13 yr. old told younger brother to...

amother

Thu, Jan 02 2014, 6:49 am

Hi op,
I want to tell you that I am a social worker in the Revacha and I can tell you firsthand that the revacha is there to help you too.
Our job is to protect children- we want to give them the help that is good for them- and you sound like a normative, caring parent who is worried about your son. We will support you as you try to figure out what happened and what your son needs. There are parents out there who harm their children, and the revacha must take measures to protect the kids, but in a case like yours it sounds like the revacha will have a lot to help you.

amother

Thu, Jan 02 2014, 8:08 am

amother wrote:

I am not the OP. I am the amother who warned OP about revacha.

You may be very nice and helpful but what are the chances that OP will wind up with you? You will just to take my anonymous word for it that I am also a normative parent who suffered without reason at the hands of revacha - and I'm not the only Imamother with this experience.

Caveat Emptor.

Kol Hadassa

Thu, Jan 02 2014, 8:19 am

I can only tell you my experience. Everyone in Israel is a mandatory reporter. Your neighbour, your friend, even you. This is not a bad thing. From everything you have said your son has not done anything. The family that I helped (reported through magen to revacha) did not have their child removed. They did get therapy and support. If magen or the organisation they referred you too can help you meet with revacha they can also help calm things down. I can't imagine how awful this is but it is worth getting the help.

frumommy

Thu, Jan 02 2014, 7:42 pm

Hello, dear. I'm back again.

Stop freaking out. Tell your husband to stop also.
Your son hasn't actually DONE anything. There is no "crime" committed and there is no thought police. Social services can not take your child away for doing NOTHING. Move forward.

First and foremost:
Did you calmly ask your older son where he got this idea and did you get answers? That is #1!!!

This is so crazy hard for you to deal with without being able to tell anyone in your family and then to have your husband yelling at and blaming you is AWFUL. I'm so sorry you have to deal with this. But -- you do have to deal with it. You know how it is when one of your kids has injured themselves and there's blood everywhere and it looks so frightening that you could scream and panic....but you don't. You steel yourself and remain calm for your child, you do what you have to do to take care of them but you don't allow them to see your fear.

This is NO different. You can't be too frightened to deal with this. You wouldn't allow a child who was gushing blood from a head-wound or other terrible injury to just....get better. You wouldn't say "this is too scary; I can't deal with this". So you must get help to fix this. You can not do it alone.

I don't personally know about the organizations that others have mentioned, but I would follow that lead and not fear about social services. The resource that I can think of is Jewish Community Watch (jewishcommunitywatch.org) who, unfortunately, deal with this subject and have professionals on staff who can direct you to local help and guide you, address your fears. Their SOVRI Helpline sounds like exactly what you need. You don't have to worry how to phrase anything. Just tell them exactly what happened (they've, unfortunately, heard much much worse).
I am copying and pasting what their site says under the "get help" option:

The SOVRI Helpline is an anonymous and confidential helpline staffed by trained volunteers who provide help, information, support, and referrals to survivors of s-xual abuse. We don’t have caller ID. Our volunteers are trained to understand the dynamics of s-xual abuse. They also have training in listening and counseling skills, emergency department protocol, legal protocol, post-traumatic stress disorder, domestic abuse, childhood s-xual abuse and incest, and recommending appropriate resources. Our volunteers are supervised by licensed social workers with extensive experience in dealing with these issues. SOVRI Helpline is under the auspices of Beth Israel Medical Center in Manhattan.

The helpline is open Monday-Thursday 9:30am-5:30pm and Friday 9:30am-1:30pm. The phone number is (212)844-1495.

-Shalom Task Force Hotline provides information on rabbinic, legal and counseling services for victims of abuse in the Jewish community. (888)883-2323.
-Faith Trust Institute is a clearinghouse for information on domestic violence and clergy abuse in the Jewish community. Faithtrustinstitute.org.
-Association of Jewish Family and Children Services (AJFCA).(800)634-7346. ajfca@ajfca.org

I hope this helps. My heart aches for you and what you're going through. Be strong, mommy. You can do what has to be done. You will ALL be alright when you do. Please let us know how it goes?

I send you a big virtual wrap-around ((((hug)))) and a shoulder to rest your poor aching head on.

frumommy

Thu, Jan 02 2014, 7:53 pm

P.S.
One last note.
I'm really sorry to say this.
It's really reaaaaallllly unlikely and I don't know your family dynamic at all, but I'm afraid that your husband's yelling might cause you to second-guess yourself about doing the right thing.

I'm sure it's not so in your case, BUT....sometimes when a spouse shows more concern about "getting in trouble" or "ruining the whole family" by contacting the proper sources for help than they show concern for the well-being of their child, you have to wonder. It has happened too many times that a parent is the original abuser, the place where the child has learned the behavior causing the concern.

Like I said, most likely not. But if he protests too strenuously about getting help: wonder.
Get the help. Do it.
Heart

ElTam

Fri, Jan 03 2014, 12:14 am

I am davening for your family that everything should be okay. Please tell your husband that he is not helping with his screaming and to remember "al tiftach peh l'satan."

It also seems to me that from the view of social services, you are a mother who called for help at the first sign of trouble. A mother who wants help for her son. Unless social services works completely differently in Israel than it does in the U.S., you are the last kind of family that would have a child removed from their home. It would be a very different situation if social services was called in because your younger son told at school or to another adult that thus and such had been happening to him at home and that he had told his mother and she didn't help.

zissy2004

Fri, Jan 03 2014, 3:43 am

Op? What's happening? You haven't updated in a while?

amother

Wed, Jan 08 2014, 4:38 pm

op here.

to the amother who went thru something similar with her son, I created a new email address, please write me at:
apples.toapples@yahoo.com

also, if there are any other mothers out there who have been thru something like this, and don't feel comfortable discussing it here, please be in touch with me... I really need chizuk!!!
I'm so depressed from this story Sad

Success10

Wed, Jan 08 2014, 4:45 pm

Any updates you'd be able to share with us? Hugs to you, this too shall pass...