How to help teenagers in a violent relationship?
I was forced into counseling by Child Protective Services when I was 16. I’m not sure that it helped at the time, but when things started to go downhill for me several years later I knew that therapy was an option. I knew how it worked, and I was ready to cooperate with it by that time. What I’m saying is that your foster child may resent you for pushing her into counseling now, but it doesn’t mean it would be wrong for you to do it. The key question may be this: Would she run away if she had to go to therapy? You say she would run away if you banned her girlfriend from the house, involved Child Protective Services, or involved the police. While going to therapy may eventually be best for her, you don’t want her to end up on the streets. You also say that intellectually you know domestic violence is prevalent. That may be true, but it (obviously) doesn’t make it okay. As a witness, and a foster parent, you are probably being traumatized in this situation every bit as much as the girl w
There is as much left out of this question, as given. And much that is left out may be predictive, which may go most directly to answering the fundamental question asked, which in my mind is “I am particularly trying to figure out when/if calling the police is appropriate.” If there is any suspicion, or definite indication that any of this violence is gang related, act. If there are weapons in the possession of either teenager, or specific verbal threats of weapons use, no matter how credible they may seem on the face, act. If there are specific verbal threats of time and place where violence will occur, or of actions or thresholds that will result in “retaliatory” violence or punishment, act. These are all serious thresholds in adolescent behavior, and any time to react that you get from such warnings will typically be measured in hours, not days. In the larger sense, if you cannot verbally prohibit actions by these teenagers, and be obeyed, to a significant degree, you are not in con
Tell your foster kid that there’s a meeting you need to go to that is part of your ongoing training in foster parent resources, and that you’re not looking forward to it, and ask if she’ll go with you to keep you company, and that you’ll take her out to dinner beforehand to thank her. Find an open support group for battered women and domestic abusers (GLBT, if possible) where people talk about their experiences. Take her there after dinner. This will work best if you are completely nonconfrontational about the allusion to her problems. Let her put it together. Afterward if she is angry, you can let her know honestly, as you have here, that you are concerned, that you don’t know how involved to get, and you are scared of what patterns of violence lead to in relationships, and that you hope she will help you figure out whatthe right plan of action is. And she may feel tricked that you took her there, but it’s important to impress upon her that you weren’t deceitful– learning about these
