In article WzZ7i.19$My4.3@trndny05, Jeff says...

Vickie wrote:
On Jun 1, 10:38 am, NL wrote:
I have to agree with Jeff. There's very little you really can do.
You might want to also talk to the childrens teacher and see what advice
s/he has to offer, and maybe the teacher can then either talk to the
mother and suggest to her she get help or call the child protection
services or whatever they're called where you are.
If I was you I'd be very careful to not upset that family even further,
the husband is clearly violent and personally I would be scared that he
might come to my house if I seemed responsible if some government agency
stepped in.

I agree that the girl does seem to be testing your daughters friendship,
but that doesn't help you or your child, and as Jeff said, it's not your
job to provide councelling.

take care
nicole

I think the husband is going to prison for a few years. School is
almost out. Don't know if I want to burden her teacher with this.
Thanks for your reply.
And I will keep telling myself, ultimately this is not my
responsibility......right?

Vickie

I thought it took a community to raise a child. You're part of the
community, right?


Sure - but some things are messed up beyond one's ability to help. But most of
all, some things are just poison. To the community.

Story: We had a very troubled boy on our long-ish circle street. A family a
few doors down from us decided they'd do the community thing and let this boy
come around and play with their kids as no one else would play with him. The
boy's family took a hands-off stance, and the father even showed some pride that
his boy was a tough kid.

Results: This boy, although older than most of the other kids (including the
boys in this family), hung around in our area. Among other things, he would
pick up things and swing them at the younger children, injuring them.

Then there was the incident where he invited my immediate neighbor's older boy
to perform fellatio.

Nonetheless, the family down the block continued letting the boy come around to
play with theirs to try to help.

For two summers, several families, including mine, needed to make plans, every
day, not to have our kids be outside playing. Which is really a shame, since we
had bought houses in a family neighborhood in order to let kids play together
like how we grew up.

Why it didn't go to a third summer: This boy became acquainted with some older
boys from another neighborhood, and he led them to rob the neighbor of the
family in question. Told them when they would go on vacation; told them the
location in the home of certain items.

Then the family in question decided he was not suitable to be in their home, and
that they could not help him. So finally, he stopped coming around and hanging
out in our area.

Why this is no longer a problem at all: This troubled boy, at age 19, committed
suicide. How? By a head on collision about three miles from here with a family
who was driving home from the hospital with their newborn baby.

OK??? You understand now what kind of things people can be dealing with when
they decide they're "part of a village" and get in over their heads?

Maybe we're not dealing with a sociopath in this case, but Vickie's daughter has
already needed to take some precious growing-up time getting over problems
caused by this girl. Some things can't be helped, some things can only be
helped by the right people (professionals!), some things can be helped only at
great unrecoverable cost to one's own family.

I think this is one of those cases. Or is likely enough to be, to make it
advisable to stay detached from it.

Banty (it takes a village to poison a village)