TW: how would child on child sexual touching/ assault be handled now?

[Imainlineminieggs]

Hi all,

firstly so sorry to anyone this triggers bad memories for. MN feel free to delete or move if in the wrong place.

I'm a regular user but NC for this.

I think like a lot of people, I have doing a lot of reflection under lockdown and have been wondering about an incident that happened at school when I was about 7.

In short, a little boy the same age, 'Sam', used to choose to sit next to me or in front of me in class or school assemblies and he would touch and grab my private areas through my clothes throughout the assemblies. I would try and move away from him as much as possible but was told off for moving at least once.

I don't know whether Sam used to do this to anyone else and I didn't tell anyone about it. nobody mentioned it and I feel that seven year olds would have talked if it was widespread.

However, I think teachers were aware by some point as my class teacher approached me one break, in earshot of others, and asked whether I knew anything about Sam touching people. I vaguely said yes, he had been doing it to me but felt very embarrassed and put on the spot.

I can't remember if it stopped after that to be honest.

Thinking about this incident after all these years is a bit upsetting as I am aware it likely indicates that Sam was being abused at home and I hope he got the support and investigation he needed. he had a lot of behavioural issues then moved away at about 10 so I don't know how he fared. I am not sure but think he joined the Forces later on.

I would be really interested to know from any teachers, social workers or similar how this kind of thing would be handled nowadays with both children involved? for instance, I don't think my parents were informed and there was no follow up.

this would have happened in the early to mid 1990s, by the way.

hopeful bump in case anyone has any thoughts. Not sure why I am asking tbh.

We do lots of work with all children in schools about appropriate touch and the ‘pants’ rules from
NSPCC.

There are tools that we can use (Brook traffic light tool) that indicate the level of concern and what we should do in different situations.

Depending on the age of the child, if this was an isolated incident and we had no other concerns, we would talk to the child about it and if no other concerns, their parents. We would have done some work with you also and informed your parents. We would have risk assessed the situation and made changes that protected children without shaming the child.

There are services that offer further support for children whose behaviour is on going and of a higher level of concern.

Children don’t always present with this type of behaviour because they are being sexually abused although it does happen. Often there is nothing going on at home. It there is something going for at home, it is just as likely that children have witnessed domestic abuse or have been neglected (I was told this by our local service).

Obviously if there are concerns about things at home we refer on on social services.

I'm so sorry this happened to you. I was abused as a child. One perpetrator was an adult (convicted last year now in prison) and the other was a child. They did not know each other. My parents always took the abuse of the child less seriously (boys will be boys). But he knew it was wrong. He told me I would go to prison if I told. A friend of mine discovered her daughter was being abused by another child (same age I and he was) and the police took it very seriously. Although it didn't go to court (they didn't want to put her through it) it was recorded officially, social services involved and lots of restrictions and requirements put in place including a requirement to attend treatment. So it is taken very seriously now.

I hope you are ok. It's hard when you start to see what happened for what it is. Here are some resources that you might find useful warriorwoman.blog/useful-resources/

Thank you very much for your replies yellowsun and toothfairy

It is great to know that measures are in place to pick up on and handle this sort of thing.

I am also glad to hear that it wouldnt have necessarily indicated sexual abuse for the boy involved, although of course I will never know.

Toothfairy I am so sorry to hear about your experiences too thank you for the link and understanding.