AIBU to be furious or am I overreacting? TW

[Yetanotherusername1]

I posted this in Chat but got no traffic. Hope it's ok to put here.

Potential trigger warning re: abuse

Hope I have covered bases by posting the TW. I wouldn't want to cause anyone any distress.

Ok, so I have posted about having issues with my dd's friend before and have had lots of really useful advice and I thought I was managing their interactions. I have name-changed because I am a bit paranoid about being outed so please can no-one link to the previous thread. Girl has potential ASD issues and can be a bit controlling but dds and son like playing with her. Child is 8. She has tickled my dd between her legs before whilst playing before and I have had to ask her to not touch my dd down there. Yesterday she did it again. DD ran in and told me immediately as I have taught her to do. The friend ran off and slammed her door which she does whenever she has done something wrong.

I had to talk to her mum which I found EXCRUCIATING and uncomfortable, mainly because I have some trauma in this area. I summoned up the courage and went round and asked for a quiet word. Her mum apologised but didn't seem overly concerned. I asked her to please reinforce with her dd about bodies and where it is ok to touch other children. Mum assures me that she does tell her this regularly and it was probably just her being silly.

I feel quite squicked out about it for a number of reasons. DH said I did the right thing and the kid probably just needs boundaries enforced. I thought I handled it well. Today my dd came in and said the girl, along with another girl, was trying to pull down my younger son's pants. I went out, they were all playing on the grass in front of my house, and talked to one of the girls, who assured me it was just a joke and it was largely because my boy fell over and grazed his thigh which he had. I looked around for my son and realised he had gone down the side of my house, when I walked round he was being manhandled by dd's friend trying to pull his pants down. I shouted at him to come to me. I took him in and chatted to him about what was happening. He burst into tears and said she was trying to see his privates. She specifically asked for him to show it to her. He said stop. I heard him saying stop as I walked around.

I went out and raised my voice. Not insanely, but I did make it clear I was angry and I told both of the girls off. I've kept him inside, but now he wants to go back out and play.

What do I do? Do I put it down to children mucking around or do I have to have yet another conversation with her mum? It seems her mum hasn't reinforced boundaries like I asked at all. Or is this just a child with possible ASD not understanding boundaries?

I feel really angry and tearful. I don't know if I am overreacting because I have some abuse in my past. I'm on my own with both of the kids at the moment and don't have anyone to run this past except here! Any advice greatly appreciated?

I think, aside from the recent incident, your problem is that this child seems to have free access to your children, house, life. An ASD child will be very easily influenced by others and also operate at younger than their chronological age, socially, she's about 6 not 8. That is no excuse, however, and as the mother of an ASD child, I would have been horrified had my child done that. By eight, even with some delays in social skills, she should know that 'tickling' is not done. She knows enough to be manipulative with trying to force your son and also lying to her mum. She knows she can try and make you cave in by her hanging out of windows.

If you decide to proceed with contact, tell the mother that your daughter MUST ONLY come over when she has been specifically invited at a time when you can supervise. So on normal terms of a playdate. Come to play on Saturday x date between 2 and 4 only.

It would have driven me potty to have free range other peoples' kids popping round and this lass needs far more supervision than others. The mum sounds lacking in thought and is probably being pestered by X so she can play and it's easy parenting for her. I know my son used to get a bit obsessed with particular friends and your children need respite.

A similar thing happened to one of my kids and it was taken very seriously. I'd call ss, you probably won't be the first... Oh and keep your kids away

Your duty is to your kids first OP. X's mum doesn't want to accept that this could be anything more than play because it's a really hard thing for a parent to accept that their child could be a sexual abuser. To minimise it is hee coping technique. That said, you don't have to be concerned about that- if she is constantly knocking on your door wondering why X can't play you can just say "I understand that this must be a very difficult time for you, and it's hard to process but my children have been very upset by her unwanted touching and regardless of whether it's play or not, I'm not comfortable with it so they won't be playing with X."

This isn't kids fooling around. Please keep your children away from the little girl. Reading these posts make me ill. A similar situation happened to me when I was a child, a boy at school made me do things sexually that I did not want to do. I was 6 he was 8. The memories have stayed with me forever and have caused considerable heart ache in my life. I class it as sexual abuse because I did not want to partake in these "silly childish games". When I was small teachers were aware of what was happening and did nothing to stop it. It was all put down to "kids experimenting" and now as an adult I still find it difficult to relive these memories and it has affected me sexually long term.
I don't want to sound dramatic or worry you untoward as I think if you nip this in the bud now and limit (or ideally completely stop) contact with this child now your children will suffer no long term harm, however I wouldn't continue to leave my kids with her unsupervised. As much as I feel sorry for this little girl, my heart lies with your children and my own experiences of this directly and how it can affect you long term.

I'm so sorry to hear this Namechange2715 I don't think you sound dramatic at all. Thank you for your response. This whole thing is making me unwell so I know how you feel. I haven't been able to sleep or eat properly due to the uncomfortable memories.

I'm more concerned with the incident with my dd to be honest. Today I took a deep breath and asked her what had happened again, and to give me as much detail as she could. It turns out it was worse than I imagined and she hurt my dd. It seemed very intentional. I was hoping it was part of their game, where my dd was pretending to be a dog. My dd is ok, just a bit bemused as to why it happened and is also really upset that I refusing to let her play with her friend so contacting NSPCC as soon as kids are in bed and I can collect my thoughts.

Please let us know how you get on with the NSPCC.

I'm glad you are taking these seriously. More seriously than the Mum. She obviously has a lot of her plate and is just burying her head in the sand about things. Dont let your children be the scapegoat though for her and her child's actions. I'm sure your daughter and son will be fine but continuing to let these situations occur, eventually they will start to feel all kinds of unpleasant emotions... Guilt, sadness, confusion... That will stay with them. Best of luck with the nspcc x

Bloody hell

Keep a record of what happens and when. Just in case you need it.

You really need to contact NSPCC. It's not up to you to decide if she's been sexually abused. You know her mother is fully hopeless. You need to protect your own children but you also have a duty to all children, as we all do.

I don't think you're overreacting at all, OP, and I think you're handling a difficult situation very well so far. But I do think you need to raise the alarm more formally, with SS or the NSPCC, as pp have suggested. To me, this has red flags all over it. I think X is past the age where this is just innocent experimentation. I think she is copying things that have been done to her and described as playing or just a bit of fun. She seems genuinely upset at being told off, which makes me think someone else has been at pains to convince her that there's nothing wrong with this sort of 'playing'. And imo her mum is dismissing it as normal because once she faces up to the fact it's not, she's going to have to ask herself some very difficult questions she doesn't want to know the answers to. She is asking you to collude in her denial. I'm really sorry, OP, I see that this is hard for you, but I think you are the only person who stands between this little girl and some really bad stuff. You absolutely must protect your DCs, but I think you also must step up and intervene for X too.

I’m sorry the incident with your daughter turned out to be worse than you thought. At least that means you can be a lot clearer about how to proceed?

Sorry, OP this sounds awful. Lots of good advice here. Hope things work out.

To be fair Yetanotherusername it does seem so far that you have done a good job of dealing with the situation. I know zilch about child protection but you seem to be keping your cool about this, understandably distressing as it is for you.

NameChange

A similar thing happened to me at school, a boy made me do things sexually that I did not want to do

Thi shappened to me at primary school, but me and the boys were both about 10 or 11. The teacher blamed me for making them do it to me. I do not believe it can be called abuse as such, as it has not harmed me in any way, but I do remember at the time feeling very humiliated, embarassed and like I just wanted to disappear. I was a shy girl though and never had good self esteem, so I reckon i was not damaged in any way, I just overreacted to what happened to me, as I was a bit sensitive. I made myself forget it for years and I do think the best way to deal with such things is to tell myself that other kids had it way worse, and real abuse by an adult must be devastating.

Am sorry to hear what happened to you though- it is sad to read that you are still feeling affected by what happened to you. Are you having any kind of counselling?

Hi, NameChange and yetanother, I realise I probably should not have shared my own experiences on this forum. I risk possibly being insensitive to the experiences of other people who have also been through this.

I keep telling myself that what happened to me as a child at school, the sex stuff i was made to do- nothing major or serious, just being pinned down to the floor and my clothes taken off and made to show my vagina etc isn't really abuse and hasn't affected me but i don't know 100 per cent that it hasn't. i found myself becoming a little bit emotional reading this- i do not know why. So i am bowing out of this thread now. Hope i have not upset anyone or caused anyone to feel "triggered". I am actually having therapy for CPTSD at the moment because of experiencing emotional abuse as a child, so I am probably not best to be on here. Sorry

You need to send pp’s text.

Berthatydfil

It’s a shame you were taken by surprise.
She’s got an immense thick skin or lack of self awareness on this issue given the previous events.

Can you send her a text if you prefer to give some thought to what you want to say to her?

You could say something like
I have been thinking about what happened and I’m not sure about the version you have been told by X as I actually witnessed some of it (or whatever you saw)

I’m not happy about this, x’s difficulty in understanding appropriate boundaries and the fact my children’s discomfort in relation to what she was doing was ignored.

And now just less than half an hour of a very detailed conversation she was back knocking at our door, apparently with your consent.

I must be clear about this - Xs behaviour around my children is upsetting them and I will not tolerate this anymore.

Regrettably I must make it clear that X is not welcome to play with my children in the street, in my home or garden for the foreseeable future. Please don’t embarrass X or yourself by allowing or encouraging her to call for them to play.

I regret if this may upset you and X but I must put my children’s well-being and feelings first on this matter.

Something’s odd. One of my kids has ASD and ADHD. Whilst impulse control was an issue, they never ever did that sort of thing when they were a child. I don’t consider that normal behaviour for a child with ASD/ADHD.

Thank you for your comments meerkat I'm not offended or triggered by your comments.
For years I did not class it as sexual abuse what happened to me as a child. I once saw a counsellor at uni for other issues and I somehow brought it all up. Although it is not on the same scale as sexual abuse by an adult she explained that because the experience had made me feel the same feelings of guilt and feeling ashamed, long term and had affected issues for me sexually it is still sexual abuse. The perpetrator may not have had the same motive as an adult in his action but he still left me with similar repucussions that a child that had been abused by a adult had left so therefore to me, it was sexual abuse.
It took me a long time to tell anyone what had happened to me. My parents didn't know until I was 18 and found out by accident. My husband knows what happened but only to a certain extent. I think the counsellor is the only one I have spoken to fully about what happened. It was a lot more serious than what happened to this ladies children so like I said in my pp I do not want to suggest for a second the actions of this girl will lead to long term consequences.
I have also suffered from PTSD in relation to my job (I'm a nurse) and experienced a situation where I did not feel in control. I could not understand at the time why this issue had affected me so much when I deal with a lot of trauma and stress in my job day in day out. However speaking to my counsellor again she explained the situation I experienced at work (the lack of control) had freaked out my head because of similar feelings I experienced as a child. It now makes me understand that although I lead a happy, fulfilled life and do not let what happened to me as a child affect me day to day, these experiences can stay with you forever and do affect us in small ways as adults.

OP can I just emplore you to please not let this girl near your children. You are doing the right thing contacting the authorities. For your children’s safety and for x’s.
I know you say you know her family and don’t suspect abuse etc but that is EXACTLY what everyone thinks, and often they are wrong. If it’s not her parents, she may be being harmed but any number of outsiders and is transferring it.
Your one and only job is to protect your children and fuck any fallout with the mother. Where is your DH in this, he absolutely needs to be supporting you and having some of these conversations with the neighbour &nspcc if you feel unable.
for you. It is shit.

DH is fully onboard and is supporting me. Thanks.

NSPCC - that girl has learned that from somewhere. Help her.

NameChanger

For years I tried to suppress this memory but your post brought up the fact that at my junior school i was forced to do sex things for boys and was blamed by teacher for it. I have always been very wary of men. TBH i don;t really have relationships with men as i suffer from a condition that makes my pelvic muscles tighten up if anything goes near my lady bits- doctor says it all in my head, so i have never really known if my issues are caused by this but i also feel very nervous of men since childhood.

Could i PM you? I do not want to say any more on here in case i am saying too much information but I am feeling very triggered right now. I know about PTSD as I have had the Complex type of PTSD because my childhood was dysfunctional- verbal and emotional abuse. I really feel for you in this.