[Kinderkr4zy]

Ok first off I am not a school counselor not doi have any training in mental health.

However, after an incident at my child's school I am really wondering about something. How common is it for young girls to lie about being pregnant? I was beyond shocked to hear that a 12 year old girl would make up a fake pregnantcy and take it so far as to accuse another student whom she had never been intimate with of getting her pregnant and then telling that boy that he needed to be her boyfriend now. . She concocted a strange scenario for how this could be, which really brought home how little she understood about the science behind human reproduction, and it seemed so beyond the normal to me. So I went online and looked this up and low and behold I find that this isn't that uncommon.

Do those of you that work with tweens/teens see this in your work? Is it really not that strange?

[GraceKrispy]

That happened once when I was a counselor! The child was 12 as well, and her story basically implied a rape. I was out of my element on this one. She told her friends she was pregnant and they all wanted to kill the boy who "raped" her, except she didn't know who it was. She was afraid to tell her parents. Well, we knew her home situation and her parents would NEVER have let her go to a party (as she said she did) alone. She had some mental health issues and this was the first year she was even being allowed to go to school (mostly because it was a really small school). So we questioned further and she didn't even know how babies were made, so she couldn't describe what happened. Then she made it sound like she was sleeping. We talked with her parents and it turns out nothing of the sort happened. She later texted friends that she had killed herself (yes, that she HAD done it, past tense). She had lots of issues.

I thought that was odd, but she had mental health issues to start with. I didn't realize it was possibly common, but I do remember having a friend when I was 13 who said she was pregnant but no baby ever came. I don't know if she got an abortion, but she went on and on about the pregnancy for a month and then just stopped mentioning it.

Tweens/teens are so dramatic to start with, and they often make up things to impress their friends (usually revolving around sex or relationships), but I don't know how common it is to extend that to a pregnancy. It wouldn't surprise me if there were more, with shows like "teen pregnancy" getting attention in the media. I know for many teen/tween girls, the idea of having a baby to have "someone to love/someone to love me" is big and I wonder if that impacts the decision to make up stories like this.

I'm interested in what others have experienced. I've only had one case of this, and she was pretty easy to figure out. Interesting question!

[eeza]

Wow! A student has never said that to me, but I can imagining it occurring at my high school at some point if it hasn't already.

Actually, come to think of it, one of the seniors wanted to "prank" some of the teachers and said she was pregnant. A few of her friends were in on it and keep the ruse going. The next day they laughed about it and said it was only a joke. The other teachers and me did not quite get how it was a joke.

I can see how teens might do this for attention or if they have a mental illness that includes delusions. Obviously, it's not unheard of since you and Gracekrispy have experienced it, but I think it'd be on the rare side.