This is awful to hear, and makes me want to strangle the school counselor even from sitting here in another country. It is one thing for such a girl to suffer in silence and have never asked for help; it is worse for her to have asked for help and to have been ignored like this. It could make her doubt herself, feel ten times more lonely, and it could make her scared to ask for any help from anyone ever again.
This is not a little drama queen who cuts herself because that is the thing to do in her circle of airhead emo friends; this is a girl who has lost her mother, can’t talk to anyone at home, doesn’t even have a home that feels like one, and is harassed on a daily basis by her younger sister. If I were you, I’d call the school councelor and tell him all of this and demand he/she DO something.
Edited to add: great to hear you might get help from Jim’s sister. In all to many of these cases, no-one butts in for fear of…butting in. If the situation for these girls gets better, they wil realize later in life that they have your wife and you to thank for taking the initiative.
I am with astro–I am really not seeing the abuse. When you say the house is filthy, are we talking bottles of urine all over the living room, rats that don’t scatter when you turn on the lights, maggoty garbage strewn all over the kitchen, or are we talking trash all over the place, never vacuuming, gross bathrooms, girls wearing clothes 4 or 5 times before they get washed? Because while the former would be cause for concern, the latter is really how a lot of America lives, and is far from abuse.
Nor do I see limiting contact with their sisters as abuse. It’s odd. I don’t like it. But it’s not in and of itself abusive. As far as dealing with the academic and social problems, lots of good parents have kids with those problems. It’s really hard to say what he could be doing differently if you aren’t there.
Being “on-notice” with the state won’t change any of those things, and if he feels pissed off at you, he will cut off contact completely and the state won’t deny him his right to do that.
It seems to me that your best bet is to make nice with him and try to open as many lines of communication as possible: invite the girls to come stay with you all each summer, spring break, etc. Swallow your own discomfort and spend Thanksgiving or Christmas with them. Give the girls a computer and internet access so that you can email them, or give them each a cell phone for Christmas and pay the bill. You don’t have to do all these things, but the more of them you do the more you will retain influence over them, and at this point, that’s all you can hope for–to serve as reminders that their father’s lifestyle isn’t normal, and that their mother had different values.
This doesn’t surprise me at all, but please don’t write off the school as an ally because of it. Sometimes they take adults more seriously, even though they should know better; sometimes people other than the counsellors have a role to play. Like any behemoth, it is slow to move but powerful when roused.
Brilliant. I’d give some thought beforehand about an “excuse” for calling/emailing the kids. If dad is opposed to contact, the kids are likely to feel torn in their loyalty, and besides, kids are lousy in taking the initiatieve for contact anyway. So you might need some innocuous sounding excuse to initiate regular contact with them. A shared hobby, perhaps, or a shared project.
Do you know any of her former co-workers? A phone call saying, “We’re worried about Betty’s daughters, but we don’t really know the system up there. One of them is cutting herself, but the school counselor doesn’t seem interested in helping, and Jim doesn’t seem that concerned, either. Is there any way we can help her get more help?” might get someone on the “inside” at DSS interested in looking at the case. If they worked with the girls’ mother for 25 years, they’re going to feel more connection to the girls’ plight. Even if it’s just to make a social call on their own time, it might help get things rolling.
Self injury and being isolated from other loved ones are major red flags to abuse: the school counselors, child protective services, and the police should be notified.