DSs have had/have friends some of which I like more than others.

Thank you Fancypuffin for providing the quote. As I said, I was asking whether such a feeling was reasonable. In other words, I was in doubt as to whether it was reasonable and seeking the advice of Mumsnet contributors.

Furthermore, the rest of my original post provides further context around the relationship between Sarah's family and mine.

Nevertheless, if it makes you feel morally superior to make a case that I take pleasure in excluding and victimising a vulnerable child, I am sure you will do so.

HoneyBee, I'm not sure if you realise that MumsnetHQ created a search facility whereby all we have to do is input your name and... Bingo.... this is why various posters have been asking you about your DH.

This current thread will also be available for all of eternity.

Just saying.

PacificDogwod - Thank you for your post.

The situation is my concern is that Sarah is being bullied and that this might impact on my daughter. Emily is very close to Sarah.

Our circumstances are quite different from most families in that we have few close neighbours and our children's friends do not live within walking distance. As a consequence friendships can become quite intense, particularly for children who have to board when they reach secondary school. This means that what affects one child will inevitably impact on close friends and the usual way that children chop and change friends is not feasible.

Sarah's parents are concerned, but the problem was brought to my attention before theirs. This is because Emily was sufficiently concerned to tell me. Sarah had not mentioned it to her parents.

I am aware of that Vanilla. I have nothing to hide and if you or anyone else is interested enough to provide a link on this thread, I am quite happy. Flattered even that you find me interesting enough...

OP. I think it's great your daughter is friends with this girl. However, I would be worried about the undiagnosed epilepsy. Have you mentioned this to the child's parents?

Ah sorry i am typing with wet nsils- I meant to type 'a couple of months ago'.

clarissadarling
but should a hare cross her path on this journey, she must turn back, as it is forboden

• this might have been the funniest thing I have read on mumsnet, ever.

Forboden.

I'm done

I certainly enjoy hearing about the beautiful extremely close family, living on an isolated Island after one of the identical twins died.
But which twin was it?

...but what does it mean Doublemint?

Doesn'tfitthemould - please feel free to post a link to the thread if you like. I would do it myself, but I do not have sufficient technical know-how to do it on my phone. Also, I thought it a little presumptuous to think readers might be sufficiently interested in my Mumsnet history.

Mud City - Your feedback is important to me. I am sorry you are dissatisfied with my contributions, but thank you for reading them despite your disappointment.

Jacquinta - I have mentioned my observations to Sarah's mother. At first she put her daughter's behaviour down to being socially isolated and an only child. She is considering that it might be due to other factors now and will ask her doctor for a referral to an educational psychologist.

quicklydecides - I do not have twins and so far no one has died.

Are you sure you are commenting on the right thread?

I'm not sure an educational psychologist would be appropriate for epilepsy. GP should be taking it far more seriously than that. Poor child.

Well I think you write beautifully OP and I think your family and life sounds beautiful too - good for you. There's enough shit in this world that I admire people who live slightly differently to the rest of us in Boring Suburbia. I'm sure you and your friend will work out the best thing to do with Emily and Sarah. My only advice (as a teacher of teenage girls) is to remember that they are still children even though they may look like adults, and what may be considered to be a characteristic in an adult is often just a fleeting phase in a teenager. So take all with a large pinch of salt!

Quite sure Chechecherchanges.

This isn't the 17th century you know...

The school are the best institution to refer to an educational psychologist if the girl has educational issues.
If there is a suspicion whether she might have absence seizures or something, she may warrant referral to a paediatrician or neurologist (depending on what the set up is like).
If there is a concern for her mental health, then referral to the appropriate mental health team might be appropriate where she may see a psychiatrist (medically trained doctor) or a clinical psychologist (therapist trained in various 'talking therapies'), or get support from a Community Psychiatric Nurse.

Thank you PacificDogwod. That is interesting and useful information.

Thanks for the film recommendations HoneyBee I'll look them up.