We live in a fairly small community where news spreads pretty quickly. I just found out that my 12 year old daughters cheer coach and history teacher got arrested for having sex with a 14 year old student. She admitted to doing it several times over the course of a year. I feel sick. Its pretty friendly here most teachers are parents of my childrens friends and or peers. My daughter adored her. How do I explain this to her? What do I say? I want to quickly before she hears it elsewhere.
I also completely believe innocence until proven guilty but she did confess to it so I am pretty sure it is not just a rumor. I did talk to my daughter,she was shocked and she cried. Then she had a kind of normal 12 yr old response as she was worried how it would affect cheer camp next week. We talked about how even though everybody here will be talking about it for awhile,that she should be careful what she says mostly because of the boy that this happened to. And even though it has been discussed many times before we went back over inappropriate relationships and what to do if someone makes her feel uncomfortable and how hard it is when this happens to someone that you trust. I think this will definitely be an ongoing topic since it brought home the fact that people that do bad things dont always look or act scary. Thanks for your input.....I was slightly rattled when I first heard.
There are just some thing you can't sugar coat. This is one of them, besides she will probably hear worse from her peers. I would probably say..
Honey I wanted to tell you why you won't be seeing Mrs X. anymore. She was having an inappropriate relationship with one of her students.
If she she asks questions answer them as honestly as you can.
Chances are you daughter has already heard whats going on. Use this as a good chance to talk about appropriate relationships and boundries. I'm guessing @ 14 you already have but, it never hurts to open the discussion again.
you're gonna HAVE to be honest with her, in age appropriate language(there's a WIDE range of maturity in 12 year olds - you know how best to talk to her). if you are not honest, you will lose credibility for a long time. there is nothing you can do to change what happened, it's a GREAT opportunity to teach that abusers don't all LOOK scary/crazy, and an opportunity to discuss(or reiterate) boundaries between adults and children. so sorry for the pain that this is undoubtedly going to cause your daughter :(
I'm guessing she probably already knows. I'm sure she knows what sex is as well, and also what child predators are, and promiscuity with boys, which hopefully you've been talking to her about for a long time now. Just have a casual and honest conversation about it. I agree that this is a good time to talk more in depth about appropriate boundaries.
Just tell her. She's old enough but make sure you have a good amount of time with her to help her process her feelings. Don't tell her and 30 minutes later plan on taking someone to soccer practice. It might take an hour or two behind a door to help her with this. Good luck, I don't envy you at all. I'm sorry....
Tell her the honest truth and explain to her why it is wrong. Good people do make bad decisions, it doesn't always make them bad people. There could be something going terribly wrong inside that teacher that even she doesn't know how to deal with, you will probably never know. Your daughter will hear all kinds of dirt and rumors about it and it's best she hears the honest facts from you first and be done with it.
Good luck!
She has probably already heard, so just talk with her and listen to what she has to say.
Blessings....
Good advice from all the Moms here.
Don't sugar coat it.
It is wrong.
No matter what a town is like, no matter how friendly or how well people know each other, well this can happen anywhere.
And... it does.
This is the world.
Your Daughter will probably have difficulty, being that she 'adored' her Teacher, that this happened.
It is a fall from grace.
And now, her Teacher is a criminal or whatever you want to call it.
It is sad, all around.
For the whole town.
Tell her the truth.
Tell her that there was a horrible mistake made on the coaches part and the coach will have to pay for that mistake.
This is a good opportunity to talk about your own morals, but by saying that adults who make mistakes in judgement this badly have to pay by doing x,y,z.
Let her ask questions and answer as honestly as you can. If you don;t know just say, Honey, I just dont know.
Ask her not to spread gossip about the coach as there is sure to be a lot of that going around.
Arrested doesn't mean guilt. That should also be a part if the conversation.
Definitely be honest with her and allow her to ask questions. If you don't know the answer to something, be honest about that too. Sometimes, it really is true that good people do bad things. No one knows what happened that led up to the actions of these two individuals, what this woman was thinking, how she justified it, or how it all came out. What's good in this situation is that the coach confessed so hopefully that will spare the child and family in the situation the traumas of a trial. Hopefully, the confession means that she knows what she did was wrong and unacceptable and she won't ever do it again. I pray that it doesn't turn into a Mary Kay Letourneau case.
In my parents' and brothers' church, it was recently found out that the favorite priest had "inappropriate contact" with a teenager recently. He had been e-mailing with her and said some inappropriate things, possibly some pictures were requested by him that he shouldn't have requested, and no one is quite sure of the circumstances. Some details are leaking out that it may have started with this teen girl that she was shy and had extremely low self-esteem and he was trying to help her but it got out of control. Shortly after he was informed that there was an investigation, he tried to commit suicide. A week later he was arrested. It's been devastating for the church, with everyone asking the same questions your daughter will have. My own children knew him because of family events in my family even if it wasn't our church.
We still believe him to be a good man... who did a horrible, horrible thing. And it would have been just as bad had the teen been an adult woman because we're Catholic. I've had to have this conversation with my eldest daughter and my brothers (who are adults). All the good that this person did prior to this bad act aren't erased. It just make sit harder to understand and reconcile what happened.
I'm sorry that you have to deal with this. I know you'll find the right words. Just know that it's going to be an ongoing discussion.
innocent until proven guilty...
I know there are some 14 year old girls that don't look 14...this is from our society of pushing our kids to grow up faster....being more interested in making a buck than raising our children....I know this is NOT you - this is a general statement...but look at the role models our children are being subjected to on a daily basis - Brittany Spears, The Kardashians, shows like "Teen Age Mom"...
I would tell her that until the coach speaks his side - that she is not to believe ANYTHING she hears until she hears it from his lips....as then you will know it's not gossip...
I would also tell her that having sex is not what we do - we wait until we are married (or what ever your values are) and that if ANYONE tells her to pull her skirt up or wants to touch her - that she needs to tell you NO MATTER what they threaten her with.
GOOD LUCK!!
Oh man that makes me sick too. UCk.
