I rejected a student’s advances, but his parents are mad at me

by Alison Green on March 10, 2025

A reader writes:

I’m a volunteer for an after-school program for high schoolers interested in my profession (similar to, say, a robotics team). I’m a woman in my mid-20s, and one of the kids is a 16-year-old boy we’ll call Marvin. Marvin is a very bright and hardworking kid who excels academically (AP classes, honor society) and works at a fast food place. He is also what some would call a “nerdy outcast” and only has a few acquaintances his own age. He gets along much better with teachers than other students, and I’m no exception. I was exactly like him when I was his age and remembered the deep relationships I had with my teachers, so I’ve steadily become his de facto mentor. We talk about club-related things, but he also vents to me about his troubles and info-dumps about his hobbies and interests (some of which I share).

When I arrived home one day, I opened my bag to find a box and a red envelope. Unfortunately, Marvin had left me a Hallmark card with a long-winded confession of feelings for me, and in the box was a ring with a diamond look-alike. The next time I saw him, I pulled him aside out of view from the others, and I gently told him that while I was flattered, as an adult, it wouldn’t be appropriate for me to be his girlfriend, although I’m very grateful to have him as a student. I asked how much he paid for the ring, and he said that he had bought it at a pawn shop for $500 with his own money from his job. I told him that someday, there would be a woman his own age who would appreciate the thought, but that he should return it. I gave him back the ring and the card, and although he was clearly sullen, he gave me a quiet “sorry” and returned to work with the others.

A few days passed before the teacher who runs the volunteer group scheduled a meeting with me and Marvin’s parents. His parents had discovered the withdrawn $500 from Marvin’s checking account, and they had found the card and receipt from the pawn shop in his room. After questioning him, he confessed that he had given them to me and that I had rejected him. His parents went to the teacher to ask if he knew about this, and they scheduled the meeting to ask me. I confirmed to them exactly what had happened, and both the parents and teacher were mad that I didn’t tell them.

I said that I didn’t tell them because I trusted Marvin to take the rejection with grace since he was more mature than the other students, which I felt he did. I also said that I figured the rejection would be enough of a lesson for him, and that letting anyone else know about it would be needlessly humiliating, especially for a good kid like him. The $500 was confirmed to be his own money, too, so all the financial consequences were his own to deal with without extra judgment needed from others. The teacher and parents seemed to take issue with my response, and after the parents left, the teacher told me that he would have to schedule a separate meeting to discuss my standing as a volunteer.

I was completely taken aback by their responses and left speechless by the teacher’s mention of my standing. I never had an issue with the teacher before this. Marvin had admitted to his parents himself that I had rejected him, but the parents and teacher acted like this was something I had encouraged for nefarious reasons. Marvin is just an odd one out in the cruel Mad Max thunderdome that is high school, so anything social is scary. I was just trying to make it easier for him. This will probably turn into one of those embarrassing memories that keeps Marvin up at night in 10 years, so I didn’t want to rub salt on his wound. Did I do something wrong?

With the caveat that I don’t work in education and so am answering this as someone outside the field (but who has been licensed to work with teens): yes, I think you should have proactively reported what happened to the teacher who manages you as a volunteer, for your own protection.

Teenagers don’t always handle rejection with grace — hell, plenty of adults don’t handle rejection with grace — and as an adult trusted to work with kids, it’s important to make sure stuff like this is documented somewhere in case there’s any question later about what happened.

I do appreciate your desire to protect Marvin’s privacy and 100% believe you acted with the best of intentions … but again, adult / kid / rejection — there’s just too much risk for something to get misunderstood or told differently later. That might get more intuitive if you swap the genders and think about whether you’d tell an adult man to keep a student’s advances secret. Keeping it secret might feel respectful to the student, but there’s too much risk to that. (An example of that from your letter: “the parents and teacher acted like this was something I had encouraged for nefarious reasons.”)

The $500 is an added complication, because that’s a lot of money (for anyone, but especially for a teenager). You were right to tell him to return the ring, but the price is another factor raising the stakes and pushing the situation past something you should handle on your own.

Ideally you would have talked to the teacher who oversees you, shared what happened, explained your desire not to embarrass Marvin any further, and asked about policies or best practices for handling the situation. Not looping in the organization you’re working for is where you went wrong.

For what it’s worth, the organization you’re volunteering for is also to blame if they didn’t give you training that covered the sorts of things you should report and not attempt to handle on your own. Outside adults shouldn’t be thrown together with kids without some pretty intensive training about things that need to be reported and the limits of confidentiality, so the organization is also in the wrong for leaving you unprepared and then blaming you when you didn’t get it quite right.

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  1. Veryanon*

    Agree with this advice completely. It’s really about CYA, even though the volunteer didn’t solicit the attention and handled the rejection as kindly as possible. Too many opportunities for things to go horribly wrong.

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    1. Acey*

      I’m in higher ed and have worked with teens. In both situations, you always tell someone and document it to CYA. You don’t want to be accused of grooming the kid.

      Also in rare extreme cases, this can even be a sign of abuse at home, especially if the child is being more sexually provocative beyond what is expected for their age or their own personality. I wouldn’t expect a volunteer to know these signs, so I agree with Alison, that if they’re going to hold the volunteers responsible for knowing this, they really should’ve trained them.

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      1. Slow Gin Lizz*

        Yes, the org should definitely have trained their volunteers about what student behaviors need to be reported. I think I can see where OP thought they were doing Marvin a favor, and if you were one of Marvin’s peers then, sure, maybe it’d be a kindness to not report what he did to his parents or a teacher. And since you are closer in age to him than to his parents, I can see how the lines between mentor and 20-something volunteer working with a teenager can get blurred.

        I went through training to become a foster parent in my state and we were all told that we were mandated reporters; I honestly believe that anyone who works with kids should have this kind of training, even if it’s a volunteer position and not paid work. So, yeah, I agree the org fell short here, but what can you do now, OP? Tell the volunteer coordinator that you realize you slipped up and that going forward you will be sure to tell them about any odd behavior from your students. Make sure to ask them if they have guidelines about what behaviors should be reported (which, again, they really should have told you already). Mandated reporters are also, IIRC, told to never tell kids that they won’t tell anyone what the kid said or did, because of *course* you’ll have to tell people if they exhibit dangerous or concerning behavior. You should have at least had this kind of training before being allowed to work with kids, and the kids themselves should be made aware of this too.

        Side note: poor Marvin. I was a socially awkward, smart and academically strong kid myself and I really feel for him. I hope his parents don’t make him feel too badly about this; we all make mistakes.

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        1. JustaTech*

          Agree on the poor Marvin. I hope someone (his parents, another teacher) explains *why* everyone is taking this so seriously and the risks that adults could pose to him as a minor.
          The OP is a good and honest person who wouldn’t take advantage, but less scrupulous people would and have.

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          1. goddessoftransitory*

            Exactly. Marvin was extra lucky that the LW is a kind and caring person, and not someone with darker intentions.

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            1. ShanShan*

              And just to say the last part of this thought out loud, if someone doesn’t explain that to him, he will absolutely try this again.

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        2. Yet another Heather*

          “ Mandated reporters are also, IIRC, told to never tell kids that they won’t tell anyone what the kid said or did, because of *course* you’ll have to tell people if they exhibit dangerous or concerning behavior.”

          This x 1000! I’m a mandated reporter because of my job. I tell students (teenagers) I will always respect their privacy, but I sometimes may break confidentiality. And then we talk about what those words mean and the laws in my state about when I must break confidentiality (red state, so more exceptions than I would like). I also have those exceptions posted.

          My state also has a law that *all* adults are mandated reporters, but my experience is that the general public is unaware.

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          1. MigraineMonth*

            My county has started running trainings on what *not* to report. A lot of people seem to think CPS and/or the police are a gateway to social services. They aren’t. Reporting a family for being poor or homeless doesn’t help the family and wastes investigators’ time.

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        3. Heffalump*

          I was poor Marvin back in the day, but there was no one like the OP in my life. Maybe if there had been, I would have developed a crush on her.

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          1. MigraineMonth*

            Hopefully if you told her about the crush she would have turned you down and enforced appropriate boundaries, which may very well have meant no longer seeing you at all. That is far, far better than the other scenarios for this situation.

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        4. goddessoftransitory*

          “I think I can see where OP thought they were doing Marvin a favor, and if you were one of Marvin’s peers then, sure, maybe it’d be a kindness to not report what he did to his parents or a teacher.”

          I think you’ve got the core of the matter here–the LW is trying to see things from Marvin’s point of view, as is natural–she’s close to his age and relates to his struggles. Nobody wants to feel like they’re ratting out or embarrassing someone who simply misread a situation.

          But she’s not his peer; she’s in a position of authority, and can’t be otherwise. Even though she “gets” Marvin, his feelings can’t be her main, or only, concern.

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          1. Slow Gin Lizz*

            Right? The transition from student to adult is a tough one and can give someone whiplash if they’re not prepared for it.

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        5. BUMBLEBEE*

          I just had to do the mandatory reporting training to be a chaperone on a day-long field trip with middle schoolers. The OP should definitely have been assigned the training as a longer term volunteer, which would have enabled her to deal with this situation better.

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        6. LucyDouglass*

          I agree that OP needs to know mandatory reporting guidelines. I just want to clarify, though, that in this particular situation, mandatory reporting would not apply unless OP had some other reason to suspect abuse or neglect. Mandatory reporting also requires a report to CPS (or your state’s equivalent) and not just the supervisor or administrator. I am sure you know all this, I just don’t want anyone else reading to get the impression that OP broke the mandatory reporting law.

          This absolutely should have been reported to the supervising teacher and parents, though.

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      2. Loulie*

        I work in higher ed with (alleged) adults, where the rules are a bit different, but I volunteer with groups serving those under 18. One thing that hasn’t been alluded to (except here from what I can tell) is that some inappropriate behavior can signal abuse AND depending on your state laws, you may be a legally mandated reporter. This ups the requirement significantly from CYA and takes it into territory where if there were to be a negative outcome, you would have some legal liability. It is really shortsighted of the volunteer organization to not make that crystal clear.

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        1. Radioactive Cyborg Llama*

          You may know more than I do and/ or your state may be different but I don’t think reporting would be mandated for behavior that’s not clearly or strongly suggestive of abuse. Inappropriate expression of a crush on teacher does not seem like it would fit that standard. I definitely agree she should have talked to the coordinator but it’s hard to believe that is subject to mandatory reporting.

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          1. KJC*

            Agree. I have been a mandated reporter and have done tons of mandated reporter trainings. You tell a teacher when a student has a crush on you. But you’re not legally obligated to call CPS about such a thing. In fact, calling CPS would be wasting their investigator time. Mandated reporting is only about child abuse.

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            1. Slow Gin Lizz*

              Right. My point was more that you shouldn’t tell a kid that you won’t tell anyone else what you talked about, because if you are a mandated reporter you have to tell authorities about certain things if a kid tells them to you. I agree that this isn’t a situation that calls for mandatory reporting, but it still needed to be reported to the org’s head because it was rather concerning behavior on Marvin’s part.

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        2. Lydia*

          I worked with people between the ages of 16 and 24 and even then, everything was required to be reported, whether they were under or over 18 because every participant in the program could be considered vulnerable. I understand why the LW didn’t think to report it. If you’re not trained, you don’t automatically think of it, but weirdly enough, keeping other people aware of these situations is actually safer and kinder for the student than keeping it to yourself.

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          1. GreenDoor*

            “every participant in the program could be considered vulnerable”
            This. Just because a young person is academically mature does not mean they are mature in terms of human sexuality issues, including handling rejection or, in this case, appreciating the attempt of the rejecter to be kind and discreet. This could have ended in a horrible he said/she said and OP would be the loser just by virtue of being the adult.

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            1. ShanShan*

              I mean, or the opposite.

              We do, if course, have to worry about how Marvin will handle the rejection, but I feel like it’s a little gendered to worry about that but not the equally real possibility that some other, less moral teacher will take advantage of him if he keeps this up.

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        3. JSPA*

          Confessing feelings is very far from exhibiting signs of mistreatment; it’s also not sexual harassment. I’d expect the LW to have been trained on those topics. I would likewise expect a strong statement on not having or encouraging “outside” relationships with participants.

          But “how to reject a proposal, and what to report if that happens” is not really any of the above!

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        4. Fatigued Anon*

          Yeah, this is iffy depending on the location – I believe in my state it’s part of mandatory training, but I haven’t worked closely with kids since I was a teen. And then I was in a state where I had to be vetted as a volunteer, and was under supervision from an adult all the time. (I was a toddler herder. They’re very cute, but they’re like cats. My group was 2-3yo’s who loved to wander off and eat wood chips. But I was also not given training at that point as to what to report or watch for.)

          Volunteers often aren’t given this sort of training. Which is ridiculous. (I wish I’d been given this training. It should be mandatory, but the reality is that volunteers are usually not given guidance!)

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      3. ShanShan*

        Even if the kid isn’t being abused at home, what if the next adult woman he approaches this way DOESN’T say no?

        His parents and the school absolutely need to know about this: for his own protection, not just OP’s.

        This is the mistake people always make about gifted kids. Being academically advanced does not AT ALL translate into being able to handle adult emotional and interpersonal situations without guidance and protection.

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    2. ScruffyInternHerder*

      Yup, exactly this. I’m not in education, but I do volunteer my time with teenagers in my lifelong sport. I have to have annual training on this topic as a part of a broader topic of “protecting youth athletes from abuse”, and there is a not-short list of rules and an ethics code (both from our supervising body) that apply to me with respect to any interaction of mine with my athletes.

      Not informing the director of sport at our club, at a minimum, of something like this, would be me effectively resigning. Regardless of how it was handled with the student…it wasn’t handled correctly. This is a learning opportunity at least for the volunteer, and possibly the volunteer organization if their on-boarding of volunteers doesn’t have some form of formal training about this.

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      1. ScruffyInternHerder*

        *it wasn’t handled correctly in the bigger sense that the organization needed to be looped in, and the organization needed to make sure the parents were notified properly.

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        1. General von Klinkerhoffen*

          In this case the parents needed to be looped in, but that may not always be the case (that is, where a child needs to be safeguarded from their family). What’s important is that there more than one adult in the know and in particular at least one uninvolved adult.

          The language LW uses overlaps with the language used by those defending genuinely indefensible conduct (in particular “since he was more mature than the other students”). That will have sounded alarming even though LW was maintaining boundaries with the child.

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          1. ScruffyInternHerder*

            Concur, which is why notification is left up to the organization as they should be able to determine “does this child need to be safeguarded from their parents”.

            I had a similar gut-check about that exact statement as well. “…more mature than…” frequently seems to be used by those who’d do something intentionally wrong.

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          2. Dido*

            Yeah… the line about him being more mature than other students was a little concerning… especially since this incident has shown that he’s NOT more mature than other students, at least emotionally/socially. I’m sure the LW had the right intentions, but she seems to be letting her guard slip a bit and it’s important for a third party to be aware and ensure that appropriate boundaries are maintained

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          3. T.N.H*

            Yea that’s a very bizarre thing to say about a socially awkward 16 year old. I hope it’s something the OP only mentioned to Alison and not something she said to the parents.

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            1. PineappleColada*

              I agree, and that along with a few other things she wrote, gave me pause.

              She told him she was “flattered”…? Honestly, that feels like such a weird thing to say to him. Even saying something like “This is a very nice gesture, but I can’t accept it” feels much more appropriate to say. I can’t imagine telling a 16-year-old that I’m “flattered” by his romantic interest in me.

              Similarly, she said that the meeting confirmed that the $500 was “his own money”. Ummm….so what? It’s still an age where most parents are reviewing purchases, and definitely large ones. So the idea that she’s doubling down on saying it didn’t need to be flagged for the parents, just because it was his own money seemed very…off.

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              1. Goldfeesh*

                The “his own money” I think is just pointing out he didn’t steal it from his parents. He might have bad judgement because he’s young, but he’s not a thief.

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                1. PineappleColada*

                  That’s not the point I am making. The point I am making is that this goes along with the blurred boundaries/level of “maturity” she has ascribed to him, which feels icky to me (and some others).

                  She specifically writes: “all the financial consequences were his own to deal with without extra judgment needed from others.”

                  Uhh….no? Most parents would (rightfully) want to provide correction/guidance to a 16 year old who thinks buying a $500 wedding ring is a good idea.

                  But she wants to protect him from that correction (I mean, “extra judgment”) and just have him deal with the consequences on his own.

                  This is not appropriate. What if the pawn shop has a “no returns” policy, for one? It’s something that perhaps the parents could potentially intervene, and help their son get an exception to the policy. But if the son doesn’t know this, then he could be thinking, “Well I guess I just have to keep this $500 ring.”

                  So it’s bizarre that she thinks a 16-year old should avoid “judgment” from their parents.

          4. Bananapants*

            Yes I just left a comment re: the phrasing of this kid being “more mature than others.” I *think* this is truly a case of poor training and this person just identifying a bit too much with high schoolers since she’s still pretty young, but alarm bells were ringing for me when I read that. If I was a parent I would be really freaked out.

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            1. metadata minion*

              Yeah, that’s such a fine line. As a fellow awkward kid who got along better with grownups than other kids myself, I suspect that there are ways in which he’s more mature (or at least, more superficially adult-like) than his peers, some ways in which he’s just as mature, and some ways in which he needs to catch up.

              I, for example, was seen as very polite and responsible and…yes, sort of? But that wasn’t because of any great effort of willpower on my part; it was anxiety and a fairly classically autistic concern with Following the Rules (TM).

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              1. Nightengale*

                yes as an unrecognize autistic I was both more and less mature

                Adults were the people who shared some of my interests such as classical music, and who were more likely to know the vocabulary words I used. Also if a group was left alone in high school, I tended to be the one following the rules. We had the opportunity to volunteer with elementary students and I had spent a frustrating time with a group of first graders who were throwing erasers around instead of listening to me. Immediately afterwards, I returned to my 10th grade classroom where my classmates were throwing erasers around.

                But I also was not ready for things many of my classmates were in high school, such as being away from home and was afraid of approximately everything. (At the time, I would have said, also, “not ready for” romantic relationships but it turns out I’m an aromantic asexual autistic, so it had nothing to do with being “ready.”)

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              2. Hobbling Up A Hill*

                I don’t think it was a completely inappropriate question and it could matter. Not that it’s cost would ever make a ring an appropriate gift, but it would be less concerning if it was something that cost $5. It’s also potentially a way to question whether Marvin stole the ring from a female relative which would have opened up a whole other bundle of issues for the LW.

                I don’t know if either of those issues were on LW’s mind when she asked that question, it may have just been an automatic ‘how did you get that’ but I think there’s some scope for a question like that.

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                1. LucyDouglass*

                  That’s exactly why I would ask, it could either be a relative’s or bought with parent’s money. Also, this may not apply to LW but as a teacher, I can’t accept individual gifts from students or families that are valued over $20.

                2. KateM*

                  Oh yeah. Just this fall the teachers of my kid’s preschool group mentioned to be aware of what kids bring to school because it turned out last spring one of the boys had brought his mother’s expensive ring for a girl.

                  Why teachers let such young children to play at such serious relationship is a question I did not ask but I find it highly improper. (I also suspect that the girl in questions could have been our daughter whom I thankfully had left home on the day she was supposed to be getting engaged or married to that boy.)

              4. Irish Teacher.*

                I think it kind of did matter. Not that I would have thought to ask about it, but I think the fact he spent $500 on it made it a bit more of a serious issue than if it was something he’d bought for $10. The cost of the ring sort of makes the whole issue more concerning to me because $500 isn’t something you spend on a whim. It makes it seem like he is really invested in the LW.

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                1. Clisby*

                  That’s what I thought. At least in my world, 16 year olds don’t ordinarily spend $500 on a ring for someone they’re trying to initiate a relationship with. That’s really over the top.

                2. goddessoftransitory*

                  Yes. The cost and the fact that he spent his personal earnings to buy it raise a lot more alarms than “I got it out of a gumball machine/Claire’s Boutique.” He put a lot more thought into this than a simple, out of the blue sky impulse would warrant. This wasn’t an impulse in that sense.

          5. Lexi Vipond*

            I don’t think we know anything about the rest of the group – if they’re mostly 13 and 14, then Marvin would be factually more mature. I don’t mean that it would make a relationship any more appropriate, but it might change the kind of response or level of understanding you would expect.

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            1. ShanShan*

              I think a lot of people mistake being academically gifted for being mature.

              We know Marvin isn’t mature because he did something inappropriate and childish in this story. It doesn’t matter what his grades are. That’s less relevant to this issue than his understanding of interpersonal behavior.

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          6. Terrie*

            It definitely points to the fact that she was allowing the boundaries to blur on the relationship, as does letting him vent to her about his personal issues. I think the parents and the teacher were right to be concerned about the fact that she didn’t report it. (Not saying she’s guilty of anything more than bad judgement, but you don’t want someone with bad judgement working with your kid, you know?)

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        2. Jessastory*

          yes, the organization needed to be looped in so OP could be moved from working with Martin or at least provided additional oversight for both Martin and OP’s protection. Speaking as a high school teacher, you just don’t want to keep openings for Martin to pursue OP or for OP to be possibly seen as returning his affections.

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    3. T.N.H*

      It’s not just to protect you but also to protect the kid. You did the right thing. What if the next 20something woman he approaches doesn’t? (Predators can be any gender and target any gender.)

      Honestly, I think you’re overidentifying with/projecting onto this kid. Please think through this or talk it out with a therapist before you work with teens again. Boundaries are doubly important when it comes to vulnerable people.

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      1. Elephant*

        I said something similar below! We always jump to covering yourself, but this is really about the kid. LW didn’t encourage this, but the connection she made with him is clouding her judgment. He’s a kid, even if he’s an almost grown kid, and he put himself in a dangerous spot. When I was a young teacher, I’m sure I also identified too much with my students. (Hard not to! I was 23 and they were 18, meanwhile their parents were in their 40s and 50s!) Thankfully this never happened, but I understand why she feels the way she does. But she needs to put that student’s safety ahead of any other thought.

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        1. Irish Teacher.*

          Yeah, reporting is important for everybody’s sake – to cover the LW so nobody thinks it is something she was encouraging, to ensure the kid gets any support he might need and to have something on file in case a picture starts to emerge (anything from him having difficulties with boundaries to being depressed and fixated on somebody who is kind to him to lacking support in the home or school) and also for others working with him so they can be careful about boundaries themselves. I think most people would want to know if a kid they worked with had a history of doing this kind of thing.

          That said, I do understand why it might not occur to the LW. Even as a teacher, I haven’t had any explicit training that would really cover this situation. As a teacher with 20 years experience, I would know that it is something I need to get on record (though I’d probably have to go to a year head or the head of my department and ask how best to do that, as in whether I should write it up as a discipline issue or a child protection issue) but I can well imagine somebody young thinking “well, the issue has been dealt with and it is possible those in charge might over react and punish him so I’ll just let it go.”

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      2. MigraineMonth*

        This is key. It sounds like Marvin is very close to a number of adults in his life, and his parents need to know to keep a close eye on those relationships in case approaching you was part of a pattern rather than a one-off behavior.

        I also agree with T.N.H. that you let boundaries get pretty blurred with this kid, going from a your assigned role as club volunteer to more of a mentor/confidant/close friend to this child. I know your intentions are only good, but that is a role with a long history of being abused.

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        1. T.N.H*

          Good point on the mentorship element. He may have other mentors who are already taking advantage of him. Even if it’s not sexual, some adults would have, for example, kept the ring and sold it.

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      3. KJC*

        I actually think there’s some truth underlying this concern. I remember those teachers who were “cool” and close to students. And looking back, especially as a parent now – wow, they were probably not entirely appropriate for being quite that open and close with students.

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        1. KJC*

          p.s. A marriage and family therapist friend of mine, when I asked her what to do to protect my kids from sexual abuse (to the extent of my abilities) when we were generally having a conversation about the topic, said to make sure my kids know to tell me about any adult treating them as more “special” than the other kids or trying to have alone time with them. She said being made to feel different and special should be an early warning sign that I should keep my kids away from that person. So I can see why the parents were concerned here.

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        2. Irish Teacher.*

          We had a teacher who tried to be like this, though I didn’t like her much and I don’t think many people did. Among other things, she once told us in class about how she talked in her sleep and she really hoped she wasn’t talking in her sleep one night because she was dreaming of an ex-boyfriend and she didn’t want her husband knowing what they were doing in her dream. I can’t remember her exact words but she didn’t leave much doubt that it was a sex dream, though she wasn’t explicit.

          She also took my sister and some of my sister’s classmates to her house during a class and had them go back in to the school separately so the principal wouldn’t know she’d taken them out of school.

          The level of inappropriatenesss there…

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        3. shedubba*

          Very much this. Looking back at my high school years, there was a weird culture among the teachers of the “cool” teachers becoming romantically involved with students. One guy waited until the girl finished college (and then divorced his wife and married her); another very deliberately waited until after the student graduated to officially start dating. But several others got involved while the child was still a student, and as far as I know all of them got fired once things came out. I only knew of one teacher pursued by a student who shut it with all the firmness warranted.

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      4. Spero*

        I actually re-read the letter and on a second read, LW is FAR overidentifying with the kid here because LW is assuming the kid’s reactions and experiences, not just their outward actions and things done to them, also mirror LW’s own. And even if you have two kids who have similar bullying history or behavior, the internal experiences are often WILDLY different. For LW to assume that it is the same for Marvin as for LW even though there is a generational and gender difference between LW and Marvin is already a huge leap, even if all other factors are the same. Marvin may be the first kid LW can only see through the lens of LW’s own history, but it’s a huge red flag that Marvin won’t be the last. Ex – what if the next kid who reminds LW of themselves is caught with drgs and LW assumes kid is only using them for finals because that’s how LW used them? What if it’s a teen self harming and LW assumes it’ll stop in college because that is when LW stopped? If I was LW’s volunteer coordinator (a job I did for 8 years) I wouldn’t want them to continue in the role unless I asked some very pointed questions about whether they could distinguish the kids experiences from their own past experiences.

        Reply ↓
        1. goddessoftransitory*

          This is a very, very good point. The LW seems to be projecting what she would think/feel onto Marvin, and then deducing that because of that, here’s how he should/will react.

          Having hobbies or a mindset in common can actually make discernment a lot harder, because you assume you’re starting from common ground.

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    4. CommanderBanana*

      We have a program that every once in a while has someone under 18 participate in it, and we don’t even send any communications without their guardian being CCd on it.

      Reply ↓
    5. tina turner*

      YES. Because there’s a lot of $$$ involved and his parents need to intervene and return that ring, LW needed to report this. To be handled very carefully, but still, report it. Maybe meeting w/him & parents to explain the trouble LW could get into. Lean on the rules here.

      Reply ↓
    6. goddessoftransitory*

      For both her and the organization. That kind of thing needs to be known so policies can be reviewed, especially for volunteers, who to often are left kind of winging it through day to day interactions without a lot of formal training on things like “what if a kid falls madly in Feelings for you?”

      I totally believe the LW, and don’t think, from what’s written, that Marvin is going to be a danger or anything, but it’s really not something for one person to decide.

      Reply ↓
  2. Rara Avis*

    I do work in education, and I concur with Alison — you absolutely should have reported to your supervising teacher — to protect yourself. At my school we have boundary training every year, and a lot of it is about how to protect yourself — never be alone with a student without the door open and another adult in the vicinity, never promise to keep a secret (we are all mandated reporters — I don’t know if that applies to volunteers too, but if so, they should provide you with that training as well.) Now the best thing you can do is have the conversation with your supervisor and reiterate that you didn’t encourage him and tried to nip it in the bud, but that you recognize now that you should have brought it to the supervisor’s attention.

    Reply ↓
    1. Elephant*

      I’m a high school teacher as well, and 100% agree LW needed to report it. But I want to add that this is NOT just to protect her, but primarily to protect the student. The student may be almost an adult, but he is not an adult. He made a poor choice, and while I am sympathetic, it could have been a dangerous one. A trusted, responsible adult (ie: the parent or teacher) needs to know so that they can protect and teach him why this was dangerous. I know he’s 16, and believe me, I understand the desire to treat a 16 year old like an adult. I would hate to embarrass them as well! It’s a terrible feeling for a teenager! But he spent a lot of money on a person with much more more power than him. He needs loving guidance from a parent (or teacher) far more than he needs his ego protected.

      Reply ↓
      1. Alan*

        I think we can assume as well that he told other students about his purchase, so I’m not sure how he totally avoids embarrassment here.

        Reply ↓
        1. MigraineMonth*

          Possibly, possibly not. It sounds like Marvin may not have had close friends his own age in the program.

          Reply ↓
      2. goddessoftransitory*

        And he spend that money/wrote the letter as (to him, at least) an “adult” gesture! I’m sure he thought of it as a mature way to tell her of his love for her in a respectful, not gross manner.

        But of course this highlights how little experience he has (and he SHOULDN’T have a lot of experience with proposing marriage or similar when he’s 16 years old) and would signal to a predator, loud and clear, exactly how to groom this kid.*

        It’s like the article, and film made from it, “An Education.” About an intelligent, mature young woman who was groomed, along with her parents, by a serial predator. The way he did it was seemingly respecting all the forms of courtship (meeting her parents, and so on) while treating her as an “adult.” Taking her to fancy dinners, making sure she was dressed up correctly, and so on. She and her folks saw it as respectful and seeing how mature she was. He, of course, was enjoying stringing an underage girl along.

        *In NO way was the LW grooming Marvin! Just that his actions would have told a less scrupulous person exactly how to proceed.

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    2. Clorinda*

      Report immediately is the only reasonable reaction to something like this. The report should have been completed before OP even went home that afternoon. I am honestly surprised that her volunteer training didn’t cover this, though, so that’s a problem with the program itself and how they handle volunteers.

      Reply ↓
  3. JP*

    As an educator I can say with 100% certainty that you should have reported this to both the teacher and the parents. It’s a CYA moment for absolute sure. I understand your thought process, but these days you cannot be too careful. I hope that you are also never alone with this student as those are also dicey situations where things can turn into he said/she said issues. Be careful!

    Reply ↓
    1. Observer*

      I understand your thought process, but these days you cannot be too careful.

      Not “these days”. I believe the LW, but she *did* mishandle the situation. And it’s *always* been a problem when this kind of stuff comes up. And even in the “old days” parents and (good) schools took this stuff seriously.

      When you say “these days” it implies the idea that people have gotten “too sensitive” or ”
      too prone to over-react” etc. And, to the extent that schools and parents react more strongly, it’s NOT at all “too much”. It’s what they should have be doing all along.

      Reply ↓
      2. Dust Bunny*

        Yeah, I can think of a bunch of stories my mom told me about stuff that happened when she was a girl. Some of it was handled well, but some of it was definitely under-reacted. I feel like very often in “those days” people weren’t careful enough and kids suffered.

        Reply ↓
        1. bamcheeks*

          YUP. I am 46, and there are some things that happened at my secondary school in the 90s that give me the horrors looking back.

          Reply ↓
          1. Aldabra*

            Me too. One of the former teachers at my high school was ousted for inappropriate behavior toward the girls well after we graduated. I never had him, but my friends did, and he was generally known as being weird and creepy while we were in school. Definitely slipped through the cracks for way too long.

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      3. Strive to Excel*

        100%.

        Setting aside what could have gone wrong if OP were not ethical, this should absolutely have gone to the parents and teacher so that they could talk with Martin about:

        * Appropriate age dynamics, and the laws surrounding them
        * Properly reading romantic cues and correct steps
        * Handling rejection gracefully (because being rejected stinks, and you need a support system!)

        His actions suggest that he’s missing some education in at least one of these fields and not all of them. Of course the parents are unhappy they didn’t know! This is something they should be helping their kid learn, process, and grow from.

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      4. Clisby*

        Well said. I 100% agree with this from Alison: “That might get more intuitive if you swap the genders and think about whether you’d tell an adult man to keep a student’s advances secret. Keeping it secret might feel respectful to the student, but there’s too much risk to that. ”

        Yeah, all I have to do is think about my 16-year-old daughter engaging with a male volunteer like this, and you better believe I’d expect to hear about it. (This is a fictional daughter; my actual daughter is 28.)

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      5. JP*

        That is not what I meant by “these days”. What I meant was that there are times when students can decide to fabricate things that happen if they are alone with a teacher. In this time of social media and much more scope for reporting anything, true or not, you really do need to be even more aware than you might have thought you needed to be.

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    2. Lydia*

      “These days” we’re better at recognizing how adults can prey on young, vulnerable kids, even though it’s not perfect. “These days” we’ve gotten better at empowering kids to tell people when things feel off or when something terrible happens, even though more work needs to be done. And “these days” we’ve done a better job at training people with authority over kids how to report things they’ve experienced or witnessed. Back in “those days” none of this was true and a lot of abuse and exploitation was completely missed or dismissed as girls being “fast” or boys being “lucky.” These systems still need work, but “these days” we’re more sensitive to the power imbalances at play and how that can be harmful to children.

      Reply ↓
      1. StarTrek Nutcase*

        All true. It’s similar to how “these days” familial sex abuse is becoming less ignored, tolerated, or kept a secret “in the family”. There is a long way to go, but compared to decades ago it’s strikingly better. What occurred in my extended family should have been reported to police, the abuser imprisoned & therapy sought for the victims. The offending-in-law was ostracized but the “secret” resulted in decades of misplaced shame & guilt for the two victims. As kids, we saw our parents pretend if it was not discussed again, it was forgotten & no longer important. They were WRONG.

        Reply ↓
        1. goddessoftransitory*

          I saw a crime procedural show a while ago where the main character is investigating three murders that have their roots in childhood abuse. Just about every person she interviews says at some point, “Why are you bringing all this up? It’s ancient history.” She finally snaps and says “It’s not at all ancient to the victims. It’s happening now and has been happening for the last twenty years.”

          Reply ↓
      2. JP*

        Yes, and “these days” there is also scope for students to accuse and fabricate encounters to the ruination of teacher careers. Of course students should report inappropriate behavior by teachers, but it goes the other way as well. Teachers should not put themselves in situations where things can be misinterpreted in any way. I don’t think any teacher or volunteer should be in a spot where they might be totally alone with a child any more. For adult/student protection both ways.

        Reply ↓
  4. A Teacher*

    High School teacher: this needed to be reported to the teacher and likely administration. You are opening yourself up to major liability issues and the school/program as well.

    Relationships with kids have a boundary it sounds like that may have been crossed a bit even before the ring and card. Learning how to set boundaries is hard!

    Reply ↓
    1. Antilles*

      I wonder if those liability concerns for the school are serious enough that it’s going to result in them “requesting” OP to step down as a volunteer. Not that OP has done anything that deserves it, but simply as their own CYA of resolving the issue.

      Reply ↓
      1. Observer*

        I would not be surprised.

        The thing is that the relationship itself is not something that the LW did wrong, nor should she be terminated for it. But in keeping it secret, she did do something pretty problematic.

        Reply ↓
        1. Eukomos*

          I don’t know if I even agree with that, it’s pretty concerning that she’s telling herself he’s “more mature” than the other students. That’s not an appropriate attitude for an adult to have towards a minor, especially in a context like this where she had some responsibility towards/over him. I don’t think anything harmful happened, but it sounds like the relationship had already become inappropriate.

          Reply ↓
          1. NothingIsLittle*

            Thank you! That phrase is a huge red flag even if the OP isn’t acting overtly inappropriate. I think OP needs to seriously review their actions and consider whether they were inadvertently encouraging inappropriate boundaries with the student.

            Reply ↓
            1. ShanShan*

              Honestly, even if OP wasn’t encouraging it, she should be learning not to see kids that way if she wants to work with them in the future.

              It’s really important in education to remember that children are children. Even the gifted ones and the confident ones and the ones who follow the rules without being asked. They still need someone to look out for them and guide them and protect them, both from adult things they are not equipped to handle and from themselves.

              I feel like there’s this whole phenomenon of high achieving kids being neglected because the adults around them assume that they don’t need parenting/mentoring and can take care of themselves. It can do a lot of damage even if romance never enters the picture.

              Reply ↓
          2. KJC*

            Yes, I think that could signal that the mentoring relationship in her mind was a bit more like an adult-to-adult mentoring relationship than it really was, and there may have been some blinders on there. Again, not that anything untoward happens. This sort of mindset is understandable, but definitely an opportunity to reevaluate and learn more about having boundaries when working with youth.

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          3. Irish Teacher.*

            I think it depends on how she meant the “more mature.” In relation to a romantic gesture, yeah, it comes across as concerning, but if she is thinking of this as more of a discipline issue and meant more “I felt he was mature enough to take the correction and adjust his behaviour and therefore didn’t feel I needed to report him to anybody in authority,”

            While I might not phrase it that way, there are issues that I would deal with with a conversation with a mature, responsible 16 year old that I might escalate with a 14 year old with behavioural problems. I am thinking stuff like swearing in class. A mature well-behaved kid who just spoke without thinking would probably respond to “look, that language isn’t appropriate in class. Tone in down please” whereas a less mature kid might treat that as “yay! I can get a reaction by using bad language. I’ll continue using it to see how she reacts.”

            That said, I can understand why the parents were concerned.

            Reply ↓
            1. Irish Teacher.*

              OK, just realised that first paragraph is left unfinished. I meant something like “it might not have been meant in quite the way it came out” or “it might not be as concerning.”

              Reply ↓
      2. I should really pick a name*

        I think requesting the LW step down as a volunteer would not be unreasonable.

        This statement would make a lot of people concerned about the LW’s judgement:

        I trusted Marvin to take the rejection with grace since he was more mature than the other students

        Reply ↓
        1. Dust Bunny*

          I’m in my mid-40s so this would be all kinds of red flags, but I could see someone 20+ years younger (much closer in age to Marvin) having a less-clear view of the situation. But that underscores why there should have been clearly-stated boundaries and procedures about this kind of thing! They shouldn’t be relying on the judgment of people who, while adults, are also actually very young and may not have the experience or perspective to figure this out.

          So the OP did handle it badly, although I think it was out of naivete rather than maliciousness or even particularly weak judgment, but the program needs to have training on this ASAP.

          Reply ↓
          1. allhailtheboi*

            100% agreed, I’m only 24 and I look back at when I worked with kids as a 20 year old and cringe at my lack of boundary management. But I’m only even able to see that because I’m now studying to be a therapist so we talk A LOT about boundaries. Even then, I’m sure in 10, 20, 50 years’ time I’ll look back and cringe with the benefit of hindsight at stuff I’ve done or am yet to do. This is why you need training when you do any kind of work which involves boundary management.

            Reply ↓
            1. Irish Teacher.*

              At 20, I was working with young people, the oldest of which were only slightly younger than I was, in a workplace where there were a lot of boundary issues anyway, so yeah…I look back and really think…well, mostly now, that I should have had been training and that it was a really bad place to learn either workplace norms or boundaries with young people, but certainly at your age, I was still cringing at how badly I handled some stuff.

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      3. Starbuck*

        It might depend on their policies and training. But any time I’ve worked with kids, or worked with volunteers working with kids – this kind of thing is spelled out as the exact scenario you need to tell a supervisor or someone else about. That the LW did not would be a major issue, potentially disqualifying. The urge to keep it to yourself is a very alarming one in this kind of work. What other problems aren’t you telling me about? I would have a hard time trusting the volunteer after this.

        Reply ↓
        1. Clisby*

          I would, too. I completely understand why LW writer didn’t immediately contact the parents – that would have been an overstep. She just needed to report to her supervisor.

          Reply ↓
          1. Starbuck*

            Yeah; I’m imagining being the teacher here and having the parents come to me upset about this serious issue that I have to tell them I have no clue about – terrible position to be in! LW does not seem to realize this at all and it actually sounds like they got defensive when the teacher addressed this with her and did not apologize. Not good and I wouldn’t be surprised if they were fired as a volunteer or banned from 1:1 work at the very least.

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    2. Beth*

      Yes, this. OP, I understand wanting to be a mentor! But the teachers you remember having deep relationships with were adults who were trained, as part of their jobs, on what is and isn’t appropriate for student-teacher relationships, and on what they’d need to report if it comes up. They likely were being careful to stick to a professionally appropriate student-teacher relationship. They probably would have reported it if you’d overstepped that boundary.

      You probably had no idea they thought about that kind of thing, because you were the kid in those relationships. It was their job to maintain boundaries and handle any problems, not yours. But now you’re the adult in the room. You have to figure out how to be a mentor without being a friend–you’re not peers. You have to know what’s reportable and follow through on reporting if it comes up.

      It sounds like the org you volunteer with didn’t train you on this, which is unfortunate and on them. But your response to the situation–keeping it secret–was a bad instinct and shows a lack of appropriate risk assessment for someone working with teens. It means you’re probably a bad fit as a volunteer for an org that doesn’t (for whatever reason) explicitly train their volunteers on this kind of thing. I wouldn’t be surprised if they ask you to step down; if you want to volunteer with kids again, I’d look for an org that’s more rigorous in their volunteer training.

      Reply ↓
      1. Sloanicota*

        Altho honestly looking back, sometimes you only realize in retrospect that maybe your mentors WEREN’T always in the right either. Nothing malicious in my case, but in hindsight some of my teachers had poor boundaries themselves, and I was using them as a model I’d have a warped sense of norms.

        Reply ↓
        1. KJC*

          Yes, I was thinking the same. I recall a couple teachers from high school that were not doing anything untoward so to speak but almost definitely had poor boundaries with students.

          Reply ↓
        2. Joana*

          Yeah, can relate on the ‘only realized they had poor boundaries in retrospect’ thing. It didn’t happen to me, but some of my friends. We were all in choir, and the piano player was a woman who was in her thirties at the time, I think. She had been there for years. And then I believe it was my junior year, she decided to gather some of the kids from choir and make her own group outside school. And proceeded to invite all of them home to her house; not them and their families, just the students.

          She was IMMEDIATELY let go. I didn’t think too much of it at the time because ‘Oh she’s a nice adult.’ But now that I’m about the age she was then, yeah, I get it.

          Reply ↓
          1. Joana*

            Forgot to mention also that the kids who were in her chosen group pretty much all quit the school’s choirs in protest to her being fired. I really, really hope that they can look back at this now and think “Wow, that was inappropriate.”

            Reply ↓
          2. Irish Teacher.*

            I mentioned elsewhere a teacher I had who, when a number of my sister’s class were at a college open day or something, asked the few who were in class, “do you want to go for coffee?” and drove them to her house. My sister said when she asked, she assumed the teacher was planning to take them to a café, which would still be inappropriate but…not quite as bad.

            I don’t think anybody in authority ever found out.

            Reply ↓
    3. Consonance*

      Yes. I’ve been a volunteer with kids this age, and also worked with them in a semi-professional capacity. A few things that stood out to me:
      1. The LW is relating to this kid very personally by comparing Marvin to themselves. I know that when I do this, I tend to over-estimate my own maturity at that age because, well, I was me and I still am me. It’s hard to see just how much maturing has happened over time as a gradual process. This was especially true when I was still in my twenties, looking back at myself as a teenager.
      2. Even if LW didn’t intend to create an overly familiar relationship with the kid, once there’s an overture like that there is a *Relationship* between them, whether intentional or not, whether malicious or not, and whether one-sided or not. A *Relationship* is really untenable, and the minimum is notifying your supervisor and getting clear guidance on how to move forward.
      3. While LW was intending to be kind and treat Marvin with respect, treating him like an *adult* reinforced that there are boundary issues in this relationship. He is *not* an adult, and exhibited a deep misunderstanding of the *Relationship* already.

      Reply ↓
      1. CowWhisperer*

        I taught 15-21 year old students when I was 24 through my early 30’s. Being supportive while still being professional is a skill – and doubly tricky when the student may read your interest as romantic rather than platonic.

        I had two concerns.

        First, Marvin is a minor so his legal rights are generally subsumed by his legal guardians or parents. A 18 year old student may be able to legally withdraw $500 for a ring and deal with the consequences, but Marvin’s parents can object and prevent the withdrawal or purchase. That alone would have had me looping in a teacher (who would have looped in an administrator.)

        Second, being overly attracted to adults rather than peers isn’t a sign of maturity. It can be a sign of immaturity because the teen can’t visualize that an adult with a career and home is in a very different phase of life than a high schooler.

        Reply ↓
      2. Heffalump*

        “The LW is relating to this kid very personally by comparing Marvin to themselves. I know that when I do this, I tend to over-estimate my own maturity at that age because, well, I was me and I still am me.”

        I think I understand what you mean by this, but to confirm: You’re saying that the LW is reading her current adult level of maturity into Marvin?

        Reply ↓
        1. T.N.H*

          I don’t think that’s it. Consonance is saying that LW is looking back and going “I was more mature at 16 than other kids, he must be, too!”

          Reply ↓
        2. Consonance*

          I’ll try to explain, but I’m not sure I’ve ever figured out the right wording for what I mean!

          I always *felt* mature for my age, and I have also matured over time. But I think it’s really hard to look back at yourself and realize all that you didn’t know or all the ways you weren’t mature, because the way you got from there to here is gradually over time, not a sudden leap. This is why, for example, faculty often look at students and can’t comprehend how they don’t already know something, because they themselves forget all that they didn’t know in the past. Or supervisors are surprised by how much onboarding and coaching a new hire might need, because they can be blind to all the things they’ve had to learn during their time at a company or in their position.

          Couple that with someone who always felt mature for their age, or seemed mature to others, and you’re in for significantly overestimating someone who you see yourself in. So, (1) I was mature at that age, (2) they remind me of myself, (3) I forget how much I’ve learned over the past ten years, (4) I can (somewhat) consider them a peer.

          Reply ↓
          1. New Jack Karyn*

            I’m following your logic. Something like, “I never would have fallen for that!” Well, I don’t know, I was a kid, kids do dumb things, I might very well have done the same thing.

            Reply ↓
            1. Consonance*

              It’s flawed logic, to be sure, but it sounds to me like this is the line of thinking for the LW. All I mean is that they’re overestimating Marvin’s actual maturity. I’m sure we all have different experiences when looking back at our past selves.

              Reply ↓
              1. Consonance*

                Oh goodness, I totally misread your comment. I read “I’m not following your logic,” but Not was not part of your sentence! Apologies.

                Reply ↓
  5. Slumps*

    I have to agree with Allison- you should always tell the teacher or person in charge if a student propositions you, regardless of how mature they are or anything else. This is to protect YOU and the student. What if Marvin felt slighted and told his parents a different story? What if the roles were different, a male volunteer and a female student? What if Marvin told a friend what happened?

    I’ve heard of a lot of horror stories where students- who are NOT emotionally mature, regardless of how much they seem to be- say or do things that end up causing problems for aides or teachers. I even had a case like that happen in my high school when I was attending: a female student who had a well-known crush on a teacher gave them a valentines gift, the teacher correctly declined them, and then the student started spreading rumours of an inappropriate relationship. This could have ruined the teacher’s career and life, if they hadn’t already reported the incident.

    Reply ↓
    1. Don’t know what to call myself*

      With respect to emotional maturity, there’s a limit to how mature it is possible for a teenager to be. They have an extremely limited set of social experiences, their bodies and brains are flooded with hormones, and the logical thinking centers of their brains aren’t always in the driver’s seat.

      I was brought up in a conservative religion that had strict expectations for how people should behave, so a lot of the time I was play-acting at being a lot more calm and reserved than I actually felt. Compared with my public school classmates who weren’t being held to those same standards, I looked extremely mature and grown up. But I wasn’t, I was playing a role. A lot of teenagers are doing something similar. They want to appear more mature than they feel, so they engage in a fake-it-til-you-make-it strategy, and if you don’t know enough about child development to know that, it’s easy to take a kid’s behavior at face value and think they really are more mature than their peers.

      Reply ↓
        2. Eukomos*

          This is it exactly. They can be smart and polite and well-spoken in very adult-like ways, but their brains can only be so mature. They physically cannot plan and predict the way adults can, and that makes them vulnerable and means we have to treat them differently from adults.

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  6. Adultier Adult*

    I am an educator & you should have 100% immediately reported it to your supervisor AND written down exactly what happened. Since you were a volunteer, it would be up to the supervisor how the parental notification happened, but it also should have happened 100%. All of this is to protect you– always be upfront. By not reporting, it very much makes it seem like something shady was happening.

    Reply ↓
    1. learnedthehardway*

      Totally agreeing with everyone who has said that the OP should have said something to the teacher or principal at the school.

      That was a failure in judgment on the part of the OP. The OP had good intentions, but something that serious needed to be reported – both for her own protection, as well as for the student’s best interests.

      That said, this was just as much – or even more – a failure of training and preparation on the part of the school or the volunteer organization (if there is one).

      Before letting anyone interact with the kids, volunteers should have been provided the policies and training, and should have been educated on how to handle any issues – whether disciplinary, inappropriate advances, bullying, etc. etc. and should have been told to inform staff and WHY.

      Reply ↓
      1. Sloanicota*

        Yeah OP behaved in a reasonable standard by thinking “this is how I would want someone to treat me if the situation was reversed” so I understand how she got where she did. But she should have been *trained* how not to relate to students under your authority as if they’re just another regular person you encounter out in the world, because there’s boundary issue and power issues involved … as a result you kept a secret with a child that you shouldn’t have, even though you didn’t actually *do* anything wrong yourself.

        Reply ↓
      2. Ally McBeal*

        Yeah, I hope LW updates us with some information about the training she received. I volunteer with my local Boys & Girls Club and our training was very thorough, but I just would not assume that LW’s training was as good as mine. I also have to retake the training every couple years and have my background check done again.

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    2. ecnaseener*

      By not reporting, it very much makes it seem like something shady was happening.

      This, and it’s not even solely about CYA — think of it from the parent’s perspective and it makes perfect sense that the secrecy makes it shady. LW knows that she was clear and firm in this conversation, but the parents don’t know that. They don’t know whether the subtext was more like “oh, I can’t date you officially or accept a ring from you, that would get us in trouble! We need to be very private…”

      Reply ↓
      2. goddessoftransitory*

        As is said so many times, it’s not the crime, it’s the cover up.

        In this context no crime was committed, of course, but LW’s non reporting of it, no matter how well intentioned, LOOKED like a cover up and made handling the issue a lot more complicated and messy than it might have been otherwise.

        One thing I’ve learned from AAM and life in general is: you are going to run into gross, embarrassing, or otherwise awkward situations at some point in your life, and unfortunately there’s usually no way out of them that aren’t hideously embarrassing for someone at some point. So the goal can’t be “keep me/them from being ridiculed at all costs, no matter what.” It has to be “how can we most clearly and kindly deal with this while acknowledging said hideous embarrassment without exacerbating it?”

        Reply ↓
  7. Amber Rose*

    LW, I know you like this kid and want him to grow into a glorious adult… but he needs to grow into that adult, you know? He’s still a kid, and you treated him a little too much like an adult.

    You trusted him to take rejection with grace and that’s fair (mostly), but his parents should have been looped in so they could have the necessary conversations about how extremely uncool it is to spend $500 on a ring in order to propose dating, and the teacher should have been looped in so they could keep an eye on both you and him so that there’s no accusations of impropriety later.

    I agree that your organization failed you, but you need to apologize sincerely all the same. From an outside view with no context, keeping secrets like this is what adults who are not safe around children do.

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    2. Properlike*

      I just reread and saw the part saying “he’s more mature than other teens” and that gives me greater pause than anything. He may seem more mature, but developmentally, he’s really really not. The problem with gifted kids is that they can (book) smarter than many adults, but they mistake that for wisdom/experience smarter, which is 10000% not the same thing.

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      1. Paint N Drip*

        I was that kid, and yes smarts are in place but lacking wisdom – especially after socializing yourself with adults you can absolutely SEEM wholly more grown up than you are. I feel the empathy leaping off the page from OP but I hope she takes this element to heart as much as the boundaries and documentation

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      2. Corrupted User Name*

        Unfortunately, a teen who hears from a trusted adult with good intentions that they are “more mature” than their peers can be more open to manipulation from adults with not good intentions. I know OP wants to help Marvin and sees herself in aspects of him, but it’s such a fine line and can have unintended consequences both for their relationship as well as his own future interactions.

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        1. NothingIsLittle*

          This was exactly my concern reading that! I’m worried that OPs relationship with Marvin was inappropriate well before he confessed his feelings, even if they didn’t intend such a thing, and the confession just revealed that appropriate boundaries had never been set.

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      3. Resume please*

        Agreed, this gave me pause. Although he may show some signs of maturity over other students, what he did is clearly not a sign of it. This situation emphasizes his lack of real world experiences. Quiet and nerdy are not great indicators of maturity imo, and he’s still a minor besides. I know OP shares some common interests with this student, and that may have potentially clouded judgment of “oh, he’s more mature than other teens.” When really, he should be held to the same standards as other teens his age in that regard. CYA is the best policy

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        1. Ally McBeal*

          And let’s be real — “more mature than other students” could mean as much as “he’s been parentified and is working two after-school jobs to help his single parent make ends meet while also tutoring his younger siblings and making dinner every night” or as little as “doesn’t give smaller kids noogies in the hallway.” Maturity is a very, very broad spectrum, and sometimes trauma presents as maturity so it’s not even real maturity.

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          1. New Jack Karyn*

            This is true–sometimes I’ll say a kid seems more mature than their peers just because their sense of humor is more well-developed and the other kids are still watching SpongeBob.

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      4. sparkle emoji*

        Yep. As a former kid like this, gifted kids like Marvin can actually be less mature in some ways. If he’s a loner, he’s not getting the same experience and peer feedback about socializing that the other kids are.

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        1. Dawbs*

          Development can be extra spikey in gifted kids.

          if we think of “well rounded” ideal children, you can think of a bar graph of development where all the columns are mostly a straight line across. (And if you assign each bar a number and total everything, you come up with 100)

          For gifted kids, the amount of energy the person has for growing and development is the same, so a few of those bars are REALLY high. but a few also are lower than average. and the total of you add up assigned numbers is still 100.

          So Marvin is more mature in adult conversational skills but lower in interpersonal skills. And lower in critical thinking. (not a slam on Marvin, but my 14yo with ASD would have understood why not to do this)

          And the OP, as an early 20s formert gifted kid might be a bit lower in these too. (this is not intended as a slam on the OP. I embodied this just out of college and had some complicated relationship issues because of it. If stars had aligned differently, i could have written this letter… except i reported the similar incident with a student to my boss, who used it to figure out my weak points and sexually harassed me.) .

          Mature kids are still kids. I’m glad the OP gave Marvin grace. Now she needs to do the complicated understanding where she went wing AND give herself grace too

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        2. SweetCider*

          This. And the OP has said that she identifies with Marvin’s experience in many ways. OP is also young (though an adult) and strikes me as not particularly mature in the social emotional space. All of which comes back to the organization needs to provide training and set standards .. for any adults working with youth.

          Also, for everyone’s safety the organization should make sure there’s no ongoing contact between the OP and Marvin.

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      5. MigraineMonth*

        I’m not sure if “they can (book) smarter than many adults” was a typo, but it’s so true. Book smarts and “social smarts” are different, and children who are gifted in the former often have deficiencies in the latter.

        This is going to be especially true for quiet, nerdy children with autistic traits (info-dumping on hobbies/special interests) like Marvin. I understand you want to protect him from embarrassment, OP, but his parents are more worried about protecting him from the next adult he tries to date who might be less ethical than you.

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            1. MigraineMonth*

              Ah, I thought it might have been a particularly apt typo for “(look)”.

              My nephew just got into a program for gifted children, and I’m really excited about the fact that it specifically works on the kids’ social skills.

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      6. learnedthehardway*

        By definition, the fact that Marvin thought this was okay and that his feelings would be reciprocated really shows that he is NOT very mature. He’s quite naive and vulnerable to exploitation.

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      7. Names are Hard*

        Sadly what I learned from being the gifted kid, is that overwhelmingly the adults that want to spend time with high school kids (outside of a school setting) are NOT who should be spending time with kids. I was older than the OP before I figured out that not all of those relationships that I had were ones that were good for me. I was so book smart which seemed to translate into mature, but socially I was so far behind and it took a long time to catch up.

        And as a parent, I would be beyond outraged to find out my kid had done something like this and it wasn’t reported to me. A huge flag for the OP to think about is how inappropriate giving a $500 gift to someone that you are asking out for the first time is. A truly mature person would know that isn’t how things are done. It’s not necessarily a cry for help, but it’s definitely a sign that he needs guidance.

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    3. Smithy*

      In just agreeing with all of this – I want to bring up how the OP feels the parents are mad at them. And while it may very well feel that way to the OP in this moment, overall that upset is more likely directed at the program.

      While programs with youth have become far more invested in safeguarding training over the past 20 years – there have always been programs outside of more formal institutions – where this investment has been spottier or come about slower. In my early twenties, back in the 00’s, for a year I taught a class as part of this Jewish supplemental religious high school programming where there was truly zero training of any sort. I felt so out of my element, that I tried quitting after the first semester because I believed I was doing so badly. Clearly replacing me was more effort than keeping a bad teacher, so I was heavily persuaded to stay.

      While nothing like the OP’s situation happened, had any parent sat in on that class – I can’t imagine how upset they’d be that they were paying for that. At that time, I would have taken it really personally, but with time it’s easier for me to see the situation as being set up to not succeed. Versus intentionally letting anyone down.

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    4. General von Klinkerhoffen*

      To add to this, when you let stuff like this slide, you’re also inadvertently teaching the child that it’s ok to keep $500 purchases secret from their parents, and that it may be ok to have secret romantic relationships with adults (just not those coaching you).

      They’re always learning, but always the lessons we’re trying to impart. See Into The Woods.

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    5. Elephant*

      This, 100%. He simply hasn’t grown into the adult she had been treating him like. I really do understand where she is coming from, and the role she wants to play in his life, but teenagers have poor judgment and he just showed you that. We can be forgiving and nonjudgmental about those poor choices, but we have to recognize that those poor choices are dangerous not because they are embarrassing, but because they are actually dangerous. He could have been hurt by a different adult, he could been robbed by a different adult, he could have been encouraged to run away from home by a different adult. He made a dangerous choice, and LW’s job is to protect him, or at the very least, tell someone who will.

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      1. goddessoftransitory*

        I mean, I remember clearly being in tenth grade and not knowing the answer to a teacher’s question and everyone acting like this was some humongous deal! It taught me quick to fake knowing stuff around both peers and adults because admitting ignorance was not acceptable.

        And that was just a routine lesson that I’m sure no one else recalls at all. If I had gone on to make and hide bigger mistakes around less caring or exploitative adults, who knows what might have happened.

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    6. Beth*

      Yes, this! Kids are kids. Tall kids who look older than their age are still kids. Strong readers with big vocabularies are still kids. Tech wizzes who can handle robotics better than most adults are still kids. Kids who have been through a lot and developed coping skills and life knowledge beyond most kids their age are still kids. No kid is going to have the level of maturity and judgment that you’d expect from adults. They’re still developing, and it’s adults’ job to remember that and act accordingly, even when the kid is really good at looking like they might be more adult than their age suggests.

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      1. Resume please*

        Not to mention that kids, regardless of any attributes, are legally minors! They have less rights than adults. Marvin’s $500 purchase IS the business of his legal guardians, regardless if he purchased it with his own money or not. It is within his parents’ legal right yo voud that transaction, should they so choose. Marvin is NOT an adult

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        2. Hobbling Up A Hill*

          Now that I would disagree with. Marvin has a job, he has earnings from that job and he is and should be allowed to spend that on things he wants. Granted there are things that I think he **shouldn’t** spend that $500 on, including a ring for an adult woman, but the concerning part of the situation is what he did with the ring and how LW reacted to that not the fact he bought it.

          If Marvin had mentioned casually to LW that he’d bought a PS5 or a high end pair of shoes or a new graphics card, would she have been obligated to go to his parents and report that Marvin was spending money?

          I also don’t think parents can void a minor’s transactions like that. If the transaction was done on the parent’s card, that’s one thing, but Marvin took out cash and bought something with that.

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          1. goddessoftransitory*

            My interest is also in a minor purchasing that ring in a pawnshop. I really have no idea what the legal situation is there for underage people, but it seems to me that five hundred bucks meant he had been exploited at least once.

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          2. Beth*

            Regardless of whether Marvin has a moral right to spend his earned money on whatever he wants, legally Resume please is right. Parents are allowed to monitor a minor’s spending. They might not always be able to undo the spending, but they can cut off account access to prevent further spending without permission. They can decide to spend a minor’s money on something even if it’s not what the minor wanted to use it for.

            You’re right that OP doesn’t have to report Marvin mentioning he bought a PS5, but that’s because OP wouldn’t have a reason to think that was unapproved spending–that’s a normal thing for a kid to save up for with a parent’s approval. But buying a $500 ring for an adult is not normal. Any reasonable person could assume Marvin’s parents wouldn’t be on board with it. It makes sense to consider that something worth reporting.

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          3. Resume please*

            The nuances differ by state, but generally speaking: Yes, his parents can void that transaction with the pawn shop. It is a voidable transaction. They can also return a PS5 or a high-end pair of shoes that he bought with his own money. He’s a minor and purchases (legally speaking) are contracts. His parents might not want to return the ring, but it is within their right to do so, and the pawn shop must comply

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            1. Resume please*

              To add: His geberal spending habits are not the issue here, so bragging about buying a PS5 is not going to raise red flags and legal issues with a tutoring organization. A card and a ring do.

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    7. Hats Are Great*

      Yeah, this bit: “I said that I didn’t tell them because I trusted Marvin to take the rejection with grace since he was more mature than the other students, which I felt he did.”

      Raises SO many red flags, because it is literally exactly what male teachers who get caught sleeping with female students say to excuse their actions. That it was clear she was more mature, that it was okay for us to have a more private relationship where I didn’t report EVERYTHING we talked about, I didn’t tell you she came on to me because I didn’t want to embarrass her, and OOPS now we’re having a lot of sex and I’m going to jail.

      Like I have investigated teacher misconduct on behalf of school districts and this is ALWAYS, ALWAYS what rapist teachers say — male or female — about how they got to the place where they were screwing a student.

      Your volunteer organization failed you if they didn’t give you clear guidelines on communications with students and when to report. But your own rationale in the meeting afterwards is a freaking nightmare of red flags and sounds exactly what an adult grooming a child for sex would say. You did yourself no favors with that.

      Also, the idea that Marvin is more mature than his peers says a lot about YOUR maturity and I hope you reflect on that. Marvin may be very smart, and comfortable talking to adults, but that actually reflects LESS maturity, because he isn’t comfortable in peer-to-peer interactions and doesn’t feel comfortable unless he’s in a parent-child or teacher-child type of relationship, with a clear authority figure and hierarchy. The fact that you’re reading a kid in high school proposing to an adult volunteer and spending $500 as a sign of maturity, rather than a sign of woeful immaturity where he can’t recognize how inappropriate that is — that’s deeply concerning. If you see yourself in Marvin, I encourage you to reflect on your own ideas about adulthood and maturity, because a kid acting out like this is NOT an example of maturity. It’s an example of a kid who absolutely CANNOT handle his own emotional life and needs some adults to step in with guardrails, not “trust him to handle it gracefully.”

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  8. Bob*

    Yeah as a teacher, this is a serious thing that would need flagging immediately and in detail. Not knowing how to engage appropriately with adults in your life is a red flag as is a gift of that magnitude. This would be going into our safeguarding logs straight away with really serious conversation with student and parents. This could be seen as part of grooming behaviour on the part of the adult or of past or current abuse towards the young person.

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    1. Nil*

      It reminded me of a similar thing that happened many moons ago. I had won an international competition in the last year of high school, and during my college years different high schools from around the country would fly me in for a few days to prepare the kids who were interested in that competition. The schools in my country are segregated by gender, and they usually prefer same gender teachers, but in rare cases like mine, they would “allow” a woman to teach in a boys high school.
      when I was 19?20?, I used to fly out biweekly for a few months to a specific high school. I had about 40 students and didn’tknow all of their names. One day after my class ended, I was waiting outside for my taxi. One of my students approached me and handed me a packet and said “it’s for you”, and walked on. I opened it and it was a semi professional love letter with his number, asking me to call him. Between having 40 students, a bad memory, the obligatory simillar haircuts for boys, and the very quick exchange where I barely saw who gave me the letter, I didn’t even figure out who this kid was. I just threw away the letter and laughed about with my then bf.

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  9. Nony nony nony*

    As a teacher of high school students, and someone who does lots of programs with teenagers, yeah, you messed up. In cases like this you have to remember that the student is still a minor, and when it is an “inappropriate relationship” (and this would have been because he is a minor and you are an adult) you HAVE to report it – if nothing else to protect yourself. There are tons of teachers who lose their jobs in situations like this. Also, looking at it from the parents point of view, as a parent you would want to know your kid’s judgement is off. It is embarrassing for the student to be rejected, but it can be worse for the adult who doesn’t report it. I hope this all works out for you.

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    1. KJC*

      Thinking about it from the perspective of a parent, if a volunteer DID have inappropriate intentions and were confronted with this scenario by a teacher and parent who later found out, they would probably brush it off with this same sort of language OP used. I actually had a conversation with a marriage family therapist friend very recently about what we should be doing to protect our own kids from sexual abuse. (I personally have multiple friends who were sexually abused by a coach, neighbor, that sort of thing and have never spoken a word of it to their parents to this day). We obviously can’t be with our kids 24/7, not should we try to be. We’ve talked about body parts and unsafe touching and the kinds of threats and secrets unsafe people make and that our kids will be protected and never be in trouble for telling us such things. BUT I was super surprised – what my therapist friend said was the most important thing was to tell our kids that they should inform us if any adult is giving them special attention above and beyond what they give to other kids or is trying to have any alone time with them. Basically, she said anyone that is singling your kid out as “special” is a big red flag, and you should not allow your child near that person. I think that’s probably where the concern is coming from. Unfortunately, there are people with bad intentions out there, and they try to put themselves in positions to work with children, and they groom kids by being confidants. If it had been reported to the teacher and THEN the parents heard about it, they would be much less likely to be concerned about OP being a disguised predator. Prevalence of pedophilia is unknown, but most estimates I could find were something like 1-4% of the population, plus there is a second set of people who commit crimes against children but do not meet clinical criteria for pedophilia and are moreso just situational offenders – so we almost all know someone who has that attraction orientation or would commit such a crime if given the chance. It’s just the unfortunate reality. I don’t live my life in a paranoid way, but I do try to pay attention, and as a parent, this exact scenario would be alarming to me.

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  10. Office Drone*

    It’s not just CYA, but safety. There are stories out there of rejected teens who have caused harm to themselves, those they felt rejected by, and others. The organization and the parents needed to know so that they could keep an eye on Marvin.

    But, as Alison said, this is something the LW shouldn’t have been expected to navigate without training.

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    1. BigBird*

      YES! I came here to make the same comment. I don’t want to sound like I am over-reacting but there was a case in my state where a 14 year-old boy raped and killed a young female teacher in a school bathroom. There is concern in my mind not only about protecting the OP’s reputation, but her physical safety. Sorry to be such a downer.

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      1. Momma Bear*

        This is a good point for LW to consider. Maybe Marvin means her no harm and everyone can just move on, but there might be another kid (or colleague) down the road who won’t take it so well. Boundaries are for her safety, too.

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    2. Ann O'Nemity*

      Reporting also helps document a pattern of behavior. The LW is assuming Marvin made a one-off misstep. It might not be.

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    3. Falling Diphthong*

      Also, just: This kid is acting way out of norms. (See above discussion about the distinction between high SAT scores vs wisdom.) And he’s a kid! It’s something where the parents, and the school in loco parentis, would reasonably want to know that the very smart but very lonely kid is logicing himself over into some very askew theories that don’t reflect the world. OP isn’t the only adult in this situation who can be assumed to want to do right by the kid and help them.

      Not looping in the organization you’re working for is where you went wrong… The organization you’re volunteering for is also to blame if they didn’t give you training that covered the sorts of things you should report.
      I agree with both sides of this. It’s a situation where most of the time common sense is going to be fine–but this semester, this volunteer, might be the 1 in 100 case and you need to explain what is and isn’t necessary to report.

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    4. UKDancer*

      Yes, one of my schoolmates had a crush on a teacher, made a pass and was thankfully rejected and reacted really badly (self harm instead of hurting others) but rejection can be incredibly difficult and needs to be handled very carefully and teachers and others need training on what to do.

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    5. goddessoftransitory*

      My first reaction to that line was have you not seen the news in the last twenty years? Because the chances of Marvin reacting violently may seem to be low, but are unfortunately not zero.

      It’s really not a chance any one person should, or be expected to, take as a personal decision.

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  11. Shiara*

    As someone who volunteers with minors, this is absolutely a scenario that is covered in our paperwork and training as a situation that needs to be escalated to the supervisor, both for the volunteer’s protection and for the student’s. I would be shocked if it wasn’t in there somewhere (although possibly on something that was more skimmed than read thoroughly).

    The fact that you are viewing your relationship with the student as an independent, private thing to be handled at your discretion is in part what is so alarming to your volunteer coordinator and possibly the student’s parents. I’m not saying that intergenerational close mentorship relationships are bad, but once it was clear that the student was veering outside that it was extremely important that you loop back into the structure that was there to facilitate your relationship and you didn’t.

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    2. 2 and a Possible*

      Shiara, your phrasing is excellent!

      As I read the comments, I felt like there was not enough information as to why this should have been escalated vs. you didn’t do anything wrong.

      I just could not come up with the words that would not be perceived as harsh.

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    3. CommanderBanana*

      The fact that you are viewing your relationship with the student as an independent, private thing to be handled at your discretion is in part what is so alarming to your volunteer coordinator and possibly the student’s parents.

      This. It’s pretty clear that LW identifies really strongly with Marvin, which I can understand, but you need to be considering this from Marvin’s parents’ perspective as well. And, I don’t think you were exactly like Marvin – you had mentor relationships with adults, which is a good and healthy thing. You didn’t buy a diamond ring for one, which is not a good and healthy thing for a teenager to do for an adult.

      I, for one, would be extremely alarmed to find out that my child had done this and I was not told, and if the person who didn’t tell me said my kid was “more mature” than the other kids, my alarm bells would be klaxons.

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      1. Shiara*

        Yes, “more mature” is definitely an alarm sounding phrase.

        Particularly since buying a $500 ring to ask someone to date you isn’t mature in the slightest. It is, in fact, a very immature cosplay of maturity and financial independence.

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      2. goddessoftransitory*

        Exactly. Hearing “I really see myself in your son” and similar statements are NOT reassuring things to hear! Any parent worth the title is going to become alarmed when an adult who is teaching their minor kid thought that his spending five hundred dollars to declare his love for her was a private matter.

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      3. Anony*

        I’m an educator (younger children) – and besides the romantic relationship component – I think the parents and the organization should be notified that this kid spent $500.00 on a gift for an after school volunteer. Kids have sometimes brought in expensive gifts for teachers and classmates where I’ve worked, and we always double checked to make sure the kid didn’t take money out of a purse to buy books at the book fair or jewelry out of a jewelry box whenever something expensive came into school.

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    4. different seudonym*

      Yes, this is the real issue. You can’t have a secret with a child, especially not a secret related to sexuality. As Amber Rose said above, you need to treat him as a child, which includes calling on the larger institution when he does something inappropriate.

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      1. Mid*

        Slight push back on your second sentence. Especially as the political landscape changes, people working with youth can often run into a situation where they are the trusted adult for someone to disclose they are gay/trans/queer of some sort. You absolutely do not need to out a child to their parents, and it can be very unsafe to do so.

        But, this is also something that should be covered in volunteer training for adults working with youth. What needs to be disclosed, to who, and when. “I have a crush on [adult]” = disclosed to another adult in charge. “I have a crush on [same gender peer]” = probably okay to not disclose.

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    5. Dido*

      yeah, seems like LW might’ve already let Marvin cross boundaries by “venting about his troubles” to her… and writing a love letter and buying a $500 diamond (or faux diamond ring) to confess his feelings to a crush that he isn’t sure is reciprocated would’ve been very inappropriate even if his crush was another student his own age. Marvin is very socially stunted and quite honestly might be on a path to incelhood, the LW is not equipped to deal with this as a volunteer so yes the teacher and parents should’ve been roped in immediately

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    6. Don’t know what to call myself*

      And I’m wondering how early that appropriateness line got blurred. LW says they were talking a lot about interests and hobbies outside of school based stuff, and that can be a slippery slope in an adult-kid relationship.

      I used to work with teenagers in school/library settings, and I once had a coworker who was fired for being inappropriately close with the kids. There was nothing romantic/sexual happening that we were aware of, but it had been made clear to us at the outset that while we could be friendly with the kids, we had to keep a level of distance in those relationships. My coworker was getting too close and losing sight of the fact that she was the adult in the relationship, not a peer or a friend, and once those lines get blurred it can be hard for kids to know what kind of relationship this is.

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      1. NothingIsLittle*

        I think a complicating factor is that OP is only in her 20s. In my experience, the closer in age you are to the children you’re interacting with, the less familiar you can be without blurring the appropriate boundaries. You are in a position of power over students you supervise, and it’s easier to forget that when they’re the same age as your little sister (or closest cousin or whatever).

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    7. HalesBopp*

      This is a really great response – I can understand, as a volunteer, not wanting to be the party that connects directly with a student’s parents. However, this absolutely should have been reported to the volunteer coordinator, who could have then determined appropriate follow-up.

      As a person who worked exclusively with teens throughout my early and mid-twenties, I would also encourage LW to reflect on what mentorship actually means. Good mentorship is about providing guidance, influencing positive growth, and supporting overall development. While mentors can be friendly, the relationship should have goals and objectives in mind. It is not a relationship to simply vent or share interests. And for youth mentorship in particular? It should be done in close consultation with a young person’s supporting adults.

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  12. Megan*

    I agree with Allison on this one. I believe the OP had completely good intentions and handled rejecting him well, but I agree OP should have looped the school in. I used to work with youth a lot at various past jobs and most of those required incident reports to document anything inappropriate that happened regarding students there. We also had to document any injuries on a separate form. I think looping the cooperating teacher in and doing an incident report would have been the best course of action after rejecting that student, just so OP was covered if this gets warped later by student retelling events differently or whatever. I also agree that the school did not provide adequate volunteer training since OP was not equipped with policies or expectations for reporting in these situations.

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  13. bamcheeks*

    You should definitely have reported, BUT — before you were allowed to work with young people, you should have completely a mandatory volunteer training programme that made that absolutely clear, and exactly who your reporting line was for any safeguarding or personal safety concerns, and what should trigger your spidey senses for “this is a safeguarding/personal safety concern”.

    This is specific sector-relevant knowledge, not something that every adult who volunteers with young people should know by magic, and your volunteer organisation has let you down if that wasn’t part of your onboarding.

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    1. lost academic*

      Yeah, this is what I realized on the second read – all the commenters are right, and the volunteer should have known 100% how to handle this, but that’s why you train volunteers specifically on these issues because it’s critical to handle it correctly and document it for a ton of reasons. I would imagine that the organization is seeing a big gap in their volunteer training right now – unless the OP just didn’t apply that training (but since OP seems oblivious to the need to report it and I just don’t see how you’d miss it if trained correctly, I’m definitely giving her the benefit of the doubt that she was never told how this must be handled.)

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      1. Shiara*

        I will say that sometimes well intentioned people who are legitimately confident that they would never take advantage of/harass a student can be some of the most difficult to train. Especially when they identify more with the students they’re working with than the other adults involved.

        Because when a situation like this comes up, they don’t link it back to the section on what to do when a student makes inappropriate moves, because they were imagining a random sexual advance, rather than a “sweet” but misguided overture from a student they see a lot of themselves in.

        It’s quite possible that the organization dropped the ball, but it’s also possible that LW just considered it a private situation and didn’t refer back to their training. It would behoove the LW to look back into any safe practices paperwork they have before going into the meeting with the coordinator so they don’t try to say it wasn’t covered only to find out it was.

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        1. Properlike*

          Very true. 100%. It takes a LONG time for that, “I’m so much smarter than you assume, so I will assume you have nothing of value to tell me” attitude to fade.

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        2. bamcheeks*

          Agreed, and if it IS something like this, then the organisation would be absolutely right to remove LW as a volunteer.

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        3. Kalros, the mother of all thresher maws*

          Yes, yes, yes, this 100%, especially the part about volunteers who identify more with the students than the other adults. Like everyone else, I wonder about the quality of training LW had, but a lot of people in these comments are assuming none took place when it’s entirely possible that LW did have training but thought the situation with Marvin was “different” or that the guidelines didn’t apply because Marvin was “mature” and she had protecting his feelings top of mind. I wouldn’t say LW is on the road to hell, but there is a reason they say it’s paved with good intentions.

          Reply ↓
    3. AFac*

      If the after-school program is relatively small or new, they may not think that their volunteers need training, especially if they are meeting in a classroom with an official teacher present. I think they are mistaken, but it’s easy to say “oh, they’re just meeting for an hour once a week and talking about how to connect wires, how attached can students get?” and ignore the need for training.

      The LW went beyond ‘robotics mentor’ to ‘life mentor’ and was untrained for the responsibilities of a ‘life mentor’. It may have been more mentorship than the program had in mind, but that’s why the program needs to plan for the worst case scenario.

      Reply ↓
      1. xylocopa*

        Yes, I was thinking the same–I work for a small organization that’s growing up from grassroots, and we’ve had one or two volunteer situations that had to be learning experiences for us.

        I used to work for a larger place that was very structured and strict about boundaries, and some volunteers used to grumble–this wasn’t involving kids, don’t worry–but a lot of those boundaries came out of real situations that had developed in the past. I’m appreciating it more now myself, now that I’ve had to handle a couple of tricky moments!

        Hopefully the org will learn from this one and train volunteers better about boundaries and communication. They might already say something about “inappropriate relationships,” but they might need to think and talk a bit more about what that can include.

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  14. Brian the librarian*

    As a teacher, I agree with this advice. Better for the administration and parents to hear about this straight from you, than to get a garbled account from a frustrated and embarrassed teenage guy.

    Reply ↓
    1. Slow Gin Lizz*

      Excellent point. Presumably OP has a decent relationship with the teacher she works with who will know that OP is a reliable narrator. Even though in this case it sounds like Marvin is actually being a pretty reliable narrator himself, that’s not something OP should have taken for granted.

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    2. Double A*

      I got my first call from the principal last month for my kindergartener, and it was to explain the conversation the principal needed to have with my kid about keeping her clothes on appropriately. She wasn’t in trouble, but the principal didn’t want my kid saying like, “I took my clothes off in PE.” So she explained what happened, explained how the supervising teachers handled it, and explained the conversation she had with my daughter.

      Even though they handled everything perfectly at school, I’m glad I knew because I could also reinforce the message at home. Teaching kids how to be people is a team effort.

      Reply ↓
  15. Kez*

    I agree with the commenters saying this needed direct communication with, at the minimum, the teacher who supervises you. I will also note that you should have talked to them *before* going back to the student and discussing the card/returning the ring. As an example of the guidance you should have been given, I will say that anyone who works in minor safety would have given you the direct instruction to *not ever* take a student aside to be alone in private, especially if this student was misunderstanding the boundaries between adult volunteers and minor students already.

    Reply ↓
    1. Slow Gin Lizz*

      Yeah, that’s a good point that talking to the teacher before talking to Marvin would have been a smart move, and having the teacher with you when you talked to Marvin an even smarter move.

      Reply ↓
    2. goddessoftransitory*

      And a good rule of thumb might be: “The more it feels awkward to have the teacher here for this discussion, the more necessary it is.” Because obviously Marvin isn’t going to be happy about this either way, but trying to shield him isn’t going towards the greater good in this situation.

      Reply ↓
  16. Properlike*

    Another teacher here, I completely agree with Alison’s advice. You had to at least keep your boss informed. And, as one commenter pointed out, it may help you to get some training on “professional mentor” boundaries vs “friendly adult” boundaries. Even when we love and understand students, there are ways to subtly reinforce and remind during interactions. Because this kid is like you were, but in many ways is not. It’s up to you to establish the arm’s-length relationship and the hierarchy.

    I want to empathize with you, LW, because you clearly have a big heart and a commitment to investing time in young people. It’s harder in your twenties to really understand where the line exists, and to develop the “warm distance.” It will come. Know that the program should have done more training, but they also made a lot of assumptions. When it comes to working with kids, always key to keep your supervisors updated at all times.

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  17. Audrey Puffins*

    Like, you didn’t do anything *wrong*, as a human being, you acted with good faith and grace and honestly. But I’m pretty horrified you were allowed to be in a school-based volunteer position without being given the sort of safeguarding training required to make it clear what you should do in situations like this. This kind of thing absolutely needs to be reported, for *everybody’s* protection, and you should take that knowledge with you to your follow-up meeting, so that the teacher can trust that you realise it was quite serious actually and that you have learned the lesson and know better how to respond going forward.

    Reply ↓
    1. Working under my down comforter*

      Agreed. OP, have you talked to the board about this? You need to remove yourself from interacting with Melvin any further or have another person from the organization with you when you do.

      Reply ↓
      1. Slow Gin Lizz*

        The board? I don’t think the org’s board needs to be dragged into this and if they do, the org’s leader would be the one to do it, not OP. That said, I agree that OP shouldn’t be alone with Marvin anytime soon, or ever. Sadly. I said it in another comment, but poor Marvin.

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    2. Reba*

      Yes, not only the OP but also *the program* is at legal and reputational risk for not providing this training.

      Reply ↓
      1. Phony Genius*

        I don’t know it’s the case where the LW is, but many states mandate such training or similar for anybody who works with minors (including volunteers).

        Reply ↓
    3. Starbuck*

      Yes, the fact that LW was able to have enough private time alone with Marvin for all this to happen without the teacher knowing about it shows that they needed WAY more involved training because this could have gone so much worse – and it already did not go well!

      Reply ↓
    4. Jennifer Strange*

      We don’t know that training wasn’t provided, though. The LW might have been trained properly and either didn’t retain it or didn’t think this specific case warranted the actions laid out in training.

      Reply ↓
      1. Slow Gin Lizz*

        This is very true. Given the facts presented to us, we are all assuming that the training didn’t happen because if it had we also assume that OP would have known to report this to her volunteer coordinator. If, in fact, the volunteer org does do this kind of training, then the outcome here is decidedly worse for OP because then she *definitely* should have known what to do and the responsibility for not reporting it falls 100% on her shoulders. In that case, I doubt the org has any choice but to cease OP’s relationship with the org. But if the org doesn’t do any training of this kind, then there’s more of an argument for the org to do a “mea culpa” to the parents, train OP and her fellow volunteers, and give OP one more chance. And even in that case I can see the org deciding to let OP go from their volunteer position, unfortunately, but I would hope they would realize they are also partly to blame here and wouldn’t cut OP loose just because of this one incident.

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      2. doreen*

        I’m betting that the LW didn’t think this specific case warranted reporting. I have to say, I’ve had multiple jobs where I was a mandated reporter ( one of which was at CPS investigating reports) and the training didn’t get so specific as to require a report when a 16 year old gives an adult a card confessing a crush. I would, however, have reported the $500 gift to the organization because I think the parents should know that a 16 year old spent that much money on a gift for an adult , even if I knew that it was his own money – and I’m not sure the LW knew that for sure at the time , it seems to be based entirely on what Marvin said.

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        1. Starbuck*

          I worked with kids in informal non-profit educational settings and even our DIY training covered this; I’m assuming that something done with a school district is going to be a lot stricter – in my area it is. It’s shocking and really bad safeguarding if LW was not trained or even given an orientation before working with teens 1:1 in a school.

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          1. Doreen*

            Are you saying that your training specifically said that a 16 year old giving that sort of card to an adult must be reported? Because that’s what I’m saying my training never did – it was never that specific . It might under certain circumstances be reportable under a more general provision – in which case LW may have been trained but still believed ( correctly or not ) that this incident didn’t warrant a report.

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      3. Malarkey01*

        I think for me the fact that she still doesn’t immediately see this and think oh I messed up, is the most concerning and why I’d agree there’s a good chance any training may have gone over her head.

        Reply ↓
        1. Jennifer Strange*

          Honestly, that’s my read too. It would have been one thing if she’d had a facepalm moment after the teacher/parents found out, but it really sounds like she doesn’t understand WHY this is a big deal.

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  18. Boggle*

    I can’t tell if you apologized for the way you handled the situation with Marvin, and I’m thinking that’s what was expected here. Perhaps you can offer an apology now instead of doubling down about handling it the way you did and being shocked by their response. Bottom line, he is a high-school kid, and you are an adult and should have alerted the teacher and parents as others have posted.

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  19. ECE Professional*

    As an educator myself who was worked with teens, I think the idea of looping someone else in is more than just covering yourself (though that is super important too). I also think that it’s good to flag for adults who in charge of his safety that he is doing this because what if it happens again with a less scrupulous adult then you? I do think that someone should be aware just to better ensure that this child is protected.

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  20. social worker*

    completely agree with what’s been said. telling your supervisor isn’t violating privacy. I’ve been a social worker with kids and they know any relevant information is shared with staff as we work together. it’s also important so staff are aware in case he tries something like this with another staff. it would be more of an indication that he needs more support and help

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  21. Jamalama*

    OP I’m sorry this happened! I feel like a lot of comments are saying “yeah you messed up,” but I wonder what kind of training was in place to deal with events like this?? It seems like the volunteer supervisor needs to be responsible for making sure that volunteers, who usually aren’t teachers and haven’t been trained in the same way, need to be 100% clear on how to handle situations like this before they turn into A THING. I don’t think YOU messed up, I think the ball was dropped when no one proactively trained you for this.

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    1. juliebulie*

      Agree, this really sucks for everyone and I understand why OP did what she did. I kind of get where Marvin was coming from – grateful to know someone who seemed to understand and appreciate him (a rare thing for some kids) and thought it was meant to be. This kind of thing probably isn’t rare in high school and I’m flabbergasted the school didn’t prepare OP for the possibility.

      Hopefully Marvin learns the right lesson from this experience, and doesn’t get lost in the shuffle.

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      1. Sloanicota*

        Yeah, I do feel bad for poor Marvin since apparently the “right” thing to do was loop in the other teachers and his parents immediately about what he did, which would obviously be mortifying, and it’s possible his favorite teacher will now have to avoid him or be fired altogether because of this, and it would be very easy for him to learn the wrong lesson here – that his feelings are so disgusting and repellent that they are a Big Problem for everyone and ruin his favorite things! So I hope someone (not OP) is mentoring him through this.

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        1. Beth*

          I mean…he’s 16. I had a crush on a counselor at a summer program at around that age, and had a great time lamenting to my friends about how Tragic it was that I Could Never Confess because Their Job Would Be At Risk if they reciprocated my feelings. (The counselor never gave a single sign that they might be interested. I’m sure they knew I had a crush–I was probably the most obvious moony idiot–but they were completely professional towards me. The potential tragedy was entirely in my own read-too-many-star-crossed-lover-romance-novels head.)

          Teenagers know that they’re not supposed to try to date adults, especially teachers and teacher-like people. Some of them try anyways–part of that developmental stage is pushing boundaries and trying to do adult things. But I think it’s a reach to assume that a teen like Marvin would get into this situation and conclude that his having a crush on someone is inherently disgusting or repellant. He’ll probably be embarrassed that 1) he misread his relationship with OP and got rejected, and 2) his parents caught him doing something he’s not supposed to and will now experience the natural consequences of his actions. He can live with that and learn from it.

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          1. ShanShan*

            Buying a $500 ring for her is just so beyond the pale of normal teenage behavior that I don’t think it’s safe to assume Marvin knows what’s allowed and what isn’t.

            It’s an occupational hazard of being a kid with no friends your age: you don’t get a lot of the social data that other kids absorb through osmosis.

            I had some similar problems at that age, and it was because I was getting my social education from books instead of from people. I wouldn’t recommend it.

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    2. Amber Rose*

      I don’t work with kids, but as someone who works in protection of workers, the first thing I check into when there’s an incident is, what systems were involved here and where are the holes that allowed this to happen? LW seems a little too confused about the response to this for me to assume they got the necessary training.

      That said, LW isn’t completely absolved of fault. They essentially made a parenting decision for this child. It wasn’t their call to make that “the financial consequences were his own to deal with without extra judgment needed from others.”

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      2. Sneaky Squirrel*

        Yes, I agree here. The school’s responsibility was to train LW how to react in this kind of situation. Where LW erred to me was in trusting that Marvin would take the rejection with grace since he was more mature than the other students and making a decision about the financial consequences. He’s still a teenager and needs to be treated like one regardless of how mature he puts off.

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    3. Jennifer Strange*

      We don’t know that she wasn’t proactively trained for this. I’ve definitely seen people receive all of the proper training and still not respond correctly to things like this, either because they forgot, weren’t paying attention, or (as it seems may be the LW’s case) were too close to the situation and allowed that to cloud their judgement.

      Reply ↓
  22. Educator*

    I’ve had lots of jobs where I would be the person in a leadership position to whom you would need to report this kind of thing, and I 100% agree that it should have been reported (well before the letter, as soon as you saw him feeling isolated from his peers) and that you should have gotten better training.

    It is important, when working with kids like this, to remember that relationships with adults are not a substitute for relationships with peers. All teens need strong peer relationships–it is essential for their mental health and personal development. Adults need to help kids like Marvin connect with people their own age, not try to step into that friend role themselves. That means very strict boundaries, including limiting the time spent interacting with any one student. It also means facilitating activities in such a way that Marvin interacts with lots of other students and giving him prompting and support as he makes the effort to do so.

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    1. Nightengale*

      You know as both a former quirky, excluded, bullied kid and a former educator. . . (now doctor for a lot of quirky, excluded, bullied kids) the school probably already knows that the kid is isolated from his peers. Everyone sure recognized that about me growing up. There were literally years of my life when the only interactions I had with other kids my age were to be ridiculed.

      Of course the solution for that can’t be to substitute inappropriate teen/adult friendships but that doesn’t mean they can necessarily make anything positive happen with other teens either, and attempts often really really backfire. I can’t think of a single adult attempt to get me to interact more that led to anything positive for me, although the adults would see me physically with the other kids and think they had been successful.

      Trying to find the kid 1-2 other kids with similar interests – sure. This club may be a good place for it. And keeping a close eye on those interactions.
      Pushing interactions with lots of other students who may be bullying in ways the adults don’t recognize – not so much.

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      1. Slow Gin Lizz*

        Yeah, I tend to agree with you, Nightengale, more than with Educator. I too was a socially awkward, nerdy kid and now I’m a socially awkward, nerdy adult. Forcing me to interact with lots of other teenagers was really awful for me. The adults in my life were great about getting me into programs that focused on some of my nerdy qualities and this is probably more what Marvin needs – a place to do his nerdy things and maybe find few friends who have similar interests to him, not adults forcing him to interact with a lot of other teenagers who don’t know what to think of him.

        We need to be careful not to fault OP for being a mentor to Marvin. I don’t think she erred in that respect, I do think that she was just being a caring adult and listening to Marvin when he was info-dumping (which his peers probably do not do), and Marvin mistook her enthusiasm for something more than it was. Plenty of adults do this as well, and unless OP was doing something really out of line here, I think her behavior with Marvin was probably totally fine. She only made a mistake in not reporting his behavior after it got romantic.

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      2. Educator*

        This is an area where educational best practices are rapidly evolving, because the pandemic produced a whole generation of kids who have/had various gaps in their ability to connect with peers. It’s very tricky and individual, so listening and giving students tools to set personal goals themselves is taking on greater and greater importance. I definitely have better tools in my professional toolkit now to spot and manage bullying and support healthy student interaction than I did even five years ago.

        I’m sorry the educators in your childhood let you down in this area–your patients are lucky to have your empathy.

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    2. Skytext*

      Well said, and it brings up a point no one else had mentioned: it was worrying to me when OP said Marvin gets along better with teachers than peers, she was EXACTLY LIKE HIM, and she remembers the DEEP relationships she had with teachers. It made me wonder about the appropriateness of some of those “deep” relationships, and wonder if her norms are possibly skewed.

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      1. General von Klinkerhoffen*

        That would definitely have been me in my early twenties, and it took a few instances of “so my teacher asked me round to his flat for dinner to discuss it”/”I’m sorry he WHAT?” before I understood how badly boundaries had been crossed even without anything bad happening.

        (it took them another decade to fire that teacher, who still never understood what he did wrong because he had never discussed an inappropriate topic nor laid a finger on anyone)

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      2. Slow Gin Lizz*

        This could be a possibility. I had some really great relationships with a few teachers when I was a teenager (one HS, two college) but they were totally appropriate student/teacher relationships. I was lucky that those great teachers are also really great human beings and not the kind to take advantage of a clueless, socially awkward teenage girl. I realize now that they were really emotional stand-ins for my dad, who is not a warm, fuzzy guy, and these three men were a lot more emotionally supportive than my dad is. I miss them. :-)

        But I digress…I don’t know that we need to read into OP’s comments about her deep relationships with adults when she was a kid to assume that they weren’t appropriate, but I bet those relationships color how she’s relating to Marvin. She probably hopes that everything she told those adults was kept confidential, and it probably was, but as many of us have commented on other threads here, conversations between adults and children should NOT be kept confidential if something odd or alarming happens. This is where OP really erred here, as did her org for not explicitly training their volunteers about how to handle stuff like this.

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        1. Skytext*

          Lizz, I don’t mean to imply that something REALLY inappropriate, like something sexual, happened in those deep relationships, but things that are more subtle, or things that used to be okay (because we didn’t realize the dangers) but now aren’t. Things like phone or text conversations without looping in the parents. Or giving a kid ride home, thereby being alone in a car with them. By more subtle, I mean something like, oh, discussing a health scare and fear of death, something that the mentor should talk about with a close friend, a therapist, a support group, but NOT an underage mentee! Because OP hasn’t received actual training about what is and isn’t appropriate, all she has to go by are those previous relationships. We already know she has some at least slightly skewed ideas, such as talking about how “mature” Marvin is, when experts here in the comments have talked about the pitfalls of labeling a gifted kid in this way.

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      3. goddessoftransitory*

        I thought that as well. If she had a skewed relationship of this kind, it makes sense that she might see it as “unfortunate but not ‘wrong'” when Marvin expressed his own feelings.

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    3. Beth*

      Someone like OP is probably not in a position to facilitate Marvin’s relationships with his peers. A teacher can intervene on any bullying they witness; they can offer mentorship in the area they teach, for kids who are interested in learning more; they can set up group activities so students have a chance to talk to peers and potentially connect; they can tell a parent that a kid might benefit from tutoring or may need evaluation for a learning disorder. But they can’t generally force a connection between a teen and his peers if it’s not happening organically. Trying to push too hard can actually make it worse.

      Of course they still have to maintain appropriate relationships themselves! But it’s important to remember the limits of your scope and abilities when working with kids. Trying to reach outside that often does more harm than good.

      Reply ↓
  23. Snarkus Aurelius*

    I know you were trying to help Marvin save face, and maybe 50 years ago, your response would have been adequate. Marvin was going to be embarrassed no matter who you told.

    I, too. am concerned that you weren’t given proper training on how to deal with situations like this and a reporting structure. You got lucky that your version of events matched Marvin’s. You may want to consider what could have happened if they didn’t!

    You have to protect yourself!

    I’m a parent, and I need to know if my kid did something like this so I can counsel him too.

    (As a side note, this is why I don’t work with kids. Too much opportunity for things to go awry. My brother once said he was concerned I’d hurt his small kids because I disagreed with him on an inheritance issue. After that, I never had contact with his kids ever even though they’re adults now. I won’t even have their numbers in my phone.)

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    1. Wounded, erratic stink bugs*

      About the side note — you are absolutely entitled to feel this way, but in my opinion those are unusually big reactions, at least based on the info you shared here! Not at all to say you shouldn’t have those big reactions, just because I think that part of this larger conversation is a “what are the norms” conversation and I wanted to add the data that I think that’s outside the norm.

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    3. Parenthesis Guy*

      “My brother once said he was concerned I’d hurt his small kids because I disagreed with him on an inheritance issue. After that, I never had contact with his kids ever even though they’re adults now. I won’t even have their numbers in my phone.”

      That’s horrible. I feel sorry for you and for your niblings.

      Reply ↓
  24. Zona the Great*

    It’s easy to feel that a student is more mature than they are. But we have to protect them from themselves as much as from other people. When I was 16, I was playing adult and probably pretty convincingly to some grown-ups. But I got myself into some very scary situations because of this. Add that to AOL instant messenger and chat rooms and I shudder to think of what could have been.

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    1. atalanta0jess*

      I think one of the most important things I ever heard was that safe adults have an obligation to ACT like safe adults. So there are things that dangerous adults do (to use a stupid and obvious example, invite a kid back to your van by the river to see your new puppy) that actually might seem ok if you’re a safe adult because you know that YOUR intentions are good. You know that YOU are not going to molest a child! But you also need to reinforce to children that it’s not a good idea to go to a van down by the river, right? So we do that by acting in ways that safe adults act. That includes consulting; not keeping secrets; etc. It also includes not letting ourselves think that a kid is “more mature than other kids” – because that’s something unsafe adults tell young people, and maybe even believe about young people. It’s important for us to help kids know that yes they are wonderful! But no, they aren’t so different and more special than their peers that they should have special relationships with adults.

      Good luck OP! These situations are hard and painful, and your care for this child is evident!

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      1. General von Klinkerhoffen*

        It was very well put so I’m glad it posted!

        When there’s an important line that should never be crossed, safe people don’t step anywhere near it.

        Reply ↓
        1. atalanta0jess*

          Aw, thanks. It was a really helpful framework when I first heard it. I’m still trying to decide whether it means I can or cannot offer my kiddo’s friends a ride home from the bus stop when it’s raining though. ;)

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    3. Consonance*

      I was also struck by the perceived maturity piece. I get that he may seem precocious in some ways, but the fact that he thought this was an okay thing to do pretty clearly demonstrates that he’s, well, acting like a 16 year old.

      Reply ↓
      1. Clisby*

        I don’t know – a 16-year-old spending $500 on a ring does not seem to me to be “acting like a 16 year old.” A half-dozen roses, sure, and maybe I’m hopelessly out of touch, but does the ordinary 16-year-old blow $500 on a ring in the hopes some young woman will be interested in him?

        Reply ↓
        1. Starbuck*

          I think the idea of doing some big grand gesture to win the attention/approval of someone you haven’t even asked out yet to try to get them to date you is immature teenage thinking, yeah. I remember knowing couples at high school who would get new bfs/gfs a too expensive gift after not very much time together because they just thought that was a cool adult thing to do. From the boys it would usually be jewelry; and I knew a few girls who bought expensive electronics (like a gaming console) for guys they’d been dating less than a year. It was definitely unusual and gossiped about though and my peers thought it was excessive.

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          1. goddessoftransitory*

            Yep, it’s definitely a Grand Romance gesture as seen in media, and thus taken to be a real life example of the Thing To Do That Will Win Their Heart. Heck, grown adults are shown doing this kind of thing in movies and such, so a teenager isn’t really to blame for thinking it’s a good idea (IT’S NOT A GOOD IDEA, KIDS)

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        2. Consonance*

          I don’t mean that fancy rings = things teenagers do. I mean that impulsive behavior, over-the-top gestures, etc. are things I’d expect from someone whose frontal lobe isn’t fully online yet.

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        3. EventPlannerGal*

          I think social media has really changed young people’s perceptions of what is normal and affordable and I honestly could see a teenager thinking this is just the ‘grown-up’ version of an elaborate prom-posal or something. There was a tiktok trend a while back of people sharing their kids’/younger siblings’ delusional Christmas lists with, like, 11-year-olds asking for Dior lip oil, Drunk Elephant skincare and the entire Skims catalogue.

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  25. Eastendbird*

    I work in education. I’m kind of stunned that the LW doesn’t appear to have had any safeguarding training, which would have included dealing with this kind of scenario. Part of the training we have specifically covers not being able to keep “secrets”, even if the child asks you to.

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  26. Samwise*

    I work in higher ed and often volunteer with K-12 students. Alison’s answer is perfect.

    It should be up to the teacher to inform the parents.

    I’ve had students (high school and college age) crush on me. I always talked to my supervisor about it. Occasionally the student has been reassigned.

    Keeping a student’s confidence: if they come out to you. If they tell you they or a family member is undocumented. Things like that.

    BTW, I’d advise you to talk to the teacher about how to mentor a student appropriately, what are appropriate boundaries. It’s hard when you see yourself in the kid, but I do think you need to keep such relationships less intense than you are now doing. Not blaming you here! It’s often tough to know what to do, and to be aware of yourself.

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    1. different seudonym*

      TO my understanding, it’s specifically illegal in some places to keep a student’s confidence about their own sexual or gender identity. In most places, school officials and parents are likely to see it as the same as what LW did–as keeping a secret with a minor. I hope K-12 teachers can follow up on this point–would reporting to a school psychologist or counselor be enough? Those professions have ethical rules that might protect a student in that situation.

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      1. Properlike*

        The places where it’s illegal are also places where the government in place has made it dangerous to be LGBTQIA+ or undocumented. In that case, everyone has to decide if this is a law worth following.

        And before anyone argues semantics, please see “fascism”, “slavery”, etc.

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        1. Ally McBeal*

          Preach. My mom had a very firm “no lying” rule for us kids, but was always clear that it was ok to lie if (this is the example she quoted, as someone born in the mid-40s) a N-zi came to your door looking for a Jewish person who you knew was hiding behind your couch. I don’t see any important distinctions between that example and an example involving queer kids or immigrants or someone seeking an abortion.

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      2. Starbuck*

        “TO my understanding, it’s specifically illegal in some places to keep a student’s confidence about their own sexual or gender identity. ”

        Interesting. Now that you say that… I don’t think I’ve ever heard of such a law. Nor will I, ever. But fortunately, no student has ever come out to me, and I’m quite sure that’ll never happen in the future either, so that’s a relief that I won’t ever have to worry about reporting such a thing.

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        1. Ally McBeal*

          Those laws are happening in the U.S. right now. I’m not sure if I’m jealous or concerned that you haven’t heard of these laws.

          Reply ↓
      3. fancy pants math girl*

        You are correct, and I live in one of those states. This is a situation where ethically I am more concerned about the student’s health and safety, and I personally am willing to keep a student’s confidence, even if I would be censured/demoted/fired.

        I have not had to defy the law with respect to K-12 students (no such situations have come up yet), I have followed my conscience regarding information from college students that, while not illegal, could lead me to losing my job. So I’m certain how I would act — it was very scary and stressful the first time I did that, but those are now the moments I’m most proud of in my career.

        Everyone must decide for themselves what they would do. It’s a good idea, especially in these times, to reflect on what you would do, and to think about the implications of different courses of action.

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  27. D'Euly*

    Oh dear.

    OP, I’m really sorry you were put in this situation without appropriate preparation! I think you’re getting a little confused because you’re equating other adults knowing about this with blame/punishment–you mention that the money was his own and that he didn’t need “extra judgement from others.” But in keeping this to yourself, you left Marvin without the *support* he very clearly needs from his parents et al. He acted inappropriately and that’s not a matter for punishment, but it is most definitely a matter for assistance. It’s not fair to Marvin to leave him alone with this, and it’s not fair to his parents or the organization to let them go in blind.

    It’s also not great to label a student “more mature” than his peers and use that to justify your choices. The behavior you’ve described does not, in all honesty, sound mature–it sounds like he needs some real assistance with social behavior and boundaries–and thinking that it’s appropriate to treat him as though he is older, closer to your own peer, because of that is going to raise all sorts of red flags to your supervisor.

    Reply ↓
    1. bamcheeks*

      It’s also not great to label a student “more mature” than his peers and use that to justify your choices

      This is a really good point! It’s really common (and dangerous) to think that young people who are more comfortable interacting with adults are “more mature”– but it often means that either they struggle with the reciprocity of friendships with peers or that they are vulnerable to predatory adults. That’s not maturity!

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    2. MsM*

      That’s a really good way of framing it. Even if OP were Marvin’s peer, buying someone you haven’t even been on a single date with an expensive piece of jewelry accompanied by an intense feelings dump is generally not going to go over well. That’s an area of socialization he clearly needs help with, and OP can’t be the one to provide it.

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    3. Slow Gin Lizz*

      This is a good point about blame/punishment vs. assistance/support. If the OP told his parents and the teacher who heads the org about it, one would hope they would help him to see why what he did wasn’t a good idea and help him to figure out what to do about getting his money back (do pawn shops accept returns? I have no idea!). And OP should have thought of it that way, that telling others what happened was not “tattling”, for lack of a better term, but merely an “I thought you should know…” conversation, one that would hopefully help Melvin and not serve to punish and embarrass him.

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  28. cele*

    There are already plenty of educators confirming that OP should have absolutely reported the incident immediately, so I won’t pile on. But I will say this: this is *such* an obvious report-necessitating case, that I’d bet you haven’t received any kind of adequate, proper training. This should be like, What to Report 101. I would definitely bring up training with your supervisor. I oversee several volunteers who work with minors, and to give you an idea of our organization-wide training: we require a one-time, half-day seminar at the start, followed by monthly trainings that ALWAYS include reminders of what necessitates a report, plus an annual two-hour seminar, plus regular safety audits and check-ins with volunteers. If our any of our volunteers fall behind on any of their training or check-ins, they are removed from volunteering until they catch up, and if it happens more than once, we sit down with them to ensure they understand the importance of maintaining current training. Our safety program has been recognized as one of the best, so yours may not look quite like this, but you should at LEAST feel equipped to handle a basic report. I hope this helps.

    Reply ↓
  29. IT Relationship Manager*

    Agree with Alison and the other commentators here. It should have been reported but also the organization should have had some sort of training on how to report.

    In future, I would have open dialogues with the teacher running the program about your relationships with students. Give updates like, “Marvin is really open with me about his personal problems about X.” It’s really nice that you were an emotional resource for him but having a third-party, especially one in a supervisory capacity would have probably told you before it got to this point that lines were being crossed. You had really good intentions but you are in a power position being older and a mentor so your attention isn’t going to be taken the same way with a student compared to a peer.

    It’s CYA but you’re also young and less experienced working with kids. It’s really hard to work with teens when you’re in your young 20s and really put in that boundary to remember that you’re not their best friend and that they need a different type of support from you that isn’t a peer friendship.

    Reply ↓
    1. Lego Girl*

      I have a job that involves some direct work with youth and even after years of this, In still a little uncomfortable working with teens – they look and act like full size people but are SO not. I’ll take a room full of 5-7 year olds who just ate pure sugar at 4:30 in the afternoon before a teen group any day!

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  30. Apex Mountain*

    The main thing as has been mentioned is that there should have been specific training for volunteers on what to do in cases like this

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  31. hotg0ss*

    I understand OP’s impulse to prevent further humiliation but other than that, I’m kind of shocked that whatever training volunteers got didn’t include this. You’re volunteering in a school, and schools have protocols that you should’ve gotten info about. One of the things I learned early on in my ed career (high schoolers, college kids, and now a wide range of ages 18+) was that open communication among faculty and staff was paramount to keeping everyone safe and making sure students were getting the support they needed. It’s hard to identify patterns of behavior if no one is talking to each other.

    Second thing, given all the manosphere content out in the world aimed directly at lonely, insecure boys without close peers, I’m curious about what other messages he’s getting regarding relationship boundaries. You went into this thinking you were in a mentorship role, but Marvin assumed that meant a romantic element. I hope someone in his life is able to nip that in the bud before it becomes a bigger deal.

    Reply ↓
    1. juliebulie*

      I’ve been mulling over that “second thing.” There are any number of “lessons” Marvin might learn from this experience, depending on the other influences in his life, and it’s scary to think about.

      Reply ↓
      1. Paint N Drip*

        Totally agree, and I think that situation (Marvin being specifically at risk of this plus the amount and intensity of that content increasing) turns up the alarm bells for me, ideally would have done the same for OP. Parents need to know what’s happening so Marvin can get some reinforcement and guidance on relationships, mentorship, friendship, etc.

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    2. different seudonym*

      also a good call about the manosphere thing. That’s another reason why it’s not good to have a secret with a kid–there’s no guarantee that you share the same frame of reference.

      Reply ↓
  32. Alan*

    FWIW, I ran this past my wife who has worked in school offices for decades, and her take is that this is entirely on the school, which should prepare volunteers for situations like this. The volunteer used her intuition, which was actually kind, without having been given the wider picture or a protocol for dealing with this. My wife said her protocol was notify the principal, notify the volunteer coordinator, notify the teacher. She sends her sympathies.

    Reply ↓
    1. Jennifer Strange*

      We don’t know that the LW wasn’t prepared/given proper protocol for this. As I’ve said above, I’ve seen folks receive all of the training and still not heed it.

      Reply ↓
  33. Endless TBR Pile*

    I think, OP, you treated Marvin too much like a peer and too little like a student. He wasn’t a coworker asking you on a date; he’s someone who looks up to you. Teenagers aren’t always the best at figuring out boundaries, or that ‘I like this person’ does not always have romantic connotations.

    When you have your meeting with your supervisor, I think you should apologize and state that upon reflection admit that yeah, you handled this poorly. That’s OK! It happens! But like Alison mentioned in her answer – what kind of training did you have to handle this situation? If the answer is none, or very little, I’d mention something about that as well. A bland line or two about ‘no romantic entanglements with minors’ isn’t sufficient. Advocate for a step-by-step process to be implemented for handling this type of thing. I promise you, Marvin is not the only teenager to get a crush on a younger teacher / school volunteer. I wouldn’t blame lack of training, but point out a policy and system would have been tremendously helpful to you.

    I hope this works out positively for you, OP, as well as Marvin.

    Reply ↓
    1. InfantaM*

      Your first paragraph really hits home for me. I did my student teaching in a high school, with some seniors/AP level kids. I was 22, and I was much more comfortable with the students than I was with my 50-something supervising teacher (I WAS them, not 4-5 years before that moment). I also had very little training as a student teacher (this was the late 90’s/very early 2000’s, there was no Safe Schools web based training), and I could have seen my 22-year-old self reacting similarly to OP.

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      1. Shan*

        I was thinking exactly this throughout the letter – I was in my early 20s doing my practicums, teaching students who were as old as 19, and sometimes it was really hard to maintain that teacher/student boundary. They could easily have been coworkers at the cinema I’d worked at up until the prior year, or guys who’d chat me up at the bar (18 is legal drinking age here). When you threw in the fact many of them had recently immigrated here due to war in their home countries, some of them genuinely seemed way more mature than the kids I had gone to school with very recently. It was unexpectedly difficult, and I had full university courses on the matter! I can definitely see how OP was out of her depth here if she didn’t receive proper training.

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      2. Endless TBR Pile*

        Right, exactly! OP mentions she is mid-20’s, and so is at most 10 years older than Marvin? Depending on the career she’s in, she may still be in her first post-grad role. It’s come up in letters a few times the shift from student to employee; I think this may be another aspect of that shift. OP knew to of course turn Marvin down, and of course she returned the gifts. But the step from there – telling someone above her – got cloudy with “I don’t want to get him in trouble”. Truly, I think this was a failure in training for OP.

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  34. Nannerdoodle*

    I also volunteer with high schoolers at an organization that gives extensive training on what to do in all sorts of situations and how to avoid those situations to begin with. The way this situation was handled did the exact opposite of what OP wanted, and it would cast more suspicion on OP in this instance (I’m sorry, OP). I can’t speak for other organizations just what my own has trained and that’s what I’ll be doing from this point.

    In situations where a student has conveyed strong feelings/attachment toward an adult in authority, the adult needs to recognize that they automatically have the position of influence/power (whether or not they feel that way) and need to act to protect everyone’s safety and well being. Once a kid has conveyed those feelings, it is in the adult and child’s best interest to avoid being in situations where they are 1 on 1 with no other adults/teens around so that no harm can come to either person via actions in the moment (either the student reacting poorly to the adult’s refusal or the opposite) or words later (even if OP rejected Marvin, he could say that she didn’t and it would be his word against hers). Keeping it a secret signals that OP does not want it to come to light for some reason. Even if that reason is to help the teen avoid embarrassment, people will come to their own conclusions about it that are not always favorable toward OP. Keeping secrets erodes the organization’s trust that OP will be willing to tell them about other larger issues with the teens (think mandated reporting concerns).

    The best course of action would have been to find the teacher/person in charge of volunteers prior to seeing the students again/handing back the letter to Marvin. Explain what happened and let the person in charge tell you what the school/organization’s policies are and have the conversation that Alison suggested. They may not have wanted OP to have that conversation with Marvin or may have wanted a 3rd party in the room to ensure safety for everyone.

    OP, the organization may remove you as a volunteer because of the secret keeping more than anything else. They definitely should have trained you better, and may use this as a teaching moment for you and all other volunteers, but it is within their right to remove you because they need to focus on safety of the students first.

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  35. Also-ADHD*

    I do think LW needed to report somewhere at the school. Whether it was to his parents directly, I’m not 100% sure. (I would have reported to my program contact at the school via email, possibly CCing Guidance if appropriate.) Depending on LW’s workflow/situation, I’m unclear whether she would have parental information/contact regularly, and if not, I think it’s fine to escalate to the school and let them address (I’d say in writing, such as via email, so you have that CYA). That’s my view as a former teacher and someone who still works part-time with a nonprofit that operates in schools (though I don’t do any of the outreach or work with youth directly anymore, and my FT job is in a different sector), so maybe that’s out of date, but expecting volunteers to FULLY handle the situation and sit down with the parents might be a bit too much (different if she’s met the parents routinely and knows them).

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  36. N*

    I also volunteer with the public, which includes but is not limited to teens. The way you dealt with the situation would have been great if Marvin was your adult student, but he is not an adult.

    However, I received extensive training on how to work with minors before I was allowed to start volunteering, even though my work is not specific to minors. It was made very clear that I am not allowed to have any private discussions with minors out of view of the group. Hopefully everyone can just learn a lesson from this and move on, but if you do find your volunteer role at risk I would encourage you to pressure the staff to provide clearer training and boundaries for volunteers that work with minors.

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  37. Lacey*

    Alison is absolutely right, but I am very sympathetic to the OP bc I remember volunteering with teens in my 20s. Especially in my early 20s, I was still thinking, “This is how I would have wanted to be treated” without seeing the bigger picture or safety concerns that older adults are aware of.

    Nothing like this ever happened to me, but if it had, I don’t know if I would have realized anymore than the OP did that I needed to let the teacher in charge know. I might have even felt that being an adult I would be expected to handle it on my own.

    It’s a big problem in a lot of youth spaces, because they tend to recruit younger volunteers and then not train them very well – if at all.

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    1. juliebulie*

      I also volunteered with high school students when I was in college. I was going to become a teacher. I looked a lot younger than my age and had a few “admirers” among the students. (No incidents, just some of the “maturer” (more confident) boys always finding reasons to talk to me.) It was the 80s, I don’t know what was typical training at the time, but my college’s teacher training program was the laughingstock of the state and I was totally unprepared for that kind of attention. (I didn’t get that from my fellow college students!) Fortunately, I quickly figured out that I identified too much with them as kids, and not enough as an adult, plus I had no air of authority whatsoever, and decided not to be a teacher.

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    2. AnotherLibrarian*

      When I, in college, volunteered at the middle school reading program, we were given no training on this. Nothing. So, I can absolutely believe that you got no training on this. We were just told to never be alone with them, but never why or any reporting structures. The point I’m making here is that I can 100% imagine the LW not being trained on this.

      Reply ↓
    3. Endless TBR Pile*

      “This is how I would have wanted to be treated.” Yes, exactly.

      I did an outreach program in college teaching poetry / literature to an at-risk group of teen boys. I got no training about what to do in a situation like this. None. Luckily nothing ever came up (other than a few “brave” comments here or there), but reading this yeah. This absolutely could have been me.

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    4. bighairnoheart*

      Same for me! Reading all the comments about how OP should have gotten better training on how to handle this kind of thing made me realize that the training I got when I became a substitute teacher for a year was very bare bones. It certainly didn’t cover anything like this, and if OP got similar training, I can understand why she thought she had the situation covered, and didn’t feel the need to loop others in on it.

      Reply ↓
  38. ChurchOfDietCoke*

    It sounds like OP has had no safeguarding training at all. Which leads me to question what safeguarding processes (if any) this school has? Worrying!

    Reply ↓
    1. InfantaM*

      I used to work as a direct district hire for schools, but now I contract. Most trainings have been web-based through a company called Safe Schools (I’m sure there’s others, but in three districts it’s been the same ones). I am most definitely a mandated reporter. However, as a contractor no one checks on if I’ve done these trainings or not, so I can see the actual school staff being required but not any volunteers.

      Reply ↓
      1. Momma Bear*

        If the school doesn’t require it of volunteers, then that is a major shortcoming. I couldn’t even chaperone a field trip with my own child without submitting confirmation of training.

        Reply ↓
  39. Jigglypuff*

    Former teacher and current librarian here.

    Always, ALWAYS err on the side of caution when working with minors. Report anything like this immediately to your supervisor. Worst case scenario: they say you didn’t need to tell them. But it is always best to keep your supervisor in the loop with anything like this at all.

    As a supervisor, I appreciate when my staff tell me things, even if it turns out to be nothing to worry about, because then I have a heads-up in case that issue comes up later. As a staff person, I always make sure my boss knows if anything weird happens – if I have an unusual interaction with another staffer or a patron – for the same reason. Usually, it’s nothing. But in some cases it could be something.

    TL:DR – If you work with minors, always report anything weird. Worry less about losing the trust of the minor and more about your safety.

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    1. Properlike*

      And it’s not even “weird” stuff – report anything that’s keeping the student from fully taking advantage of the program.

      Reply ↓
  40. Munchkins Stole My Lipstick*

    Also, you need to put your bag somewhere that none of the students can sneak something into (or out of) it. I know this can be tough in a classroom space, but please find a cabinet, drawer, or other less accessible place to stash it, especially if it’s a space where students are allowed to roam freely. There is too much temptation otherwise.

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    1. HailRobonia*

      This is good advice in ALL situations. I have friends who are teachers and they are very careful never to give kids access to their desk and especially their food.

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    2. Observer*

      This is 100%

      There are a LOT of reasons for this – both your safety and that of the others in the program.

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  41. DramaQ*

    Even as a volunteer if you are working with the school you are a mandatory reporter. Even though you rejected him which was absolutely the right decision to make you still have to report it to whoever is above you for documentation reasons.

    While you are the adult in this situation you are also still very young yourself. You are only 2 years out of high school. Your logic for keeping it private made sense in HS when you would have been peers with Marvin. But you need to change your mindset and do so quickly.

    You are in a position of authority over Marvin as the volunteer running this program. As a person with authority you are duty bound to report the incident. This isn’t the HS dance anymore this is your standing as a volunteer (and someday professional), the school’s reputation and Marvin’s safety that is at issue here.

    Even if he took it with grace that does not matter. His behavior and feelings need to be addressed by both the school and his parents. Both for your/any teacher’s sake and Marvin’s. By not addressing it leaves Marvin open to seeing the behavior as acceptable because maybe the next one will embrace his love and it leaves him open to predators who don’t respect the line between authority/student, adult/student.

    It is also on the school for not providing you proper training in how to handle such situations and when you have your meeting I would absolutely bring that up not as a blame game but to point it out to them for future volunteers. What is obvious to them as paid educators isn’t going to be obvious to young volunteers especially ones who are barely out of high school themselves.

    Reply ↓
    1. Apex Mountain*

      I’d say it’s almost 100% on the school – you can’t hire volunteers to work with minors and not give them the needed training

      Reply ↓
      1. Jennifer Strange*

        There’s nothing indicating that they DIDN’T give the LW training. It’s very possible the LW was trained, but ignored it because of her own bond with the student.

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    2. Myrin*

      While you are the adult in this situation you are also still very young yourself. You are only 2 years out of high school.

      OP is mid-20s, not 20, but I was just thinking that as a now 34-year-old, even people ten years younger than me, who are adults in every way, sometimes seem very young and occasionally even child-/teenager-like to me. Definitely not the norm (I’d say that most mid-20s I meet could just as well be 30), but still something I encounter somewhat regularly.

      Reply ↓
  42. Saturday*

    I’m not a parent, but I think in their position, “while I was flattered, as an adult, it wouldn’t be appropriate for me to be his girlfriend” would raise a red flag higher for me. I know you were just trying to gently let this kid down, but being flattered does make it sound like you would like to be his girlfriend, if it weren’t for the age issue. Along with describing him as more mature than the other students and showing a willingness to keep things from his parents, I think this is giving them reasons to feel uncomfortable with your continued contact with him.

    If you could do the meeting over again, I think it would have been better to explain why you kept the card and ring private, while also being more willing to accept that that wasn’t the best choice. It may have been more reassuring to the teacher and parents to learn that you were very open to handling things differently in the future.

    Reply ↓
    1. MsM*

      Yeah, that phrasing also gave me pause. And it’s one of the many reasons why telling someone what happened ASAP would’ve been crucial – because as it is, they don’t really have any concrete reason to believe OP wasn’t trying to communicate to Marvin “wait until you’re older/be more subtle.” At the very least, there was a very real risk that’s how he could have heard it.

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    2. JustKnope*

      I agree – the language that OP used with Marvin in the rejection felt inappropriate to me and showed that OP has blurred some mental boundaries on how she’s interacting with this kid.

      Reply ↓
    3. CommanderBanana*

      Yeah. This, coupled with the LW identifying so strongly with Marvin, to not telling the parents, to saying that it was ok to not tell the parents because he was “more mature” than all the other kids..? I’d like to think that LW’s heart is in the right place, but, as someone who coordinates volunteers, I’d be pulling that person off of anything involving minors.

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    4. Don’t know what to call myself*

      Yes, exactly. This is why I think it would have been better for LW to talk to the teacher before she talked to Marvin, so she and the teacher could have a conversation about how to appropriately shut this down. Any and all communication you have with a child when you’re working on behalf of a school has to be within the school’s defined boundaries. That’s easier when you’re talking about school related things like math tips and giving feedback on essays, and a little murkier when it gets into interpersonal stuff like this. Even as someone with some experience working with teenagers, I’d still have wanted to run this by a supervisor first and say “I was planning to say X, is that okay or would you advise me to say something else?”

      Reply ↓
  43. A*

    “the cruel Mad Max thunderdome that is high school”

    I know this is meant to be validating and comes from a well intentioned place.

    I don’t think this is as helpful as the LW thinks it is. Teenagers need help bringing the hyperbole down and their perspective up. Attitudes and statements like this really only feed the hyperbole. If the LW was saying stuff like this around the students I would suggest they try a more even keeled approach.

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    1. toolegittoresign*

      Agreed. I know LW is young so they probably don’t realize it yet, but high school is less than 5% of your entire life. This point needs to be emphasized a smush as possible with teens. The sheer volume of media that is based in and around high school that even most adults consume only exaggerates the importance of it. High school used to be really influential when everyone got married at 18 and most didn’t go to college. That’s not our lives anymore and we need to stop romanticizing, glorifying or even vilifying high school. It’s four years. Just four years.

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        1. PRF*

          Is he being tortured though? It sounds like he’s nerdy and has a small friend group, but it’s unclear if there is bullying happening or if this is a kid still trying to find his people. (And if there is bullying comparable to Mad Max going on, then the LW needs to report that)

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          1. PACM*

            The facts we have don’t indicate that he’s likely to have much of an environment flusj with welcoming and supportive peers, although he could spend $500 so that’s a data point that suggests his family has more money than mine did growing up.

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        2. A. Lab Rabbit*

          Which is all the more reason to not throw out terms like this. We have no idea what this child’s actual experience is; all we have is the LW’s interpretation of it, which is based on a few hours on contact per week with multiple students. He may be fine with his situation or he may not, but we don’t really know.

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          1. Lisa Simpson*

            The kids view of high school at the time might not even be accurate to what’s going on, because they’re a teen.

            I’m 40 and I’ve recently done a lot of reflection on my “miserable” teen years, the misery of which I adamantly blamed my peers for. But as an adult, I realized that my peer situation was much more positive than I felt about it at the time. And my home situation was much more terrible than I had realized at the time. I was basically blaming the wrong people for the reason I was unhappy. And it took me a good 20 years to figure this out!

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        3. CommanderBanana*

          Filtering Marvin through the lens of her own experience is what got LW into this predicament; let’s not do it here.

          Reply ↓
  44. Hydrangea MacDuff*

    Long time educator here – your organization needed to do a better job of training you, but this is a BIG DEAL that you didn’t tell your supervisor right away. Like, if you were a volunteer in my classroom, this would have shown such bad judgement that I would have likely a) never invited you back and b) flagged it for H.R. or whomever is in charge of vetting and training volunteers. If you would like to have a career working with young people, I hope you take this as a big lesson about having clear boundaries, especially while you are a young person yourself.

    We also have a policy in my district that volunteers are never 1:1 with students. This is exactly why, because they do not have the same training as our staff do. It is very easy for a “she said, he said” situation to occur, or for Marvin’s parents to accuse you of grooming him.
    I started teaching at 23, and having very clear boundaries and rarely/never being alone in a room with a student were two tenets I lived by.

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    1. Green T*

      YES, thank you for pointing out the 1:1 issue here! I also work with and volunteer with children, and I feel like what is being missed here is the fact that it ever got to the point of a child buying a $500 ring!
      Yes, there should have been training and good heavens it should have been reported right away to make sure OTHER PEOPLE were rotated in as this child’s “mentor” because it’s kind of shocking that the LW wasn’t uncomfortable with that role after this. It doesn’t sound, from what the letter writer said, that this situation came out of nowhere either and I think THAT is where the org and parents are coming from! If you notice a child developing a strong, exclusive attachment to you, that gives you an opportunity to reflect on whether or not you’re treating them differently and how to make sure they make connections with other peers or other volunteers. It sounds like instead of warning bells going off that this child was getting too attached, the closeness in age and the LW’s past experiences led her too far into the feeling of helping this child by creating a strong attachment. But, that’s not actually helping. Helping is making sure that the child is exposed to and able to make connections with a variety of people he is exposed to. Focusing all his time and energy on a single support is not a good lesson for him, and he should have been redirected before it ever got to this point to help him going forward!

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  45. Momma Bear*

    I volunteer with teens and some of the rules include never be alone with them and always report anything that might come off as questionable, no matter how small. If we correspond with them (say, an email about a holiday party), it’s always with their parent included. Etc.

    I get what LW was thinking but she needed to give the teacher a head’s up. I also agree that if they didn’t have training for this, that is something that needs to be addressed. Even if she loses her role, there’s a knowledge/training gap here.

    It’s easy to forget that smart kids are still kids, and smart nerdy kids can also have struggles with maturity and social cues. I think LW needs to take a good look at her interactions with the group in general. It’s like not being friends with your manager – sometimes even if they are a really cool person it’s not good professionally. You have to maintain that space and in this case ESPECIALLY since they are kids and you are the adult. LW may not have anticipated the card and ring, but she really needed to take that as a wake up call. I assume LW is early in her career. This is a skill/area for her to work on professionally, too. Sometimes we don’t know a professional norm until we cross it, but now that LW knows, she needs to take steps to change that for her own sake.

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  46. higheredadminalumna*

    As a person who has taught SAFE Environment types of trainings and supported the local coordinators, yes, you should have reported it immediately to your supervisor. You should have never been meeting with Marvin, or any other student one-on-one, for everyone’s protection, but absolutely not when you had to let him down. I’d be concerned about keeping you on as you didn’t see/haven’t seen this as an opportunity of “learn and do better” and what else you’re not self-reflecting on going forward.

    Reply ↓
  47. Clock it, middle school edition*

    I am a teacher and have been for quite a bit longer than I’d like to admit. This is a thing I’d have gone to my principal about immediately. For your own protection, you want your side of the story on record so that if/when a parent calls to complain or to simply determine what happened, the people in charge already know.

    As others have mentioned, in your attempt to be kind, you did not set firm boundaries with the student. Intentionally or not, you may have left him with the impression that had circumstances been different, he’d have gotten a yes.

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  48. Niles "the Coyote" Crane*

    That’s a good reply.

    I read the letter feeling a bit guilty because I would have made sure my supervisor (or equivalent) knew, just to cover my own back, whereas the LW prioritised making sure Marvin isn’t embarrassed.

    But Alison’s response puts it so well. There really is a lot of room for misunderstanding, so it makes sense to be as transparent as possible.

    Pretty poor from the organisation not to train you on this and to leap straight to a fairly ungenerous response.

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  49. Lady Lessa*

    I just want to add and emphasize the need for training. I’ve taught elementary aged students religion and had to undergo training multiple times about what is appropriate and what is not.

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  50. Hyaline*

    It feels like LW was thinking “who do I need to report this to to help the kid” when an equally important question is “who need to be aware of this situation to cover our liabilities and maintain complete transparency.” Reporting isn’t just about, like, helping kids who are in abusive circumstances or caught up in an inappropriate relationship. It’s also about maintaining a record and covering staff/faculty/volunteers against accusations. Here, no–the kid probably* didn’t need this reported for his own wellbeing, but YOU did, and your organization did, to protect themselves.

    *But you also may not really have a good way to know. There’s also the element of institutional, longitudinal record keeping. You know this kid from one point of contact, at one point in his life–if this is part of a larger pattern of inappropriate advances, or getting too attached, or handling things badly, intervention may be the right choice. Or this may be the first time and if it wasn’t reported, the next time appears to be first, and so on and so forth, and you miss a really problematic pattern. Trouble is, from one point of contact, you have no way of knowing if this is the first or fifteenth time he’s crossed a boundary with a mentor-figure, and you have no way of knowing if he’s displaying signs of depression, violence, aggression, whatever in other spaces concurrent with your rejection.

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  51. 123*

    Anyone involved in education will say your made an enormous error not reporting that immediately to your supervisor. You left yourself wide open for it to escalate into something further unfortunately. It’s just the reality we live in.

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  52. Jellyfish Catcher*

    Yes, immediately report any sexual/ romantic/harassment issues to the appropriate persons at the school. Part of that is for your own protection, as well as for the student.

    This applies whether it’s a student, parent, school staff or some rando who wandered onto the school property.
    Sexual / romantic overtures are uncomfortable and embarrassing, so people side step dealing with them. But the only effective way is to calmly discuss/ report what happened.
    The school may drop you, as part of their CYA. I’m sorry; you had good intentions and bad training.

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  53. JP*

    I absolutely understand why the LW did what they did, but this was incredibly naive, at best. It can be difficult when you’re young adult to establish with school age children that you are not their peer. I was mistaken for a student at the school where I taught for years by both the students and the parents. I had a middle schooler ask me out when I was student teaching. I immediately told my co-op, who thought it was funny, but I was honestly shaken.

    It sucks that this is the world that we live in, but even a rumor of impropriety can be disastrous in this situation. I’ve seen a falsely accused teacher leave the profession, even though she was eventually cleared of wrong doing.

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  54. James*

    “I trusted Marvin to take the rejection with grace since he was more mature than the other students”

    …except he wasn’t more mature than the other students, since he gave you a $500 ring in the first place. This is not the mature action of a mature man: this is the immature fumblings of a boy.

    So, yeah, looping in your manager is something you should’ve done, and done even before you returned the ring and card. I commend you for not wanting to embarrass the boy, but you needed to protect yourself first and the educational establishment second. His feelings have to come a poor third. He’s 16, we all did hideously embarrassing things at 16, he’ll get over it like we all did.

    Reply ↓
    1. Kalros, the mother of all thresher maws*

      I agree and I’d even argue that protecting *him* is part and parcel of step 1 and his feelings are a footnote. It’s not LW’s job to protect him from hurt feelings and wounded pride, but it is her job to protect him from inappropriate situations. Keeping a romantic interaction between them secret – even a clearly stated rejection – is a kind of emotional intimacy that is inappropriate whether or not anything else happens.

      Teenagers test boundaries and screw up all the time. It comes with the territory of navigating social relations with big feelings on the cusp of adulthood. “Trusting” him to handle the situation graciously on his own is putting too much on him.

      Reply ↓
    2. Clisby*

      OK, the card is the immature fumblings of a boy. A $500 ring? That’s a level of fumbling I can’t even comprehend.

      Reply ↓
  55. High School Principal*

    Volunteer, I applaud your efforts to work with teens and to try and handle this with minimal embarrassment for the child. However, he is still a child, and it would’ve been better for you to contact the teacher after you gave the child the rejection – immediately after the rejection. Teen brains are a funny thing, and sometimes they fire off in the absolute wrong way. Also, there’s a lot of CYA you need when working with teens.

    If you knew the parents (some volunteers have direct contact; others don’t) I would also say, I would’ve called them with the child there, so they heard everything you were saying to their child.

    Don’t get me wrong – you were absolutely 100% professional here, but in K12 ed there’s always more layers that need to be brought into the fold.

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  56. Hyaline*

    Also–I’m seeing a lot of “the rule are you should never be alone with kids/students” and while this may be true of YOUR role in YOUR institution, meeting one-on-one is a vital part of a lot of roles. It may not have been LW’s, but an organization should a) make clear if it’s an acceptable part of your role or not, and if it is appropriate for you to be meeting one-on-one b) set parameters for what that should look like (open door policies, etc).

    Reply ↓
    1. HugeTractsofLand*

      This! You want to check your org’s specific policy. Many schools don’t care about 1:1 time or closed doors as long as it’s in the building, or scheduled through an official tutoring program, or held in one of the many school rooms that has a window on the door, etc..

      Reply ↓
      1. General von Klinkerhoffen*

        Where I’ve worked/volunteered, closed-door-one-on-one is not completely ruled out, but it should be a last resort and only with an adult who has had very thorough safeguarding training. If you don’t have that training, you’re not unsupervised with the children ever. Not even so much as reading with the child in the corner of a busy library or putting a bandaid on a graze.

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  57. Name*

    As someone who has worked HR in K-12 public education, you should have spoken to the teacher immediately. Even if it was an email to say “hey, something came up that I need to talk to about in person as soon as possible”.
    Even if he did take it well, this could very quickly turn into something that is out of your control and cause bad PR for the school, district, and after-school program.
    When working with minors or students enrolled in a K-12 setting, always CYA. For your sake as well as the organizations’.

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  58. HugeTractsofLand*

    I work in education and I’ll echo everyone else: you should have reported it proactively. I know a teacher who got put on leave/investigated just for informally tutoring a student off-campus. That student had a crush on her and the added lack of supervision raised questions, even though nothing was going on. Take this as a very valuable lesson that when a student takes things to these lengths (a $500 gift, long confession letter), you need to loop in your supervisor. I think you handled the student very sensitively BUT this was a big enough event (not just an overlong hug or an attempt to flirt) that you needed to ask how the org wanted it handled.

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  59. Moose*

    Marvin is a kid. You may think he acts more mature than other kids, and you might relate to him a lot–but that doesn’t change the fact that he is a minor. I think you are still in the trap of thinking of him as something close to an equal or a friend instead of child student + adult employee, and the power is inherently inbalanced, which is why it’s so important to be above-board with the organization you work for.

    I totally get where you’re coming from not wanting to embarrass him, but especially as a volunteer in a situation working with minors, you don’t have the authority or the policy knowledge to handle this alone.

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  60. Turingtested*

    I worked with teens in a restaurant for many years, so little different perspective than education. I decided that it wasn’t enough not to do anything wrong, nothing I did could possibly be called into question. Any time I was unsure about something or how it could be perceived I looped in management.

    It speaks well of you that you don’t want to embarrass him, but you need to look out for yourself first. It’s very easy to appear to be hiding something or otherwise being inappropriate.

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  61. queue*

    “…I trusted Marvin to take the rejection with grace since he was more mature than the other students, which I felt he did. I also said that I figured the rejection would be enough of a lesson for him, and that letting anyone else know about it would be needlessly humiliating, especially for a good kid like him. The $500 was confirmed to be his own money, too, so all the financial consequences were his own to deal with without extra judgment needed from others.”

    Ignoring whether the throwaway “he was more mature than the other students” should affect our read on this, it seems like this is the point where OP exercised a bunch of discretion on behalf of OP’s organization that OP was not authorized to exercise. It’s easy to imagine that cutting a volunteer (OP) is going to easily be the cheapest way to solve whatever problems arise from that.

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    1. Resume please*

      Agreed. The LW is wrong here, and not just about the odd “more mature than other teenagers” thing. Because he is a minor, his financial consequences are absolutely, 100% NOT his own. Legally, his parents have a right to know about all of his finances

      The organization should learn from this and implement clear training going forward

      Reply ↓
      1. queue*

        Agreed, it’s not even hard to be clear: “if you even *think* a student is flirting/making suggestive comments/etc. with you, run (don’t walk) and tell your supervisor.” Pretty cut-and-dry. Heck, this was the *very clear* message my cohort got when (as grad students) we taught college upperclassmen, all of whom were legally adults.

        Re: LW being in the wrong, someone in their mid-20s thinking an introverted 16-year-old boy is going to act like an adult is… surprising. By the time I was in my mid-20s, I wasn’t persuaded that we should, as a society, trust 16-year-old boys with anything more serious/dangerous than a spork. And even then, definitely not a metal one.

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  62. HonorBox*

    LW – While I wouldn’t suggest going into the next meeting with a chip on your shoulder or without accepting responsibility, I think it would be worth going to that next meeting with your supervisor with the following script:
    “Supervisor, I understand I should have said something to you about what Marvin did, and I recognize that there a number of things I could have changed about my approach to this situation. I do want to share, though, that my training here didn’t really equip me with how, when and where to report something like this. I’d love to have training like that now and would strongly suggest that be included going forward.”

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  63. She-roHere*

    Mary Kay Letourneau comes to mind. If OP isn’t familiar the case, look it up. There have been other teacher-student relationships, but Mary Kay Letourneau and her student turned husband turned ex-husband were the most memorable.

    Reply ↓
    1. HonorBox*

      This isn’t helpful to the OP. That was a situation in which there was a relationship. The OP tried to shut down the student’s advances.

      Reply ↓
      1. Momma Bear*

        Actually, I think it’s valid to point out these kinds of relationships because even if OP turned the kid down, there are plenty of unfortunate examples of people doing otherwise. It’s one of the first things I thought of, and my offspring is in the same age range as Marvin. Those parents probably thought of it, too. OP needs to consider that perspective.

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  64. RCB*

    I feel so bad for you, OP, because you were put in a situation not of your making, and you genuinely handled the situation with true care and compassion from a human standpoint, so it definitely hurts that this blew up, you were coming from a kind place and handled it really well if we were only talking about human relationships.

    But from an employee/employer standpoint (even though you are a volunteer, it still applies) and a child protection standpoint that complicates things and you fell down there. It’s always hard to know what to do in these situations, especially when not trained appropriately, and sometimes we learn lessons the hard way. In the future I think it’s helpful to remember that it’s always better to OVER disclose than under disclose, if your boss finds out about something you did from someone besides you it’s always going to worse than if they found out from you, and I’m willing to bet that’s the biggest issue here, your boss is upset that they found this out from the parents and not from you, so they looked like they didn’t have a handle on what is going on in their organization, and if this was happening and they didn’t know then what else might be happening that they don’t know about? I hope your organization uses this as a a learning opportunity and not a punishment opportunity, because that’s what should happen, use it to launch a renewed training effort to ensure everyone understands reporting requirements, CYA, and “better safe than sorry”.

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  65. Yes And*

    While I agree with the substance of Alison’s response (and the subsequent dogpile in the comments), I think the tone is all wrong. OP is a *volunteer* who handled a delicate situation with grace, tact, and respect. If she was not trained in her reporting responsibilities, that is 100% on the school, not on her. The school, having failed in its duties toward its volunteers, should be throwing itself on its sword for the (rightly) angry parents, not putting all the blame on OP and threatening her standing as a volunteer.

    OP, you are more wronged than wronging here.

    Reply ↓
    1. HonorBox*

      Yes. I pointed out that no matter what, the OP should talk to her supervisor about the lack of training. I wouldn’t do so as a way to deflect responsibility, but to highlight that while (I hope and assume) employees have training for this, volunteers absolutely must, too.

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    2. DramaQ*

      It is on the school’s fault that they did not train her but that isn’t going to be how things shake out in the real world. It is much easier to get rid of the LW to appease the parents/school board than it would be to get themselves in hot water admitting they don’t train their volunteers.

      Someone SHOULD and hopefully will look into it and ask questions about the lack of training but that is not something the LW is going to be able to enforce or control.

      The “dog piling” comes in from those of us who have worked with younger people in various settings/academia and it isn’t about piling it on it is about the LW being aware that she is no longer an equal she is an authority figure. It is a big transition in life and unfortunately LW was left without the guidance to know that she was in that position. Those of us with life experience can see what happened.

      It’s a tough lesson but one that the LW needs to learn. We all have to learn it it is part of growing up. Her heart was in the right place but this could have had so much worse consequences than her just being dismissed as a volunteer. She really really stepped in it and taking responsibility for that and explaining what she knows now she did wrong will go a long way. If she goes into this still arguing that she was right in her intentions, well people talk, if she wants a career with young people it could end up coloring future opportunities.

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    3. Kalros, the mother of all thresher maws*

      We have no way of knowing that LW had no training. It’s possible, but she doesn’t tell us one way or the other.

      Reply ↓
    4. Ohio Duck*

      Her response was wrong though, and it’s fair to hold her accountable for that.

      We don’t know what training she had, and it definitely looks like that could be improved.

      But training won’t help if OP doesn’t understand what she did that was wrong. It’s not “Oops, I didn’t know I was supposed to report that.” She’s saying “He’s more mature than the other students,” and “It’s his $500, so it’s not your business.”

      It’s one thing to not know how to report this type of issue. It’s another thing to honestly believe that the people responsible for the Marvin’s safety don’t need to know about this. It is 100% the supervisor’s and parents’ business that their student spent $500 and made advances to an adult.

      The program needs to take seriously steps to ensure this doesn’t happen, and that includes training. But I do think removing OP as a volunteer may be justified as part of that response. It would suck for OP and be a hard lesson, but it would not be unfair.

      *I want to be extremely clear that I am not calling OP a creep. But her relationship with this student is inappropriate nonetheless.

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  66. Midwest Cheesehead*

    As someone who had an uncomfortable advance from a graduated student on my debate team who was a judge at the time, I think the LW should encourage the volunteer organization to do more training. I went to my debate coaches and they handled it and notified my parents.

    It was a very awkward position to be in, and even though I was a responsible/mature teenager, it didn’t make it any less of a power imbalance. I just thought that a student’s perspective might be helpful to the LW on why just handling it 1×1 wasn’t good enough.

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  67. Jam on Toast*

    As a middle-aged person who has only just been marked safe from parenting a teenager, OP needs to realize that at any given time, teenagers can be absolutely mature AND totally disorganized, hormonal basket cases. The switch between the two can be instantaneous and dizzying.

    OP, Marvin seemed older and more mature than his peers because HE WANTED TO IMPRESS YOU WITH HIS MATURITY. He recognized that you were older and so his teenage brain made a very logical (and very incorrect) assumption. If I act more maturely, the mature person I have heart feels/pants feels for will magically overlook the age gap between us and we will live happily ever after forever and ever.

    I taught at college for many years, and in that time, a few students did approach me to express an interest in going on a date. It was especially common when I was in my twenties and only a few years older than them. While there wasn’t the same underage component (all of the students I taught were above the age of majority), I always looped in my chair and documented my boundaries to the students with some kind of written record, usually email, so that there was no question of my response.

    My personal rule of thumb when deciding how to handle problematic situations as an educator was: “How would this situation or my response to it look like if it was published on the front page of my local newspaper? Would my behaviour make me appear reasonable and professional to a total stranger or not?” and then act accordingly.

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  68. Dawbs*

    yessssss!
    if there’s one lesson i could make every volunteer and employee i deal with grasp it is “bosses hate surprises “

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  69. blood orange*

    As a parent also married to a teacher, I agree with all of Alison’s advice. OP didn’t make an egregious misstep, but I would have been concerned as the student’s parents that I was finding this out from him and not the school/organization.

    OP, please take the CYA advice seriously! Early in my husband’s career, I had that conversation with him. He has the desire to go out of his way to mentor and coach students, and he just needs to be cognizant of the circumstances.

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  70. CzechMate*

    Longtime school admin. You WERE correct to nicely/professionally shut it down, but yes, to me the issue seems not to be “OP should have continued to lead this student on” but rather “OP didn’t tell the volunteer coordinator and/or parents.”

    To add to what has already been said–they may have some context that you don’t about Marvin that you don’t, and that’s the kind of thing they may have needed to know. For example: if a kid has a history of, say, harassing female students and not reacting appropriately when being told to stop, it could be that he was let into the program with a warning that he could only continue if he behaved appropriately.

    Alison is correct that the program SHOULD have explained how to handle these things if/when they come up, but I’m not at all surprised they didn’t. The standards to work with students in many instances can be surprisingly lax, and I think women are often thought of as natural care givers and are just trusted to “know” what to do. I hope this makes everyone reflect on the need to clarify their reporting policies going forward.

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    1. CzechMate*

      wow sorry, “they may have some context that you don’t about Marvin, and that’s the kind of thing they may have needed to know.”

      Reply ↓
  71. Sparkles McFadden*

    One major guideline of how to have a happy work life is this: Don’t let your boss get sandbagged. If something out of the ordinary happens, you need to tell your boss because you don’t know what the fallout will be. It doesn’t have to be a big deal. It would just be “Hey, I need to tell you about this thing that happened.

    In this situation, it’s that multiplied by a million because kids are involved. That brings a whole host of other issues into this. I understand that you were trying to be kind, but there is a huge power imbalance here, and you’re sympathizing with Marvin to the point that you’re losing your objectivity…which is another reason that this should have been discussed with the supervising teacher. It’s also why they really need to have training for volunteers!

    I hope this works out for you, LW, because you sound like a kind and caring person, but be prepared to be asked to leave over this.

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    1. Momma Bear*

      Agreed. It would have been better to come from OP to Teacher to Parents rather than the Parents blindsiding the Teacher.

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  72. Bananapants*

    I agree with Alison and the consensus of the commentariat. I also wanted to flag some things for the LW so they can be aware of how they may be perceived by others – which is precisely why documenting things and looping in the relevant authorities and parents is important.
    Specifically, these statements raised a red flag for me:
    1) “while I was flattered, as an adult, it wouldn’t be appropriate for me to be his girlfriend,” could be read by a lovestruck student as “if this were legal I would but sadly I can’t”
    2) “he was more mature than the other students” similar justifications have been given by abusers for their predatory behavior toward minors.

    If I was this kid’s parent and heard/read those statements I would be worried something untoward was going on, especially with the secret keeping on top of that.

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  73. Grace*

    I volunteered in a middle school when I was in my early 20s and there was no kind of volunteer onboarding, discussion of boundaries with students, any kind of training of any kind. I came in to the front office, signed in, signed out when I was done. I’m not saying this is the case with the letter writer, but I think a lot of commenters are operating under the assumption that student/volunteer boundaries was something that someone discussed when it may not have been. This letter writer is still a young adult, and I think some of these comments aren’t taking into account that this person 1) may not have been trained or even had any kind of discussion on how to handle issues like this and 2) does not really have the depth of experience to know how to handle every single situation appropriately (which is why they’re writing in).

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    1. CzechMate*

      Agreed. I’ve done volunteer work with vulnerable folks that required no background check, no specialized training, no discussion about reporting, etc. This included two daycare centers with low-income children in two different countries, a children’s museum, a hospice facility…

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    2. bighairnoheart*

      Yeah, I sympathize a lot with OP. I was similarly given little to no training along these lines when I was working with students in my first job out of college. I’m suddenly feeling very grateful that I was never in a situation like this with a student, because I think I could have made a similar mistake very easily.

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  74. RAC*

    I’ve worked with Girl Scouts, First LEGO League, and church youth groups. All of those organizations have guidelines and training (some better than others) for volunteers, and for all of them volunteers fall into the “mandatory reporter” category. As a church volunteer (not just for youth, but in any capacity) I have to take a training or review every 3 years covering awareness of abuse, problematic behavior of adults, and the proper way to respond and report known or suspected issues – coming from both inside and outside the organization.

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  75. Bob*

    Like just about every thread starter above, I work in education. I’m currently a secondary level (6 -12) substitute. And I agree with everything: OP needed to have more direct training on this sort of thing, boundaries were likely crossed without realizing it in the cause of creating a connection and getting to know the students you work with, and others needed to be looped in earlier.
    I’ll add something I haven’t seen too much further up, related to the last point.
    In working with minors, heck this can be about regular work too: not only loop other adults in your chain into the issue, but do it in email. Paper trail everything. Even if you talk to someone personally, send an email about that conversation to that person, with other admin/connected folks. Never leave it up to a possibility of he-said/she-said.
    As a substitue, my job is more tenuous than a every day teacher, so I’m always detailed emailed notes to my host teacher, especially if something could be an issue.
    CYA.

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  76. TotesMaGoats*

    Another voice to chime in with agreement on the advice given.
    -Marvin is not more mature. He’s less, markedly less.
    -OP was not set up for success in terms of training for the role
    -I totally get why parents and teacher were upset. And why they’d want you to step down as a volunteer.

    I work in higher ed but I also teach bible study to the 6-8th grade boys at my church. I’ve been through various trainings, so I went in to that role eyes wide open. I get to be the cool mom in some respects. Body humor doesn’t phase me. I don’t shy away from difficult topics or hard questions. I validate perspectives in a group that often gets ignored. Plus I’m a really good teacher. But I’m watchful of boundaries. My co-teacher is a guy, so they get multiple perspectives which I think is really important at this age (or any age) but I’m at least 15 years older than him. I digress. I am going to email our student ministry director about training for this very thing though.

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  77. AKchic*

    I’ve been a mandatory reporter in many roles throughout my career. I wasn’t TRAINED about what that meant until my current position. Not even when I worked as a bus driver or a substitute teacher. Not when I worked federal or city gov’t. Not when I worked drug rehab. Not when I worked with at-risk parents whose kids were already in the system. Only my current position.

    Having said that, the majority of my jobs would have outlined when to run a flag up the pole and alert someone about problematic behaviors. Not all, though. I’m wondering if the volunteer agency failed to do that, or minimized the need to do that; or if there was a lack of training from the school about when to notify the school. Ultimately, this is a training issue and opportunity.

    I feel for OP, but I also am a little concerned about her wording. She describes this kid as “mature for his age” and that he doesn’t have many friends within his age group (but has some adult friends). I’m not going to diagnose him, but it definitely screams something diagnosable and someone who can be exploited, which means the adults in his life *should* be talking when he drops 5 Benjamins on a ring for an adult (any adult). Again, this is a lack of training, not a nefarious plot by OP.

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    1. KJC*

      Wow, that is SHOCKING that you were not trained on what mandated reporting meant in those roles. I have worked with people who used drugs, and they disclosed child abuse to me, and I had to report it. Like, my jaw is literally on the floor that this wasn’t at least 3 hours of your life being told exactly what to do and when at all of those jobs. Hopefully, if you’re in a supervisory role yourself, you can make sure the next generation in all of those jobs gets trained!

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  78. Jennifer Strange*

    Marvin is just an odd one out in the cruel Mad Max thunderdome that is high school, so anything social is scary

    Okay, but he is taking part in this after-school activity. Presumably there are other kids his age. Have you encouraged him to try to get to know them better through this shared interest? Or to seek out opportunities to enjoy his interests with kids his own age (local clubs, online groups for high schoolers, etc)?

    I ask this gently, but is it possibly you’re projecting your own experiences on this kid too much? I believe you when you say he gets along better with teachers than students and only has a few friends, but as someone who was also nerdy and quiet in high school (who, rightly or wrongly, probably would have been considered more mature than her peers) I wouldn’t have equated my high school years to Mad Max.

    Also:

    We talk about club-related things, but he also vents to me about his troubles

    I’m not saying that being sympathetic isn’t a good thing, but he probably shouldn’t be using you as an outlet for his troubles.

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  79. Jellyfish Catcher*

    Think of reporting sexual overtures from kids, staff, etc, the same way you would report a twisted ankle injury. You would immediately and calmly report it to the authorities, with all details.

    Dealing with inappropriate sexual issues / propositions at work or otherwise, is an uncomfortable challenge.
    The first impulse is to side-step it, as we don’t normally discuss sexual stuff with just anybody and the whole thing is not normal or comfortable.
    But it can and should be dealt with, quickly calmly and factually.
    This will happen at schools, at work and with some personal relationships.

    You are young, a caring individual, and this is an opportunity to learn about boundaries and how to deal with challenging situations.
    This will pass; you will be ok.

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  80. So Tired Of God's Specialest Princesses*

    Man, I’m not even sure what to hope for with this one. On the one hand, I feel like this person has a lot of compassion… but on the other, their being so taken aback that other adults might disapprove of how she handled this situation feels so clueless. I’m not sure she’s ready to be working with high-school aged kids if it literally didn’t occur to her to let the teacher know…

    And I’m not sure she’s going to remain a volunteer with this organization.

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    1. A. Lab Rabbit*

      LW is a volunteer, presumably being managed by the teacher, so they should have told the teacher about it and let the teacher decide how to handle it whom to inform in the absence of appropriate training.

      Reply ↓
    2. Kalros, the mother of all thresher maws*

      Yep. LW obviously meant well and wanted to do right by the kid, but the supervising teacher’s job isn’t to judge the purity of LW’s heart and intentions.

      Reply ↓
  81. Whoopie*

    I was also in the middle of realizing that I was something other than heterosexual, so I developed a crush on a female teacher. I was humiliated when my mother found out and I was told she hadn’t made sexual mistakes like that. This person screams of being neurodivergent so I don’t think telling the parents is a good idea, that can be crushing and humiliating. Talking to the teacher is a good idea but other than that I think leave the parents out of it.

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    1. DramaQ*

      He spent $500 on a ring. I’m sorry but this is more than just a harmless crush. The parents absolutely need to know that he is spending $500 on a ring for an adult after school volunteer.

      They found out because as a minor they are on his account and checked the statements.

      Alarm bells a plenty would be going off in my head if I found out my 16 year old kid spent $500 on a ring for ANYONE but then to find out from him it was for an adult woman? An adult woman who he actually gave the ring to and she didn’t bother to report it to the school? I don’t care she gave it back she may have easily given it back because she didn’t want to get caught.

      Nope sorry this is one of those times as a parent I should and would be involved. There are ways to talk to Marvin without making him feel like a pariah but don’t set him to become an incel or taken advantage of by someone who would have been happy to keep that $500 ring.

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      1. Starbuck*

        Also the LW would have had zero protection in this case if Marvin had been embarrassed enough to lie and say LW kept the ring and now suddenly the parents are asking for the ring back or $500….

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    2. Jennifer Strange*

      I get that your experience was exacerbated by the non-heterosexual nature of the situation, but the parents absolutely need to know about this, neurodivergent or not. If he propositions another adult (one at the school or not) she might not be as good a person as the LW and may take advantage of him, even if just because she knows he has $500 to spend.

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    3. Dawbs*

      I’m a bit confused, why would the neurodivergence mean that authority figures and oversight is bad?
      i get that sometimes administration and sometimes parents fail at interacting well with neurodiverse kids. They also fail neurotypical kids. but these people are the safeguards- they’re the guardrails

      Rejection sensitive kids (which includes lots of ND kids. and adults) are going to struggle and be embarrassed… but again, these are the guardrails. Building on the flawed metaphor, hitting guardrails does leave dents and isn’t without cost… its just an improvement compared to going over the cliff.

      And at this point, the OP doesn’t explicitly day the kid is ND. So it may be that the adults in the Marvin’s life know his flavor of ND and so are especially capable of communicating to him what norms he violated and how to avoid such pitfalls and protect him from further embarrassing moments in a way the OP is not able to.
      (my own experience, my autistic kid would rather the sun swallow the planet than discuss her crush with me… but also, she’ll talk to me about it if she knows i can explain the social nuances in ways that make sense to her-a skill not everyone in her life has. )

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    4. CommanderBanana*

      Talking to the teacher is a good idea but other than that I think leave the parents out of it.

      Yeah, that’s just not a possibility, sorry. And it would be incredibly inappropriate for the LW to decide that Marvin is neurodivergent and therefore she doesn’t have to tell anyone about this.

      There are a very few and specific circumstances under which a responsible adult would be justified in not looping in a minor’s parents, namely if they’re concerned about the parent being abusive, and in that case you would still need to be looping in someone.

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  82. AnotherSarah*

    Agree that you should have told the supervisor. But I do think that it’s that person who should have told the parents, if only because Marvin’s behavior could easily turn into harassing you, and that’s an issue for a supervisor to handle.

    I do think the way the OP talked to Marvin was really good–not embarrassing him, but being quite clear about the limits of appropriateness.

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  83. Lucy*

    Not in your country but do work in child protection. It’s a safeguarding question. You have to report it. Maybe it’s an innocent crush, but some children may have experiences who unfortunately lead them to believe that romantic or sexual experiences with adults are normal. Some kids have social issues which make it hard for them to understand boundaries. Some kids have a lot of anger and unhappiness that might not emerge just in an after school programme, but which might mean that others who care for them need to know what’s going on.

    In your defence, you shouldn’t have been placed in a position where you are volunteering with kids without full training in child protection and safeguarding responsibilities. The responsibility of an adult with authority isn’t the same as the responsibility of a random adult on the street. Safeguarding is everyone’s responsibility but in different ways. You should have been better prepared by the volunteer coordinators.

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  84. Skytext*

    Am I the only one who read the headline as the parent’s were mad at her for rejecting him? Not for not informing them, but like they actually expected her to date him? I was getting ready for a doozy of a letter, but I’m glad it turned out much more sane than that.

    Reply ↓
    3. Boof*

      That was I was afraid to find too and was relieved it’s just “why didn’t you tell us” not “how dare you say no to him” hahaha

      Reply ↓
  85. Pink Geek*

    > the organization is also in the wrong for leaving you unprepared and then blaming you when you didn’t get it quite right

    I would have did the same thing you did so I hope you are not beating yourself up.

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  86. ThisIshRightHere*

    I feel for OP because this letter made me realize how woefully under-trained most volunteers are in these situations. I would’ve just relied on my best judgment, too. I’ve volunteered for similar after school programs, mentoring groups, translation services for ESL kids, etc. And not only have I never even received a handout about mandated reporting and the like, I can’t recall anyone checking my background to make sure I was safe to be around people’s kids! I’m actually horrified to think about how low the bar must actually be (I think it’s somewhere right around “reasonably aware of the subject matter” and “willing to do it for free”)

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  87. Boof*

    As others have said LW, I understand you wanted to spare Marvin unnecessary embarrassment but he is a kid who did something inappropriate, even if understandable (that’s what teens do, test the boundaries, learn about where they stand, etc), and while you are identifying with Marvin, I want you to try to also put yourself in the place of a parent, or a supervisiting teacher
    — would you want a volunteer to tell you if a student made such a grand proposal to them, even if they were otherwise smart and the volunteer was ready to kindly reject them? I think you would want to know about it and make sure things went the way they were supposed to go
    — would you want someone taking care of your kid to tell them if your kid proposed to them, and how they planned to handle it? I think you would.

    There are so many reasons why you should have discussed this that unless you have reasons to think your school or the parents would handle this terribly – which you didn’t outline in your letter – that I’m a bit surprised it wasn’t touched on in your training. If there’s anything you should do now it’s offer a big apology for not looping others in and stress that this needs to be handled in the training so people know who and how to report ahead of time because it’s probably something that does happen fairly regularly, and if they don’t know it’s happening it’s just because people aren’t realizing they should report it (or don’t feel comfortable doing so).

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  88. Nat20*

    I agree with Alison 100%. There was nothing wrong with how you talked to Marvin about it, the problem was that from an outside perspective, *you kept it a secret*. You have to admit that makes it all LOOK 1000x more suspicious, even if there’s actually nothing “nefarious” and even if your intentions for staying quiet were good. Protecting yourself and your org from even the merest hint of liability while working with minors >>> protecting the kid from temporary embarrassment.

    Also, teenagers should absolutely have privacy and I don’t believe parents need to know absolutely everything their kid is up to, but I think a teen spending $500 on a ring for an adult woman is definitely something they should know — even if the reason behind it isn’t as concerning as it could be, even if it’s his own money, and even if it embarrasses him.

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    1. Nat20*

      I also want to add that I think your closer connection to this kid is likely clouding your judgment a bit. There’s a lot of “he’s a good kid”-esque phrases in the letter, and I’m sure that’s true, but letting that influence how you handle things gets real problematic real fast. Him being “more mature than the others” is REALLY thorny — again, even if it’s true! He crossed a boundary, and whether he’s a thoughtful and mature kid you’re closer to or an immature kid you don’t know well, your response to the boundary-crossing should be the same.

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  89. kiki*

    I’m getting the sense the volunteer program isn’t well managed. As many others have said, there should be training for volunteers on what to report. It also doesn’t make sense to me that LW was questioned about this live in a meeting with the parents and teacher without the teacher having asked LW what happened first. That’s not the type of meeting you want surprises in

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  90. NS_BK*

    As someone who’s worked in youth programs that engage volunteers for 15+ years — it would be WILD to me if this organization didn’t provide coaching and guidelines for what appropriate mentor-student relationships look like and what to do if a student crosses a boundary (whether it’s trying to follow you on Instagram or…buying an engagement ring?!?). Honestly the vibe I get from this letter is that the LW believed she had a deeper understanding of Marvin and that this personal expertise made her the authority on how to handle the situation. Volunteers like this can be such a challenge for program staff, because they’re deeply invested and may genuinely build great relationships with youth, but they tend to foreground their own experiences as misunderstood/lonely/unique young people, which can lead to projecting their own baggage onto the youth they’re working with and ignoring guidance that is essential both from a legal standpoint and a youth development standpoint.

    Lastly…from a youth development perspective, Marvin deserves the opportunity to process his actions and deepen his understanding of healthy adult-youth relationships and boundaries with a trusted adult who he hasn’t just been romantically rejected by. And from a feminist perspective, as a young man in STEM, it would be great for him to reflect on appropriate ways to interact with women in STEM spaces that don’t turn them into objects of affection/desire.

    Reply ↓
  91. Lynn*

    Marvin should not have put the present in the OP’s bag, and the OP should have reported that to someone in charge

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  92. Dek*

    My jaw hit the FLOOR when LW said they confirmed what he had told them, not that she went and told her supervisor *immediately*

    That is NOT something you want people to “find out.” Respecting Marvin’s privacy is one thing, but it’s still such a lapse of judgement to essentially keep it secret. LW could have at least told her supervisor that *a* student did this, without specifying which one, unless asked.

    But it’s the sort of thing that has so much potential to be Trouble that I’m just baffled that LW didn’t tell anyone.

    Reply ↓
  93. tabloidtainted*

    Embarrassment is tough. But you don’t want to spare the kid some embarrassment at the expense of learning an important lesson about appropriate behavior (both how he should behave and how he should expect adults to behave) in a safe environment.

    Reply ↓
  94. Jingling keys*

    I’ve never been to a pawn shop, so is five hundred bucks for a diamond look-alike ring even a fair price?

    Part of me wonders if whoever was at the counter saw dollar signs in their eyes when a lovesick teenager willing to pay any price walked through the door.

    On top of what everyone else already said, this is also a learning opportunity that the parents have for Marvin that LW unknowingly took from them.

    Yes, the money was his own that he had worked for at the fast food place, but his parents need to know because they need to teach Marvin that (a) you don’t just drop a huge amount of money on a gift that the other person isn’t guaranteed to accept, and (b) not everyone is out for his best interests, especially salespeople who can name their own price to a customer with no experience and unflinching motivation to buy.

    Reply ↓
    1. Observer*

      I agree. I posted a comment about this that didn’t come through. One of the things I was saying is that regardless of whether the money was Marvin’s or not, the amount of money involved is a big enough issue that that alone should have rung alarm bells. And one of the reasons is, as you say, that the kid could easily have been cheated.

      I would also say that there is a (C) reason why the financial issue is something that the parents needed to know about. The LW has no way to know what that money was actually earmarked for. Which means that the LW also has no idea of just how bad the financial repercussions to him could be.

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    2. UKDancer*

      Google tells me that’s about £388 equivalent. I’d say that’s probably on the high side for a non diamond ring. You can get them a lot cheaper in Argos (UK catalogue shop) which will sell you a real diamond (albeit not great quality) for about £250 up.

      I don’t know how much pawn shops in the US are regulated and have the prices in the window. Looking at the website for the local Cash Converters they’re selling what they call real diamond rings for about £200.

      So I’d say 500$ equivalent would be on the high side in the UK. But I don’t know if that’s the case elsewhere.

      Reply ↓
  95. JukeBox*

    Somebody mentioned a not-short list of guidelines/rules when working/volunteering with minors/vulnerable people. Could that (or a link to) be provided here?

    Reply ↓
    1. Anonnyonyony*

      Can’t link at the moment, but the organization I volunteer in that works with teens has something called “the two-deep rule” that prevents being one-on-one in private with a child.

      Brief summary: At least two adults need to be with one kid. Alternatively, at least two kids need to be with one adult. If a kid wants to talk to an adult privately, it needs to be done within view of others.

      As many have already mentioned, this is for the adult’s protection as much as the kid’s, as well as the reputation of the organization. Reputation is a fickle thing, but when parents are trusting you to leave their kids with you, it can mean a lot. It’s easy to know that your own intentions are pure, but an outside observer cannot tell the difference between a well-intentioned adult with poor judgement and an adult with nefarious intentions, as the LW had put it.

      How many stories have you heard of pedos and whatnot arrested or otherwise discovered, and a slew of adjacent adults beat themselves up for trusting them so much and never noticing anything wrong? The nefarious adults can only operate on secrecy, which is why safe adults go by some version of “trust but verify.”

      Reply ↓
  96. Mamma Mia!*

    A lot of people who know a lot more than I do about this area have commented from the perspective of what to do as an adult. I’ll add what I know as a former Marvin.

    It sounds like I may have had a bit more solid of a same-age social group than Marvin did, but I was absolutely the kid who was Way Too Attached to Teachers. I had one teacher in particular who really supported me by being a listening ear, and to this day, decades later, I credit him with being a hugely positive impact in my life.

    But he never for one second let me forget that he was my teacher first and foremost, and all that that entailed, as much as I, personally, wanted it to be something more like a peer friendship. He would be straightforward and honest if something I told him had to be shared with another adult. There was a palpable line between Teacher and Friend, and he made sure there was never any question which side of the line he was on. All of this made me trust him more, not less, because I knew exactly what the boundaries of our relationship were.

    I suspect part of your initial instinct not to share what happened with Marvin was because it felt like it would be betraying his trust. That is understandable. But it’s only betraying his trust if he thinks he can have secrets with you to begin with.

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  97. HannahS*

    When you’re an adult in a position of any authority over a child and they trust you, you have to be really, really clear on the difference between what is nice for an individual and what’s best for everyone. It is nice for Marvin to be let down gently and flatteringly, it’s nice for him to keep his embarrassing social mis-step a secret. And it should be acknowledged that this was also the easiest way out for the OP–no awkward conversation, no reason for Marvin to be angry and stop treating her as a special mentor. But it wasn’t what was best, because it eroded trust between Marvin and his parents, Marvin’s parents and the school program, and the school program and the OP, and possibly also Marvin and the OP.

    The excitement and pleasure of getting to be someone’s “special, trusted adult” can’t make you forget your larger obligation to your organization. The fact that Marvin crossed a boundary with you put you and the whole program in a vulnerable position. Once something like that happens, you need to use your adult judgment not to just think about what’s nicest for Marvin, but what’s best for you, your boss, and the whole program–and all the other young people your program serves. Decisions can’t be made only through the lens of “What would be most emotionally validating for this individual, specifically.” You have to consider the larger context, which I think other people have explained in a lot of detail above.

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  98. NotMyUsualUsername*

    All other issues aside, the fact that OP didn’t immediately assume that they SHOULD tell someone has me questioning their judgment and suitability for this sort of role.

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    1. Susie QQ*

      Same. There are a lot of comments in here that the apparent lack of training is to blame here, and that’s definitely a shortcoming, but imo OP has some judgment issues as well.

      Particularly after the fact, OP is still not seeing the error of their ways, but still “taken aback” and questioning if they did anything wrong.

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  99. HalesBopp*

    I find myself wondering if LW actually had positive, healthy relationships with adults as a high school student, or if her view on those relationships might change with further reflection. As a nerdy teen, I had a number of teachers who I thought very highly of at the time who, upon adult reflection, were actually pretty inappropriate! The reason some of these teachers were so loved had a lot to do with poor professional boundaries (ex: the English teacher who, upon finding out one of my peers had a crush on another teacher, frequently sent said student to the crush teacher’s class on meaningless errands). After working extensively with teens in my early 20’s, it put into perspective for me how many of my teachers had not been good role models in this regard.

    LW – If you are struggling with a litmus test on good/bad role modeling, share some stories with 3 people you trust. Gauge their responses. It can go a long way in shedding rose-colored glasses on behaviors you should, perhaps, not be modeling.

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  100. I Like Turtles*

    tl;dr – if this wasn’t covered in training, future training needs to be updated. Regardless of where you are when working with kids, document anything that could be questionable and report it to someone in charge.

    —-

    Everyone’s saying you handled it wrong, which is true. As someone who has both volunteered with kids, and worked in education, let me emphasise that if this sort of thing *wasn’t* covered in your training, a lot of the failure here rests on the program co-ordinator.

    I volunteer for a camp for kids (roughly aged 10-13), and in its earlier days (I was in my early 20s) we’d vaguely cover things like this and reporting abuse, etc. but it was a bit looser. They’d send out ***optional*** contact information so people could keep in touch after. Nothing bad came out of it, but it very much was the wrong way of doing things.

    A few years later, and a change in co-ordinator, there was a lot more training on child safety, emphasis on *not* sharing information, and a lot more child-safe rules implemented. So looking back on it now over 10 years later, part of me is like “Yeah, what *were* we thinking doing it that way?” but between being younger, and in a much different era, it didn’t actually seem like a bad thing at the time.

    One of the biggest changes the new co-ordinator insisted on was incident reports for almost everything. Minor injury? Incident report. Trip to the nurse? Incident report. Questionable interaction? Incident report.
    Was it annoying and disruptive? Yes. Was it there to cover everyone’s asses? Very much so.

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  101. Deirdre Mundy*

    As someone with kids who volunteers with kids , there are a few red flags here that explain why the volunteer supervisor and parents are angry at you:

    1. You promised to keep a secret from his parents and did not alert the teacher to his behavior.

    2. You took him out of sight of other adults and students to discuss this behavior 1-1

    Both of these are huge violations of safe environment training. You should never be with a child 1-1 out of sight of other kids and adults, and you should never promise to keep secrets for them or ask them to keep secrets.

    Coupled with your referring to the child as more mature than his peers and your shock at being called out for rule breaking, and it’s no wonder they’re mad, the combination of your actions and Marvin’s looks like grooming, especially since you seem to be relating to him as a peer and friend.

    In most states, to volunteer in schools you need to complete a video safe environment training. It is not the teacher’s or the parents’ fault if you failed to pay attention during this and to learn the rules.

    I understand that you say all your actions were innocent mistakes, but to the teacher it looks like repeated boundary pushing, which marks you as a danger to youth and a liability to the organization.

    If you volunteer again in the future, please take this as a sign to pay attention in safe environment training.

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  102. Deirdre Mundy*

    One other thought —. LW is protesting that the rules were never made clear, the student is special, everyone is angry out of proportion to her actions, etc etc….

    Sadly, this is EXACTLY the tactic groomers and molestors take when called out on their behavior – that the concerned adults are overreacting, that they don’t understand how special the victim and their relationship to the abuser is, etc etc.

    So, on the one hand it is possible that LW is not a reliable narrator here and did engage in grooming, but if she did not, her reactions to correction are part of why the parents and teacher are so concerned, because they send “I am an abuser” vibes to anyone who has done any safe environment training.

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  103. TerrorCotta*

    A thing I haven’t seen mentioned yet is that Marvin is very likely to offer similar expensive gifts/letters/etc to girls HIS OWN AGE or younger (in addition to his older crushes). Who may feel less able to refuse them!

    There have been many thoughtful and informed comments about why LW was wrong to hide this whole situation from her supervisors and the parents…but I experienced similar things as a pre-teen with a Marvin…and it’s WILDLY worse, because you don’t have the skills or agency to refuse them.

    “I brought you these expensive earrings, you have to be my girlfriend now.” An adult can gently laugh that off, sure. A 13yo girl? Not so much.

    LW was not “helping” by shielding Marvin from embarrassment. She was just sending him along to the next subject of his interest with no repercussions, instruction, or care for his next target.

    Reply ↓

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