What is childish curiosity and what is abuse? *POSSIBLE TRIGGER WARNING*

[7Pip]

If a boy (maybe 10) asks to touch his younger sister in the vaginal area while she's in the bath, and on another occasion exposes his erect penis to her (she thinks he was maybe 12) while they were outside playing and asks to see hers, is that what constitutes typical childhood behaviour or not?

Don't know any more details but she doesn't think anything else happened.
He now works with children and has girls.
She says it hasn't really affected her and she spoke to him about it a while ago and he told her that it was just kids experimenting.
She seems a little bit all over the place about it and to be honest, not having boys myself, I'm not sure what would be normal. Therefore I'm not sure what to advise her?

At 12? I don't think that's normal, no

I think a 12 year old knows that’s not appropriate behaviour.

Btw, I've advised her to call the NSPCC and to see what their advice is, but I'm not sure whether it's nothing at all, or whether it's something she could be concerned about. I don't want to be the shit friend who minimises, but clearly, I don't want to advise her to open up a can of worms if it might be typical behaviour.

Absolutely not typical at 12, he would know what he was doing.

Ok, well he has a very senior position working with children. He also has dds. What she was wondering was whether she should report the incidents to his professional body and potentially ruin his career? Or just forget about it as it hasn't really affected her.

While she says it hasn't affected her, she does seem to have a strange relationship with men. Typical things she would say would be 'they're all only after one thing'. Never made the correlation until now, but I do think it has coloured her view of men.

I work in child protection services and I wouldn't say the above situations are child abuse, but more kids experimenting and exploring.
Given the age difference though, and the fact that the kids are an older age, I'd be wanting to talk to both kids about boundaries and appropriate public/private behaviour.
Sounds like you're examining past experiences though.
Look, if neither of the people were severely impacted, then I wouldn't worry about it. All kids explore sexually, and some need more guidance about what is appropriate than others.
What happened sounds inappropriate, but I wouldn't call it abuse. If you look at sexual behaviour as traffic lights, this kind of behaviour sounds like "orange" lights rather than high risk "red light" behaviour or completely normal "green light" behaviour ... If you google "Traffic Lights Sexual Behaviour" you'll be able to see some resources explaining the model.
If they were impacted by what happened, encourage them to see a counsellor.

Thanks Legend. I'll try not to make a big fuss about it to her then. I didn't advise her what it was either way and told her to ring the NSPCC. She said she has never told anyone ever before and I know she has had counselling over the years. I'm wondering whether that was because she didn't see it as an issue, or whether it was because she did see it as an issue. It's out of my realm of experience anyway, so will try to avoid advising her any which way.

I’m reading your posts that the main part of why she is thinking of saying something now is to protect others - and of course it should be.

How or why does she think reporting these incidents to his professional body would help?

Does she really have more cause for concern? Supporting her to get help to talk through this is the right way to go Id say.

At 12 I think it’s more excusable than older. He would barely have been in puberty at that age if at all. Puberty starts typically any time between 12 and 17 in boys - I just looked that up btw. At maybe 11 I did an I will show you mine, you show me yours with a boy. I’m not sure it’s all that different with a sibling.

I had a very harrowing experience with my brother. Although it started ok, we showed eachother our newly grown pubes (not body parts) at maybe 11&13. He was sexually inappropriate and abusive with me far older than that, until he was around 18/19 and encouraged his friends to do the same. I’m glad he doesn’t have a female child or work with children. Definitely red light stuff. I didn’t need to google it to gauge that. But I did and yes, I was right.

Apparently she watched something or another that showed paedophiles display tendencies from a young age or something. This seems to have brought this all to a head in her mind. I didn't want to ask her why it has only become an issue now, but yes, her concern appears to be that what if he does it to someone else. I'm also wondering whether she was testing the water with me and whether there are other things she's not telling me, but that is probably my overactive imagination going haywire. I love her, but she seems to have a rather fucked up history with men and her ideas can sometimes be insulting to me (sort of suggesting I'm too stupid to realise what all men are like - including my DH!)

I should have added it must have been horrible for her to be touched by her older brother when he was 10. And could be why she has difficulties to this day. She was violated. I’ve also looked at the traffic light stuff from that age group. It would be in the red zone. Did he stop displaying these traits? Did he demean her sexually in any way after this? Not just showing her his erect penis, but what he said about her body and his.

I work for a helpline that supports people who have concerns about sexualised behaviour. While some sexualised behaviours are developmentally expected from children at different ages, what you describe is not something that would be considered experimental – partly because it involves a sibling. The Sexual Behaviours Traffic Light Tool by Brook Advisory Service is a good reference point. This tool can help people identify what is developmentally expected in children, what concerning behaviours to monitor/address and what would definitely need immediate attention from a parent and appropriate agencies. It flags up the behaviour your friend mentions as concerning.

Your friend may not want to pursue a complaint against her brother, but she may want to seek some support in terms of processing what happened to her. It is important that she comes to a decision about that on her own and does what is best for her. The fact that her brother now works with children may be an issue, however, many people who engage in sexually inappropriate behaviour as adolescents do not go on to commit sexual offences. Therefore, it is important that she looks out for other potential signs that suggest her brother could be posing a risk.