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.

Quite a few people commute to London using the sleeper train, it stops at all sorts of remote places.
I'm sure children are collected from a central location in these situations so if you live up a track you have to drop your child in the village for example.
I think the OP has a rather over romanticised view of her family life, that's her choice even if some of us find it a bit sickly, however I have used the word get to describe my DS2 who was very otherworldly as a small child, prone to zoning out and flights of imaginative fancy alongside meltdowns at school ( and a rather pale elfin appearance). It turns out he has Aspergers, he still had meltdowns until about 14 as the other children liked to wind him up when bored.
He would have been very lonely all through primary if his one good friend had dropped him for being odd, that child made a huge difference to him and I would have been very hurt if his mother had discouraged the friendship ( we are good friends too).
Please don't discourage your daughter from being kind and loyal.

Should have previewed, replace " get" with " fey" in my PP.

I think as Emily has chosen to spend most of her time (baring in mind she is away from home) with this girl then you must respect her wishes. I personally wouldn't want my own daughter to hang around with the awful bunch of kids who call her friend a "witch", I would be immensely proud and want her to make up her own mind.

This sarah sounds like she must be a good friend and deserving of emilys friendship, so what is she is a little different?. This may actually be because she is an only child or maybe just a special girl who is refreshingly different from the norm.

Is your daughter's friend Luna Lovegood?

To be honest, Emily and her friend sound like they're the only hope for this bizarre community.

I think that you should check that there wasn't an Emily who died 100 years ago after the locals decided she was a witch.

Does Emily seem confused by modern technology? Has she any unusual turns of phrase ('I hope my brother Alfred comes home safe from the trenches/I do not think it fit for women to answer back to men/I lost my father in the Spanish Influenza epidemic) which, when you think them all through together, seem a little odd?

Check gravestones and old diaries in the area, and see whether an Emily mysteriously vanished 100 years ago after she was blamed for the crops failing that year.

Hmm. Odd.

Thank you to those of you who have offered sensible advice.

For those who genuinely misunderstood my post, please let me make the following clear. Neither her peers, teachers, nor I, seriously believe Sarah is a witch. As I pointed out in my original post, I believe the unfortunate child is suffering petit mal seizures (that is small epileptic fits for those of you with limited understanding). Believe it or not, children do name call out of spite. Even in our enlightened times disability - especially when it is invisible - is often misunderstood. Even by Mumsnet contributors, it would appear.

For those enjoying a laugh at my expense and that of an unfortunate child, I suggest it is you who should get out more. Your 'hilarious' jokes are not even original. Perhaps you should give the horror channel a miss while you develop a sense of humour.

I hope this clears up any uncertainty. Thank you for reading.

I answered in a similar manner to your post, but the advice was meant seriously. Speak to a teacher if you seriously think that the girl might be epilectic and her mother really is so unbelievably blasé about the suggestion.

So you don't believe she's a witch but you do think your dd should distance herself from a child with an invisible disability?

seek

If you are truly for real, then why on earth you think the problem is your daughter's reputation, rather than this girl's epilepsy going unnoticed and putting her life at risk, I really cannot imagine. That is what made it seemed unrealistic to me.

Even in our enlightened times disability - especially when it is invisible - is often misunderstood. Even by Mumsnet contributors, it would appear.

We're not the ones suggesting that you daughter should shun this girl, that was you.

What people pointed out is that the term petit mal is not really used anymore, absence is the preferred one. So your limited understanding dig is uncalled for.

As for advice, the one you have been given is unanimous, your DD shroud stand by her friend.

Even in our enlightened times disability - especially when it is invisible - is often misunderstood. Even by Mumsnet contributors, it would appear.

Hang on, you're the one wanting your daughter to drop her in case she's 'tainted by association'

I am immensely proud of my daughter for being loyal to her friend and I have no wish for her to 'distance herself from a child with an invisible disability'. However, I am concerned about the potential social and emotional consequences on my daughter. It is on that I seek advice.

I have changed certain details in my posts about my family and circumstances to protect identities. While I endeavour to maintain those changes consistently in my posts on Mumsnet, I might occasionally lapse on the detail. Please do not consider this an indication that my posts are contrived.

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

Ok, if you want I'll tackle the real issue here.
Yes, it makes you sound pretty horrible and shallow.
HTH.

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

I am immensely proud of my daughter for being loyal to her friend and I have no wish for her to 'distance herself from a child with an invisible disability'.

Can't you see how your two statements are contradictory?

Hang on, so you think the poor child has epilepsy and you're worried that the peer group will think your own DD odd?

Go to the teacher. Say "It's none of my business BUT..." (because a other child's diagnosis really isn't your business) and ask her to tell the other children to be kinder to her.

Do you want your own DD to be a kind, caring, compassionate person? Or do you want her to grow up to be a Plastic like the other Mean Girls?

Is your dd's school located in the refurbished Castle of Otranto?

Sorry OP. I apologise. We aren't giving you the answers you want to hear.

Yes. Absolutely. YADNBU. You're absolutely right. Yes. I agree.

Well, I can see how OP can be proud of her daughter while thinking that it would be easier for the daughter to distance herself.

And that would be wrong, in my opinion, but I can understand the thinking behind it.

How are going to explain to your DD why you thing Sarah needs dropping?

OP, if you want to be taken seriously, don't use anachronistic language that comes from another century.

Your DD seems like a great girl, I think you ought to encourage her instead of teaching her disloyalty.