At work the other day, I got a phone call from my DD, who was at school, asking if her friend can come and stay at our place for a few days, as her friend is to scared to go home...
I was a bit flustered as to what I should say, not knowing exactly what had happened. So I told DD, her friend can come over, but her parents have to know where she is and we would have a talk when I got home. So her friend sent a note home to her mum with her brother.
Anyway I get home, and ask the girl (whom I've never met before) what the problem is. She tells me, that a lock went missing from her cousins, she took it and put it on her locker, which she has told her mum. This weekend a something else went missing and her mum is accusing her of taking it, but she didn't take it. Her mum told her she had to give the lock back to her cousin, which she now can't do, as the janitor at school had to cut through it for what ever reason. Now her mum will be mad at her because the lock has been destroyed..
To me this just didn't seem like such a major problem, so I said how about you call your mum and explain it all, she said she can't, because her mum will just yell. All she wants to do is call her dad, as he will be able to calm her mum down. So I say fine lets call your dad, she doesn't have his number, it's a mobile and not listed. Next she is telling me she would like to go to her dads place, so I ask where does he live, she tells me the suburb, somewhere on the other side of Melbourne, but doesn't know his address, but if she gets a train to the city and asks there which connection will take her there, she should be able to find his place.
I just said NO WAY, you don't know his address, you don't know the train line, you have no phone number, anything could happen.
So after lots of talking and telling her that by not going home she has probably made the situation much worse etc. I finally get to call the mum, who understandably is not happy. I told her that I would bring her daughter home shortly, that her daughter was upset about something and wanted to talk to her dad. The mum tells me she has a restraining order against the dad.... Good thing i didn't let the girl go there...
Anyway, I finally take the girl home, her and mum walk into the house quite nicely. I drove away very slowly just in case there was screaming or hitting, but all seemed calm.
Just wandered if you would have handled this differently...