Am I paranoid? My daughter just sent a thoughtful sweet text

Ok I got it - just found out this was an experiment for one of her classes.

The teacher had the students text their parents to see what their responses would be.

so your instincts were good...

Yes at first I just texted her back and said that's sweet love you too

And then I thought about it - that doesn't sound like her. Yeah I can see her saying love you miss you --- but appreciate what you have done for me? Not that I don't think she does - but like young people her age she is self absorbed. So to say it in such a well-thought out way out of blue --- sounded well scary to me.

She is over a 10 hour drive away and I am thinking what the heck happened over night? So I just said is everything good?

That is when she responded and said it was an experiment.

Most answered like me - but some said things like - wait who are you and what have you done with my child.." still others called right away because they thought something was wrong.

I am so laughing at all this. Thanks linkat.

Yeah, I’d have asked if this was her drunk texting. I love you man.

I love the parent who asked who are you and what have you done with my daughter.

I worked for years with this woman who would ask her daughter “When is the mother ship coming to pick you up?”

An unsuspecting guinea pig in an experiment. It reminds me of the people inadvertently caught up in What Would You Do?

I don't know if this "experiment" is ethical. When I taught science in high school, we had to get all experimentation on other humans approved... we could do surveys, but everything had to involve transparency and consent.

These are college students so they are adults I doubt that applies since they are of age of consent.

It wasn't anything serious and the students answered the parents right away afterwards - it must have been funny in the class when all the phones started ringing of scared parents.

the only parents perhaps upset were helicopter parents - and a good shake up for them should only help them out.

You misunderstood. You were the subject of the experiment (not your daughter). You weren't aware of the experiment and were unable to give consent.

I suspect that this exercise does violate ethical standards. The professor might get in trouble for this exercise... if someone made a fuss about it. It is probably too minor for anyone to say anything. But it technically does break the rules as I understood them when I was teaching science.

I had training in research ethics when I was becoming a science teacher. The rules were pretty clear. We had to get a student's science fair project reviewed any time their research involved humans in any way (even a survey) or vertebrates of any kind.

I use to train sappers in explosives uses and mfr and doing demo of foundations and we were always being coached by the psyych ops people to keep eyes on the candidates who were having a sudden personality "shift" to exhuberance and kindness wishes to staff and to get back to the psychologists about such shifts .
This often meant there was a possibility that the soldier was on the brink of doing something (like commiting suicide).

I always had kicked myself for dumping much of that experience when about 12 years ago, an employee of mine blew his brains out on a weekend evening a day after hed called me and several other of my partners about how really happy he was to work with my company and the skills that weve provided . I missed the signs totally and am bothered by not having jumped in to help him. Maybe , had I had my head on correctly, hed still be alive.


I can see that parental intuition is still one of the tools we have with our kids when we try our asses off to keep em safe. I noticed that no one in your responses had used that word suicide but damn it Ill bet we were all thinking it.
talk about a sigh of relief, Ill bet you had a nice tall glass of something more powerful than root beer when you found out about it and the study program that this instructor had planned fro the kids.

I think Id have gone in , after all the semester grades were in and I was sure my kid wasnt gonna major in whatever he was pushing, Id have a nice hart to hart about what an asshole he was. We too had "rules of involvement" for my undergrad students.
Maybe Im way off track here and I could be considered a hovercraft parent, but I really dont care. Because when somebody is messing with the heads of my pack members , theyre messing with me too.

BTW, NO you werent paranoid. You were being a parent.

Last night I was talking to a friend whose co-worker hung herself last weekend.

The thing everyone was saying was how happy she had seemed in the week before.

Oddly enough, I happen to be reading a novel right now that deals with just that. Obviously not a comprehensive or professional answer, but it seems to have something to do with the person finding some kind of relief with having made the decision, and can, in some way, find pleasure in doing things because they no longer feel the pressure.

Something I kept wondering about was that she hung herself, something women rarely do. It apparantly is the most common method for men though.
I cannot imagine doing it by hanging. A dreadful way to go. Unless I tied a rope around myself and jumped from a height, breaking my neck. Don't understand why hanging would be picked. Slow, painful and far from fool proof.

Im outta here , chai's gettin weird

Sorta livin the Austin motto eh?

I am not a helicopter parent by any means, but I think this was a really shitty thing for the teacher to do. If I was a parent of a child there who I knew was struggling and I got a message like that I would be panicking that they had done something. Then to find out it was just an experiment to see the parents reactions would make me absolutely furious.

The teacher has no right to play with people like that.

Hey man, you brought it up.

BTW, I friggin hate that motto, always have.

It's like "dude, we're like so cool and weird and like everything, you know?"
Nope. We all decided at some point to start taking baths and get actual jobs.

Hey, Austin's up there with the rest of the big tech centers as population magnets.

I always wondered about how long the "making it weird" (or whatever the hell it is) , will last until someone with money pays for a motto change.

My town's motto is "Dont smash the horse ****"

"Where tomorrow begins". Nobody has used that one.

Of course that is exactly what I was thinking.

Because though it was this particular daughter - it didn't immediately pop into my head. It kind of sat there like this is not exactly like her and with her so far away thoughts starting to float in my head - like is there someone I can call close by to check on her.

And then my more cerebral part popped in...the thinking part. Knowing her very well -- knowing she would say sweet things just this was a bit odd in the timing.

So I texted her back just to ask. And then she let me know immediately.

The "experiment" was set up so that the kids would immediately let the parents know once they heard back that it was an experiment.

I am sorry what happened to you. I have in the past six months taken a suicide prevention class that was offered at work.

In part because if it was my other daughter - I would have called and maybe even called someone at the school to physically go over and check on her. And then been on a plane.

So yeah I guess I can see the other side because it would truly end up being the individual child how I would have taken this.

That was one of the things mentioned in this class I attended. There is a list of things - but I think one thing is the "shift". In any case - if you suspect anything you simply go to the person and ask.

I actually did this with my daughter (not the one that texted me in college) but my other daughter.

I believe, if I understood this right, the teacher did say if this would cause a parent to "freak out" too much then those students should not send this. But on the flip side you are suggesting that some 20 somethings make this decision.

I guess this was the teacher's "out" if a parent complained about it.

I think the teacher had better look at its contract. I went back and looked at sveral of our handbooks for all sorts of things including "Stylistic wriiting approved by the University" (Its based on several journals article submission requirements). I referred to a rules of involvement by others .