Triggered by one of my kids telling her brother not to tell us something

[treehugger]

I'm trying to parse how much of my feelings are an over reaction because of my own trauma and what are proportional in this situation.

My oldest child has struggled with honesty to us over weird tiny things forever. Things she's never been in trouble for but often things we do ask her to not do. She's 22 next week and mostly in college so we try to let her mostly make her own choices. As an example, we have asked her not to have drugs in our home. Including thc, as it could put both parents jobs at risk. She still gets high in her room.

Then yesterday she took our youngest, just turned 11, to play tennis at a park nearby. But instead of tennis she called an uber and took him downtown and told him not to tell us.

Anyone telling a young kid to hide things from other adults is such a huge red flag to me. I'm very upset, to the point that I'm worried about this being a step towards grooming even tho even with all her other behaviors I have no reason to think this. I am really trying to not permanently put barriers in place to them spending time together based on this one thing. But I know with my abuse a lot of it was a person that did this at first- made special things happen for me and told me not to tell.

I worry that this isn't a one off thing, that it's more. That I'm not protecting him.

I don't know how to navigate this. The older child here will absolutely refuse to be truthful so there's not any way to converse about it openly. All I said so far was that I would really appreciate knowing where they were in case anything were to happen. Am I crazy to just plan to never let them be alone in the future? She's not typically very interested in doing things with her siblings anyway.

[NarcKiddo]

That's difficult - but with an 11 year old this is a safeguarding issue. Is he honest with you? I am guessing so, since you found out about this. I don't have kids but in your situation I would be encouraging him to be honest with you so that you know what is going on. But making sure he has no bad consequences for "telling" on his sister. Which may mean you knowing what has gone on and not then raising the issue with your older child but rather changing your approach. Not allowing them to be alone is an option that does not seem unreasonable given what has happened here. Could the younger child perhaps have a phone with tracking switched on, so you are at least always able to locate him? It seems to me that you need to find a way that he willingly does not keep secrets from you even if asked to. It's not a bad thing in principle for siblings to be able to have small secrets from their parents as it can be a bonding thing - but I am thinking here about minor stuff like buying bubblegum when not permitted. Not taking an uber into town.

I think the grooming fear may be arising more from your own history, from what you have said here. It sounds like she just wants to do her own thing regardless of what you say. Maybe she thinks she looks good in your eyes for taking the youngest out, supposedly to play tennis, but in reality she just wanted an outing and for some reason thought he would be a good avenue for doing that. However someone who will bring drugs into your home despite your extremely good reason for denying it is clearly somewhat self-absorbed right now.

That's my take on it - but I have not had to navigate bringing up children so it may not be all that helpful. I am sorry you are triggered by this and can totally understand why. It's tough to think things through rationally when we are triggered so be gentle with yourself and take time to consider how you proceed.