Another parenting question...sort of. [View All]

[Xithras]

As a parent, I'm torn on this one. You guys have always been great with parenting questions in the past, so I thought I'd throw this one out there.

One of my closest and oldest friends has a 15 year old son who is TROUBLE personified. He's been thrown out of two schools, he was once arrested for arson (charges dropped when his dad called in a few favors), was recently arrested and sentenced to probation for stealing two laptops from his current school, is contantly getting into fights (including several incidents where he allegedly slapped girlfriends around), and was arrested (but never charged) over an accusation last year that he attempted to date-rape a girlfriend (the girl stopped cooperating with police after making the initial accusation). I do let him into my home because he's my friends kid, but I keep a close eye on him and don't ever leave him unattended.

My daughter has a 14 year old friend who is very sweet, but extremely naive and who, according to my daughter, has never had a boyfriend. She's been very sheltered by her fundie mom and doesn't have many friends aside from my daughter.

I had a party at my house on the Fourth, and my friend brought his son over, where he met my daughters friend (in case you're wondering, my daughter can't stand him). You can probably guess what happened next. The two were inseperable at the party, apparently texted each other all day Sunday (again, info from my daughter), and he snuck over to her house Monday night where they apparently kissed for the first time. It was her first kiss.

The idea of this progressing further horrifies me. As far as I'm concerned, the kid is a troublemaking predator, and the thought of him preying on this naive girl isn't sitting well. My daughter already tried to warn her friend off, but was ignored...the girl is apparently "in love" and doesn't want to hear anything negative about him. I called my friend and suggested that he nip it in the bud, but he just laughed it off and said that he hoped she'd rub off on him since she was such a good kid. When I told my wife that I wanted to call HER parents, she was horrified and told me that it would just backfire anyway. She thinks I should just stay out of it and let it run its course (since the girls family is protective, it's hard to imagine that they'd have much alone time).

I'm not so willing to listen to my wife in this instance, but I wanted to get a few more opinions before I start an argument. Would YOU get involved?