Question of the week!

[northernwalker]

You and your spouse are at home and have just collected the mail from your box. In it is a package addressed to your sixteen-year-old, who is out at band practice. It has hazmat stickers on it. You can think of no reason why your child should be receiving this, so you decide to open it and risk the ten years in prison for tampering with the mail. Inside is 10 pounds of ammonium nitrate which was purchased on Ebay. Warning bells go off in your head, and a quick google search tells you it's used in improvised explosive devices. Your child doesn't have any legitimate need for this. Do you:

A) Call the cops immediately?
B) Talk it over with your spouse?
C) Call the hospital and take the kid in to see a shrink?
D) Got to school, collect child and talk?
E) Make a panicked post to an LJ parenting community?

The broader question could be, at what point would you call the police and turn in a family member.

Comments

[zhukora1.livejournal.com]

I have perhaps a bit of a skewed perspective on this, because my SO is a rocket scientist (yes, really), so he gets packages of weird chemicals in the mail ALL THE TIME.

So I probably wouldn't flip out, but rather put the box in a safe place where the kid can't find it, and wait until Junior got home from school, and ask him about it. If he could come up with a not-sketchy explanation for it, I wouldn't call the police, though the kid would probably not be getting the box back either. If there were other corroborating signs, like severely antisocial behavior, violent tendencies, writings or drawings depicting violent acts, I would call a psychiatrist. Since the kid would not have technically done anything wrong, I would be reticent to call the police unless on the advice of the psychiatrist. I would absolutely start watching the kid like a hawk though, and maybe have chemical-savvy papi give him a severe talking-to.

As to the broader question--I'd call the police on a family member if I had strong probable cause that they had done something very illegal. I'm not sure how I feel about involving the cops as a preventative measure except in extreme cases.

Great question though, I'm interested in seeing what other people have to say. :D

[northernwalker]

I brought this up to a collegue after an article last week about this scenario. He's into amateur rocketry, so it's not impossible to him that theoretical kid could have legitimate reasons for buying it. However, the details that came out made it pretty clear that he was planning to do in the school.

As to the broader question--I'd call the police on a family member if I had strong probable cause that they had done something very illegal. I'm not sure how I feel about involving the cops as a preventative measure except in extreme cases.

If I had good reason to believe that a family member had committed a violent crime (rape/murder/Ted Kaczynski) I'd call it in.

[zhukora1.livejournal.com]

Out of curiosity, was this the kid who posted a bunch of threats on the wikipedia page for his school, and claimed he wanted to go to heaven and kill jesus?