To wonder how I approach my neighbour about her nude son

Can people stop saying "learning difficulties" when they mean "a learning disability". They are very different things.

You Can't Know She's Not In Danger

Fuck sake.

Go read the bloody thread and educate yourself.

Of course the parents need to be told of their DS behaviour.

The DD need to know her upset is valid for starters but what if he does it again and someone takes action against this young man.

MN is always very much pushing for measured responses but not everyone has measured responses. What happens if someone sees him if he does it again and starts shouting or even giving this young lad a thump becuse they have upset them or someone they care about.

The DD needs to feel protected but the young lad also needs to be protected.

@irreverent I fully understand wanting to report it to the police, but there very likely wasn't a crime committed.

It would be indecent exposure, which is an offence? Yes his autism would be taken into account but it doesn't mean that it was acceptable.

As I've said we have experience of severe autism in the family and can say that yes, autistic teens get the same sexual urges as NT teens and this has to be dealt with appropriately to avoid affecting other innocent people. The mum/parents aren't managing to do this.

Where I grew up there was unfortunately a serious sexual assault by an adult man with learnings difficulties, against a small child, the daughter of a neighbour.
Whatever diminishment of capacity he suffered from would not have lessened that little girl's distress.

Obvously that is a more severe case but it's naive to suggest that things like this don't happen or that we should pretend they don't in a misguided attempt to be kind. It's not kind to put someone vulnerable in a position where they do something awful or illegal, it's a failure of safeguarding.

Oh for goodness sake. To everyone posting saying talk to his mum in way that expresses concern for his safety; that something could happen to him or someone could hurt him -NO!!!!

This boy's safety is not the op's concern so do not guilt trip her into feeling that it somehow should be, or that she should bring it up with his mum. To do so would downplay and minimise how this has affected the young girl at the centre of all this.
No girl or woman should be expected to be tolerant of a naked teenage boy running towards them, regardless if he's autistic or not.

Forget the 'be nice, be tolerant' brigade, op. Your daughter and her safety come first here. If you chose not to inform the police, I would let his mum know that if it happens again you will. And yes, I would press charges if it happened again, if it were my daughter.

There have been a few replies on this thread from women who have been sexually assaulted by people who were autistic or had intellectual disabilities. These poor women were told to be kind and understanding, that the perpetrator didn't understand what they were doing. One of these women said her brother used to do the same as this boy did on this occasion, and he went on to sexually abuse her.
If only someone had spoken up for and protected these young girls at the time, their stories might have turned out very differently.

You're doing right in speaking up and standing up for your daughter, op. Don't let anyone downplay what happened.
Best wishes to you.

Still doesn’t make it common 🙄. And the higher stats are children and adults with disabilities being abused more often too because they are more vulnerable

I agree with this @whumpthereitis

@Mum23amazingkids your comments are very rude and presumptuous. Just because you have never met a man like this, doesn't mean they don't exist.

Some years ago, in the 1980s, when I was a young woman (about 18,) and still living at my parents house, there was a young man, I think he was about 26, with learning difficulties. Fairly high functioning but still had learning difficulties. (Still lived with his parents.) He lived kind of opposite. His windows were at 10:00 o'clock and sort of to the left but opposite.

Everything was fine until I got to about 17/18 years old, then he just randomly started to stand in his mum and dad's bedroom at the front, and masturbate completely naked... It was so upsetting. I started to go out of the back door and walk out the back gate to go into town or to go to work, (I never told anyone as I didn't think I would be believed.) I got to the point where I couldn't go out the front. Not even in the garden. In case he was there.

I actually told my mum about it eventually. She kept looking but never seemed to catch him. And then this one time she spotted him, and she said 'his mother would go mad if she knew what he is doing.' But she never said anything to her. I left home not long after. I know that he was doing it just so I could see it. Because I was a young woman in my late teens. Never did it when my brother was in the garden, or my parents. Just when I appeared.

He left home not long after I did, and none of us ever saw him again. He moved away, and left the area. Never knew why.

Posters in this thread have shared their own painful experiences of being assaulted by men and boys with learning disabilities. That you haven’t encountered one that expresses sexuality in this way does not mean they do not exist, or that the risk posed to OP’s dd was/is negligible.

Incidentally, your opinion that the probabilities of this being sexually motivated are low doesn’t seem to be shared by organisations that actually specialize in the safeguarding of children:

“There is evidence to suggest that incidence of physical and sexual abuse is higher amongst children and adults with a learning disability than in the general population.”

https://www.wirralsafeguarding.co.uk/procedures/11-9-assessing-sexual-perpetrators-learning-disabilities/

Yes.

Have you any understanding about policing?

?

cope with

Whether this was sexual, sensual or not, the son is outside in inclement weather, naked. It is not clear whether he has a clear sense of danger, or whether he is (like my eldest) almost impervious to the cold until he becomes hypothermic. The mother needs to know. The behaviour needs to be logged, so the people caring for the young man can help to keep him (and potentially others) safe.

It could be that if appropriate communication is used, the young man will be able to learn where and when to take off his clothes, and that the garden is not the place to be naked. However, in order for the mother and other carers to decide (with the young person) the best course of action to take, she needs to know that the behaviour is taking place, and that it is disturbing others.

It could be that the mother is already finding the needs of a strong adolescent with communication problems very difficult to come with, and that this behaviour is a catalyst for extra support. She really does need to know.

I think if she is argumentative etc that even the most tactful approach will result in her being awkward.

By all means be tactful but of she becomes aggressive perhaps leave it with “if there is any repeat of this behaviour I will have to report to the police as it cannot go unchecked and approaching you directly clearly does not work”

It will feel uncomfortable but you are not in the wrong

You be known hundreds of teen autistic boys over the years and I’m yet to meet a 16 year old non verbal autistic teen that expresses sexually this way . So the probabilities are extremely small

He is autistic, so his sexual urges might well be expressed like this. I say might, as I don’t know but then neither do you.

I’m on the side of phoning the police but your comment is way over the top

To be on the sex offenders register there needs to be a crime committed and there needs to be capacity.

Nobody here said this . People told you this downstairs seem sexually motivated and it doesn’t st at all . Of course people have sexual urges but they normally don’t get displayed this way .

Well you are very silly person ! There was no sexual assault at all . Most autistic people , specially non verbal love running up and down or jumping around too , having no clothes suggest q sensory issue and not a sexual one . The running of pups be very common . You are so ignorant

"Autism or no,this dangerous young man needs to be on the sex offenders register before someone is raped."

This wouldn't cause him to be added to the sex offenders register.

Well said ! People here have no idea how hard it is in this mums position . Living in fear people think the wrong thing . Why are people so compassionate about visible illnesses and disabilities but not with autism and similar . It seems like an isolated incident and I’m whiling to bet this boys mum has probably lost a nights sleep thinking the op could contact the police or ss .

Not quite. According to OP, he "kind of" ran. Doesn't sound like it looked very intentional. And she "came inside", she didn't run inside.

This is absolute rubbish. Autistic individuals are first and foremost people and have the same sexual development as their peers. I am autistic and am married with children, as are most of the autistic individuals I know. Only 1 in 5 autistic individuals have a learning disability.

Whether they have a learning disability or not autistic individuals are capable of choosing to behave inappropriately for their own sexual gratification.

If the mum is know for being aggressive I’d write your concerns in a letter and post it through her door. Then she has time for emotions to spike and fade before you see her again

This is not sexual assault. Firstly he did not make physical contact with her and (from the limited information we have) there is nothing to prove that the intent was sexual if he had.

Sexual assault requires non-consensual physical contact of a sexual nature.