Please excuse this - it’s going to be long and it could be triggering but I’ve never written it all down before. This happened a while ago but it plagues me and I still don’t know what to do for the best.
My long term friend and her DS looked after my DC for one night.
On our return the next day, my friend told me that her DS (8) and my DS (9) has been checking out each other’s private parts. She said her DS told her that my DS had attempted to put her DS privates in his mouth. She said that she feared that my DS must have experienced this from someone else in order for it to have happened. I was shocked and mortified, obviously, apologised profusely, and told her we would investigate immediately.
DH and I spoke to DS that day about what had happened. We were very calm and carefully explained that no one was angry - we just needed to know the truth.
DS is a very transparent child and blurted it all out. He said that they had been winding each other up and that the other boy had pulled down DS pants. DS has done it back to him to get him back. This pulling down pants thing happened several times and they had both looked at each other’s privates closely. DS said he touched the other boys privates but the other boy did not touch his. We asked him why he touched and he says that he was curious to feel one that wasn’t his. The other boy then lay down on the bed and pretended to be asleep. This was the other boys idea apparently. DS said he then looked at the other boy privates again but that they both knew that he wasn’t asleep really. At that point my friend called them downstairs and her suspicions were raised.
We went over DS story several times with him, got him to act it out and we looked for holes in his story. He admitted that the game had got out of hand and that he’d gone too far in touching the other boy. We talked about private parts and how you mustn’t show them to anyone or touch anyone else’s. We had very frank and open chats about everything which he engaged with openly too. After these conversations we asked him why he thought that the other boy had said to his mum that DS has tried to put his privates in his mouth. He was shocked and denied it immediately. We assured him repeatedly that no-one would be angry and that we just needed the truth. He was adamant that he had not done this, that no-one had done this to him, that he thought it was gross. He knew he’d been wrong to look at and touch the other boys privates but hadn’t tried to put them in his mouth.
After a few days I phoned my friend and told her about what we’d discussed with DS and that he admitted to everything except the mouth bit. We asked each other if our boys were OK and they both seemed OK at this point. I suggested that we got together with the boys sometime soon, if she saw fit, and we all had a chat. I also said I’d be in touch if anything else came to light. I was in no way trying to minimise the situation - I was trying to be as transparent as possible and find a pragmatic way forward armed with the facts. She said she’d think about it.
I realise totally by the way that the allegation of trying to put privates in the mouth is the major red flag here.
I texted her a few days later and she replied asking me to not contact her at the moment as her son was now upset about what had happened. I apologised again and respected her request for space, even though I was devastated.
My DH and I continued to discuss the situation and monitor DS behaviour, looking for any signs of lying, stress or upset or evidence that something had happened to him. Up to this point I’d not told anyone about the situation as it was so delicate. But I was getting more distraught and going over and over it in my head. I didn’t know which way to turn. 2 weeks later I texted my friend again to ask for a chat. She texted back ‘I’ve asked you not to contact me. DS does not feel comfortable at your house with your DS therefore there’s no way forward from this’.
At this point it all got too much and I started to have panic attacks and was medicated for anxiety and depression. I still had not told anyone but decided at this point to confide in a handful of trusted friends. They all felt that she had overreacted and that we should not have taken all the blame initially on behalf of our DS. I was surprised - I thought they’d say they understood her reaction. I had a lot to lose by telling people - they could have gossiped or shunned us / DS - but I didn’t care - I just wanted to get to the truth / find out if he’d behaved inappropriately before / work out what our blind spots were.
I then confided in a mutual friend who is a counsellor. She said she couldn’t get involved as she’s obliged to report anything she hears as a safeguarding issue but 1) she felt we’d have got the truth out of DS by now if there was more 2) she wouldn’t get SS involved if she was us.
A while later I asked the same mutual friend to facilitate a meeting between me and the friend in question so that we could at least be able to be civil to each other in the company of other mutual friends. A message came from her via the mutual friend - she felt we’d ‘minimised the situation, she regretted not reporting it to SS, she was angry that we’d talked to other people about it when she’d said absolutely nothing to anyone out of respect for us, she’d hated us for this but she’d now moved on and we should do the same.’
So that’s that. It’s all been devastating. We believe our DS but we’re not afraid of the truth if there is more to know. Looking back, I think I should have reported the incident as a safeguarding issue but I guess deep down I thought they’d make it worse. And other people who I respected thought it unnecessary DS is a well adjusted, happy, open child. We have frank chats about everything with him and his older siblings. He’s been brought up to speak up about his feelings and he does readily. We feel we have have dealt with this as healthily as possible, except for getting SS involved.
Anyway, sorry this is so long. People in the know - was this a safeguarding issue? Should we have got SS involved? What would SS do? Should we not have discussed it with anyone? Are we taking too much blame or are we minimising? Are we in denial? Was our friend wrong to to not discuss with us? What would you have done?