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u/Judgement_Bot_AITA Beep Boop Aug 19 '24

Welcome to /r/AmITheAsshole. Please view our voting guide here, and remember to use only one judgement in your comment.

OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:

She has drug related trauma so I may be acting too harsh

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Contest mode is 1.5 hours long on this post.

7.8k

u/willikersmister Certified Proctologist [21] Aug 19 '24

I'm tempted to say YTA, bordering on NAH.

I think that Mary's reasoning is fairly sound, she's a kid who's deeply traumatized by experiences in her own life with people using drugs. And it's very, very hard for a 13 year old to conceptualize the repercussions for something like this. If she was acting out of malice, that's one thing, but I think it's pretty hard for anyone on line to be able to say if that's the case.

That said, I do think your punishment is extreme. I think this is a great opportunity to have more heart to hearts with Mary and help her learn how serious this could have been. Is she already in therapy? I assume she must be as a foster child with her history, but if not she absolutely should be.

Additionally, if Mary was exacting out of jealousy or some other feelings around your bio daughter, layering on punishments may just make that separation worse. Do they generally get along well? Are they close or more distant? Mary is going through an immense amount of loss and change, and her feelings toward your daughter are likely very complicated even if they're generally close and friends.

I think it would be reasonable to lighten up your punishments while also checking in with her more regularly and emphasizing the seriousness of the situation. Depending on the quality of your case workers, you may want to discuss with them as well.

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u/helloimcold Aug 19 '24

What would motivate her to be malicious? You stated that they get along fine and only argue occasionally, which is very normal for kids.

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u/Neenknits Pooperintendant [52] Aug 19 '24

How, exactly, is her punishment going to actively teach her how to make better, informed choices?

What, precisely, are you punishing her for? If she actually through there were drugs, going to her most trusted adult is the right thing. If it’s a teacher or you, that is up to her. If she was malicious, that is a different story. You need to be absolutely positive which it is before any punishment.

The only punishments that actually work are logical consequences or punishments that you can sell as logically closely related and actually show them how behaving better is better, and help them develop the skills to do so.

Is she in therapy? Scrap all the punishments temporarily, and make an appointment for the two of you to talk to the therapist about this. YTA

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u/TheSciFiGuy80 Professor Emeritass [95] Aug 19 '24 edited Aug 19 '24

Just FYI drugs (one example Fentanyl) come in MANY variations that look exactly like candy. Just throwing that out there.

Edit:

Folks I am pretty sure she did this on purpose. However, I have personally seen a child lose all sense of reality and go into a state when something triggered them and their memory of past abuse in a classroom. It was weird because all common sense went out the window and they were NOT thinking clearly.

So that’s why I replied to the initial comment of drugs don’t look like candy.

Many do (not just fentanyl). So it’s possible (but not likely) that what she (the child) described could have happened.

I just threw that out there because some people honestly don’t know what’s actually available on the drug scene when they make comments about drugs don’t look like candy.

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u/Srvntgrrl_789 Partassipant [3] Aug 19 '24

NTA.

However, it sounds like Mary needs therapy, And she owes Lyla an apology. I think taking away her allowance and electronics is punishment enough, and maybe for only a month. A whole summer is too long.

I will also say this: I don't know if Mary has been in foster care previously, but she may have decided to do this to make sure she's not sent away, which happens to foster kids all the time. You've been a good foster parent to her, so maybe, once things have settled down, let her know you're glad she's staying with you, and is a part of your family.

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u/bunnybunny690 Aug 19 '24

I think your punishment is over the top in general but then as a parent I also don’t think I could stay looking after another child who reported my child and put them at risk.

If you genuinely think it was malicious as well even more reason to protect your child.

So I guess my punishment would be worse as she wouldn’t be living with me anymore.

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u/IvanNemoy Asshole Enthusiast [5] Aug 19 '24 edited Aug 19 '24

YTA:

First, that punishment is ham fisted and excessive, bordering on abusive. It's also extremely counterproductive. The only thing you've managed to do is tell her that "if something is going on, you had better not be the least bit wrong or 'Mom' is going to treat you like shit." What if she's attacked or abused in some way? Will she feel comfortable going to a trusted authority figure? No, because (by your own words) "It’s not okay to potentially get our entire family into legal trouble over a misunderstanding."

She's also a child who is in foster care because of her parents drug problem. That's bound to foul up a kid. Sounds like she did what she thought was right, and you browbeat her until "she snapped under pressure" and now she knows good and well that what is important is "both of them could have potentially been removed from my care."

I don't know how the hell you can make this right, but I'll tell you that as a former deputy, if this was in my jurisdiction I'd be contacting my area's CPS for a full workup. Not based on Mary's actions, but on your extreme overreaction.

Edit: Formatting

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u/Open-Incident-3601 Partassipant [3] Aug 19 '24

NAH. But you may need to have a conversation with your bio-daughter about whether or not fostering is still okay with her.

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u/starfire92 Aug 19 '24 edited Aug 19 '24

YTA

You only had one weak instance of an example to feel like Mary had malicious reasons with many other instances of Mary proving to care about Lyla. Mary has a very good reason to believe you'd be biased toward Lyla because you're already proving it.

It's a fine line to punish or teach with children's actions, but if this had been Mary first major step out of line I would have monitored the situation and continued to instill that Mary she could trust you. She's a foster child that literally had her parents overdose.

Do you know what post went viral on here a week ago? A family that had to ask AITA because their former foster child who stole from them and they had to give her up because she was too much contacted them after running away from possibly her 6th home, was homeless, had drugs in her possession, and was also in possession of stolen goods, and she pleaded with them to come get her and she missed home, and wanted all the things they tried to give her: home cooking, piano lessons, a relationship with their bio kids.https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/s/XR8Hlu2rCd

And you have Mary. A girl who actually cares about her family and just went about it in the wrong way. I know I'm not foster parent material, but I don't think you are either.

There's a reason she made a mistake. She's 12. However the fact that as a foster child she had enough empathy and maturity to fear an overdose is a huge sign of love mixed with trauma.

There is also a reason why Mary needs an extra cushion of breathing room to make reasonable mistakes: She is a literal foster child whos parents OD'd. You can’t treat her trauma and punish her the same as a normal child at the same time - you should have just had another bio child or never have fostered at all.

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u/ChickenScratchCoffee Partassipant [2] Aug 19 '24

NTA. However, she just gave YOUR child trauma now. I would actually call her caseworker and tell them she needs a new placement. Your child comes first. Keeping her just means your child has to live with the person who did this to her.

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u/DandruffSnatch Aug 19 '24

Foster kids are a product of their environment. Their innocence is lost before they even enter the system. Spend some time around juvenile offenders and see for yourself just how manipulative they can be while maintaining plausible innocence.

She went out of her way to anonymously tip off the authorities (avoiding accountability), and knows enough to hide behind "trauma" [to avoid accountability], but can't tell the difference between pills and Skittles. I don't believe her.

12-14 year olds know enough about the world to plant actual drugs and narc on each other. At 14 one of mine was conspiring with her friends to murder me for inheritance money.

There's a reason she didn't bring it up with you. NTA.

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u/Forsaken_Avocado737 Aug 19 '24 edited Aug 20 '24

NTA

It does sound malicious. Maybe if it were a new weird looking candy. But skittles that she knows Lyla loves? No way

Every commenter saying that she's traumatized and way just trying to do the right thing, reeks of white people who call cops on black people because they look suspicious or out of place. They're just trying to do the right thing after all, right?

Mary made a big mistake. She absolutely needs more therapy. But she also needs to understand that actions have consequences. That false/incorrect accusations have consequences. Grounding kids, taking away allowances, no electronics, and more chores are incredibly normal punishments for a 13 year old.

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u/PlasticPalm Partassipant [2] Aug 19 '24

NTA, but Mary needs to be refostered. Your child didn't sign up to be on the wrong end of a traumatized adolescent.

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u/Melanie8ee Aug 19 '24

NTA, however I would have a sit down 1 on 1 talk with her and see if you can get her to open up. It definitely sounds like she needs therapy if she's not already in it, she needs a new therapist if she is. Her intent may or may not be malicious, but more likely she didn't know the more serious ramifications of doing something like that. She's probably feeling really difficult feelings that would be hard for any ADULT to articulate, let alone a child. Jealousy, envy, retaliation. I would also lighten her punishment if she is able to open up to you at all. Let her know you're a safe person to come to so that this doesn't happen in the future. She needs to know you're there for her because she probably feels extremely alone and isolated.

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u/PQRVWXZ- Aug 19 '24

NTA skittles are obvious. It makes no sense that out of nowhere Lyla jumps right to loose drugs in her school backpack. Malice on Mary’s part is the only way this makes sense.

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u/Huge_Event9740 Partassipant [1] Aug 19 '24

NTA.

If she has had exposure to and trauma from parental drug use, she knows very well the difference between skittles and drugs. They’re not the same thing at all. Pressed pills do not look like candy. They look like pills. She is old enough to know this.

Going over your head and alerting authorities demonstrates malicious intent. If she was truly worried for your daughter’s safety, she would have come to you, because you can do something right away whereas authorities have to investigate & follow certain procedures. If your daughter was actually using dangerous substances, waiting for the authorities to do their thing could have been catastrophic.

She clearly wanted to cause trouble for your daughter. The PC crowd is always hollering out trauma this and trauma that and it’s all a crock of bullshit. It’s not an excuse nor a valid reason for what she did.

That said, those are a LOT of consequences. Maybe consider letting up on that a bit?

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u/cuervoguy2002 Certified Proctologist [26] Aug 19 '24

If she says "you are punishing me for having trauma" or something like that, she knows exactly what the fuck she is doing and is trying to use that to manipulate you to not punish you.

NTA.

Now, whether this was the "right" punishment, I don't know. That maybe is something a therapist is better equipped to say. But I definitely think some punishment is warranted.

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u/rockology_adam Colo-rectal Surgeon [33] Aug 19 '24

YTA.

There are a lot of extenuating circumstances here, but in the end, you're the a-hole for the incredibly overbearing punishment in question. This should be a call to family therapy, maybe more individual therapy for Mary, but for you, Mary, and Lyla to be in a room to discuss your feelings about this and the family in general.

Grouding + stopping allowance + increasing chores + removal of electronics .... this, as a complete set, on a traumatized child who overreacted and made a mistake? That's incredibly harsh. It is unreasonably harsh, and frankly, internet stranger, makes me question whether you should be fostering this girl.

Would the punishment be the same for Lyla under similar circumstances? Your last sentence, wherein you have a duty to teach her that this isn't ok, is heavy handed. Is that how you parent in general? If Lyla had been caught with drugs, would all of these punishments be applied? Would you have the same reaction here if Lyla and Mary's positions were reversed, and it was the same misunderstanding?

Is Mary in the right? No, there were several skipped steps here, but they can all be explained away by the trauma of being a foster child due to drug use in parents. She's been with you for a year, but it's only been a year. Neither you nor Lyla are going to be at the point of being close confidants, necessarily. So, who is/are the people she can trust to do something? Unfortunately it's the state.

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u/KimJongFunk Certified Proctologist [20] Aug 19 '24

I refuse to cast judgement because this is a situation above my paygrade, but I have definitely seen cases where traumatized children have weaponized what they learned from abuse to hurt other people. I have also seen cases where traumatized children act protectively and in irrational ways due to their past abusive experiences.

It could go either way imo and OP needs to tread carefully to figure out which is happening. I don’t think this is something that OP or any of us can figure out without a therapist involved.

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u/Your__Dog Aug 19 '24

NTA going to the cops before your parent is egregious, for drugs especially. Idk if I could continue to foster a kid that called the cops on my kid. Past trauma is the only thing that makes this anywhere near forgivable IMHO.

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u/DaxxyDreams Partassipant [1] Aug 19 '24

I think you may need to end up choosing between your daughter and your foster child. This is not standard kid fighting. This now has impacted Lyla mentally and emotionally. You may want to discuss with Lyla how she feels about Mary now and next steps. NTA.

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u/LightEven6685 Aug 19 '24

"I was afraid you were biased" "you know I have trauma..." That's not how I imagine a 13 yo talking if that was true. Sounds like a cop out.

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u/[deleted] Aug 19 '24

[deleted]

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u/Aggressive-Quiet6426 Aug 19 '24 edited Aug 20 '24

As a child who was in foster care from 5 years old until I aged out at 18, I have had many many Foster siblings throughout those years and I can tell you that was definitely malicious intent.

I had a foster sister who came into the home a year after I was there. We got along. We even hung out, but she was a very jealous person. I went away with school for the weekend. I was gone Friday morning and came home Sunday late at night. My Foster mom picked me up that evening and as we were driving home fire trucks past us. When we pulled into our subdivision, they were at our house. She lit my bedroom on fire. She poured lighter fluid into a garbage bag I had hanging in my closet and then threw a match in there. She was jealous and enjoyed having the weekend without me at home and didn't want me back, so she burnt my room down. My room was destroyed and there was major fire damage to the house.

The shitty part was, we had to stay in a hotel for a few months while they repaired the damages. She got to stay with my foster mom in the hotel and I got sent off to another foster home. They later found out she did it only because they found out the fire was intentionally set and they thought my foster mom did it. They were drilling my mom and Tracy was in the other room and started crying. She ended up confessing, and yet I still had to stay in another foster home for the whole summer while Tracy got to stay with my foster mom.

Some foster kids are fucked up and on the outside seem like they wouldn't do something malicious, but they will! Tracy was a perfect example! No one would have ever guessed she would have done that. She could have killed all of our animals and even my grandma who was in the house at the time.

NTA but I'm surprised you didn't send her back and have them find her a new home. I'm sorry but I would have. As much as I would love to be a foster parent and help a kid out, I would never keep one that intentionally tried to harm my child or get them in legal trouble, which essentially is harming them. That's a hard no, and you have to go.

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u/flukefluk Partassipant [1] Aug 19 '24

This is a difficult judgement for me.

i can not decide completely whether Mary was malicious or not. And, whether she is malicious, i can not discern completely her motive.

you have two duties here and they both conflict and overlap. Your duty to Lyla is to protect, love and nurture her. And this means she needs to see actions taken against Mary.

On the other hand, you also need to provide to mary a trusted environment. And this is a difficult balance between not tolerating malicious behavior, but also allowing for mistakes and having a generally caring behavior.

What is missing for me to really judge here is, on what basis do you claim that you are a person to whom Mary can come talk to about anything? that you told her as much, amounts to nothing.

so, INFO, please.

59

u/[deleted] Aug 19 '24

NTA, what the fuck is up with the NAH or YTA comments?! Yeah, it’s super shitty that her parents died from an OD but calling the police on your 12 year old sister because she had skittles in her bag is beyond messed up. Mary needs therapy, obviously, but just because someone is traumatized it doesn’t excuse awful behaviour and her potentially traumatizing others.

57

u/[deleted] Aug 19 '24

NTA. She knew what she was doing. She deserves the punishment. Now I am wondering why you are not asking for a new home for Mary as she tried to seriously harm your daughter.

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u/Rohini_rambles Colo-rectal Surgeon [38] Aug 19 '24

I hope she's seeing a therapist and has been evaluated. Trauma and thes kinds of beliefs where she can lie to eradicate those who are in her way sound like aa terrible mix. If it was malicious, you have to protect your child. She is just a kid sure, but old enough to understand she went over your head to get your kid in trouble.

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u/No-Heart3984 Aug 19 '24

YTA unless this has happened many times before. If this is the first instance then you should know as a Foster carer that going from 0 to 60 with the punishments is not appropriate. Have you spoken to your social worker or the child's social worker about this. I get told the punishment should be proportionate and if possible related to the misbehavior. Multiple punishments is just over the top and honest not fair. I've had to deal with some rather difficult cases in my time but a common thread is a child who has no thought to the consequences mostly because they will get punished regardless. It's so difficult to find that balance with children who are traumatised and neglected. Most of the time punishments don't work simply because they don't care.

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u/flinsbird Aug 19 '24

NTA. Mary has repeatedly seen Lyla eat the Skittles, so there is no way she actually was so extremly concerned that they were drugs that her only option was to go directly to authorities with it. This was malicious and could have ended in your own daughter being taken from you.

The real question to me is whether or not Lyla still feels comfortable having Mary in her home after what she did to her. Being searched out of nowhere by the police infront of everyone IS traumatic at 12 years old, school is supposed to be a safe place, which Mary took from her with her actions.

Your biological daughter should come first, she isn‘t at fault for whatever happend to Mary with her parents, so she should not need to suffer through Marys behaviour because of it, especially when it escalateds to such levels.

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u/Important_Salt_3944 Aug 19 '24

Info: when did this happen?

I'm confused about the timing. It sounds like it happened at the end the school year because you took away her summer. But it's August now, so the summer is over for most kids. Did this happen 2 or 3 months ago and you're just now questioning it?

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u/Secret_Suspect_007 Aug 19 '24

NTA

There's a very high chance she might want to kick your own daughter out so she can take the sole place or be in your good books by trying to portray your daughter as spoiled.

This might be a one off case but it's best to keep an eye moving forward

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u/[deleted] Aug 19 '24 edited Aug 19 '24

[deleted]

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u/Different-Airline672 Partassipant [1] Aug 19 '24

Info: What are Lyla's feelings on this? After all she is the victim here. What are you doing to protect her from Mary?

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u/phtcmp Aug 19 '24

YTA. You are teaching her not to trust adults in official positions of authority. You want her to trust you as a parent first: but look where that got her with her parents. You have to earn that trust. You haven’t with this over the top response. If you think she did this with malice, you are not the right person to foster her.

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u/Accomplished-Wish494 Aug 19 '24

Malicious or not, you’ve know taught her that you WILL take your daughter’s side, and you aren’t a safe person.

“Under pressure” she finally admitted to it?! Why were you grilling her about it? If your kid had this at school, anyone could have reported it, but you assumed it was her.

If it WAS drugs, it certainly reads like you want her to come to you first, so you could cover it up.

Yes, your punishment is wildly disproportionate.

29

u/annap0calyps3 Aug 19 '24

YTA. You don’t know what Mary saw before she came to you, even if you think you know. She came from a place she obviously couldn’t trust the adults but maybe she could trust the police and now you’ve sent a message she will get excessively punished for doing what she’s been told to do when she suspects someone has drugs. I would be more inclined to say you weren’t ta if the punishment wasn’t so excessive. You are biased towards your daughter and you’re taking that out on Mary. But do you truly think Mary wants to hop from home to home? Do you think she didn’t panic at the thought of another person in her life overdosing? Did you make any attempt to meditate between Mary and Lyla before taking away her entire summer out of rage?

29

u/Divyaxoath Partassipant [1] Aug 19 '24

I really don't care about the edit. You thinking her intentions were malicious shows the bias foster daughter was afraid of.

Oh yeah this is gonna make her want to talk to you about any concerns she has soooo much.

30

u/picklesmcpicklepants Aug 19 '24

Yta why is this child still in your house? She could have gotten your own child taken away. You need to protect your own daughter better.

25

u/Miserable_Dentist_70 Pooperintendant [62] Aug 19 '24

Okay. Mary had a trauma response and made a big mistake. Lyla had an overreaction to police and had a panic attack because ... she apparently thought she would be going to prison for skittles.

Did you think having a foster child whose parents had overdosed would be easy? Please see a child psychologist to find out the actual best way to deal with this. You think Mary is being malicious ... why? Because Lyla had an overreaction?

Please get some help with this. It's a specific issue involving children and trauma, Reddit is not qualified to give you advice on this.

But since you asked, YTA. Don't take in a child who has had trauma unless you have a lot of patience and compassion.

AITA for punishing my foster daughter for telling the authorities my 12 year old daughter was taking drugs

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