Expert: Catherine Ridenour - 2/21/2011

Question
I am 43, and my husband is 45. We've been married since we were 19, and have 2 children, a 16-year-old daughter and 21-year-old son.

My 16-year-old daughter has Asperger's syndrome, is doing well in school, and is enjoying life.

Until recently, when she became poorly due to biscuits given to her in class by friends (which were circulated round the class, it was the teacher's birthday that day - it was also the end of the school day, 2:35pm early finish for the weekend).

My daughter was sick from the biscuits, and we had to come and pick her up from school.

She's been off for the past week now, and is still studying, despite being off.

Apparently, we heard, the biscuits were laced with cannabis and cocaine, and it was a "joke" by two girl pupils who wanted to give the teacher a fun birthday present. The school principal phoned us last week to tell me that they'd done forensic tests on a biscuit and discovered traces of a drug in it.

The girls who did it are now suspended for 3 weeks, but this worries my daughter. The school got the police involved, but the police wouldn't do anything about it, claiming "It's not car crime, drink-driving, arson, speeding or theft of property, so we can't help you. Sorry".

What's even more worrying is that some people in the class being sick (including my daughter) has ended up on a video-sharing site.

Apparently the people on the video-sharing site find the word "poorly" hilarious and (for some reason) an inherently funny word, and a video of my daughter being sick in the toilets has ended up being viewed multiple times (she wasn't even aware she was being filmed). She's been dubbed "Poorly Blondie Girl" by the people on the site, and they were asking for more footage of the incident.

The video-sharing site even has a video of the girls involved singing (in the style of Lady GaGa and Miley Cyrus) the following lyrics:
"It's good to be poorly.
Poorly, poorly, poorly.
Good to be poorly.
Let's be POORLY!
x repeat 3 times!"

It's also been circulated on social networking sites too. My daughter does not use social networking sites; not because I don't let her, but because she considers them uninteresting (she prefers factual sites, like the Financial Times, academic ones on geography, history, economics etc.) so we don't have to worry about her internet use. In fact, she knows a lot about internet safety and such she taught us how to use antivirus software and about firewalls, which can't be bad, can it?

How do we deal with the situation? The police aren't interested, the website won't take it down for "freedom of speech issues", so what can we do?

My daughter is overeating as a result of this; binging on salt-and-vinegar crisps and ice-cream to cope with the situation, and is nervous at social events in case food has something in it like in the incident at school.

Answer
Hi Sue,

Your daughter has been intentionally poisoned and is being harassed. This is unacceptable under ANY circumstances.

If the police will not act, get a lawyer and sue the school and the parents of the girls who brought the food to school. The fact that she was filmed being sick shows intent to bully on the part of the person taking the film. Name the social web site in the suit, as well, if your lawyer things it is appropriate. At the least, have the lawyer write a letter to the website pointing out that this is a case of harassment not "good fun" or free speech.

I guarantee that having a suit filed will get the school district moving. You may not recover any money but you will get some action against the instigators of the poisoning and some policy changes regarding food brought to school.

As to your daughters reaction, she should be entitled to some counseling at the expense of the school district. Don't settle for the staff counselor, she needs a qualified professional familiar with on spectrum people. This kind of thing can turn into an anxiety disorder if not dealt with promptly.

The good news is she'll be out of high school in a couple of years. If she's college bound, she will find it's a whole new, and better, world.

Best wishes,
Catherine