Girl tried to pull down my son’s shorts

[dontwanttooverreact]

My son is 4 and he went to a 3 hour camp at our sport’s club today. He had been yesterday with a school friend and today with the same friend. After pick up today he told us that a 10 year old girl had tried to pull down his pants and shorts “to see if he was a girl or a boy”.

he is upset, this was his first experience of camp and he is quite shy. Additionally the school friend independently told her mother the exact same story so i believe it (I believed it anyway but you never know with 4 year olds and details.

he told the supervisor who apparently said something to the girl but no one told us at pick up.

AIBU to be furious? I had assumed initially the girl was also 4/5, but 10?!? Surely that’s not on? What, if anything, can I do?

[Title edited by MNQ at poster's request]

Funnily enough this poster asked what was wrong with me!

So nobody pulled anyone’s trousers down ? Nothing was exposed ?

no trousers were removed .. or were ever in danger of being removed.

At worst, an inappropriate comment, at best, the start of a game of chase ..

Not sure the police will do much 🙄

This about sums it up

Goodness! Children are daft, they do stupid and unpredictable things, they are also (shock, horror) sometimes horrible to others for no reason.

You tell your son he was right to tell you and that the other child is being dealt with then you let it go. You tell the lady you spoke to that you expect her to have stern words with her son about his behaviour and ask her how she will supervise him in future.

He didn't pull your sons pants down, he just tried to. Nothing terrible has happened except your son came across a not very nice boy. Sadly he probably won't be the first or last.

And in answer to your question, children of 10 generally know what's right and wrong (with the usual exceptions of course) but that does not mean they don't do stupid things, they are children.

no trousers were removed .. or were ever in danger of being removed

well they were in danger of being removed, yes, as the boy tried to remove them?

to be clear, I have not once mentioned sexual assault or otherwise, and have been clear about not calling the police. I just wanted to gauge opinions on the correct response. But it’s MN so of course some people are needlessly unpleasant!

Thank you for this - it’s quite sensible advice

Just finished a safeguarding course. Everyone who has dealings with children or vulnerable adults must report if they see or are told of suspicious behaviour. It is important to trust your gut. It maybe nothing but that is up to the qualified people reported to to decide after investigating. It is important not to report it to the mother but the companies designated safeguarding lead. If one and the same then local authority one. Please report op. The boy may be at risk too and either way this inappropriate behaviour must be prevented from happening again

Yeah this is sexual bullying.

My DS went through the same 'are you a boy or girl' thing from one older boy at school who would follow him into the bathroom at break time and do stuff like this etc... he ended up getting excluded.

Unfortunately, what the child did may be a crime - even if they had no sexual intent, it’s still possible assault. Personally, I would suggest safeguarding action rather than the police, but the posters suggesting that the police be called have the right idea - this needs escalating.

This is not normal behaviour when the age difference is so great. That’s the context. The two children are not related - that’s another context. If this story had been told to me in RL, my safeguarding training would lead to me taking it up to the next level - that’s my third context.

And yes, it might end up with the police. Not my concern. My concern would be that this needs reporting to someone.

were 10 and the girl 4 and he had done this to her the reaction of the camp would have been different

Yes exactly. Not okay at all, either way round.

What will you be telling him and the school when somebody punches him for this "joke".

dontwanttooverreact

Please make sure that this is fully recorded as a complaint to the club.
If this child is the child of the supervisor she needs to know that it isn't acceptable and that there is a record of it incase she/he does it again.

Sadly people like to deny child abuse in all its forms because they just can’t handle it. If more minor incidents were picked up on then they wouldn’t escalate. What concerns me about this is there were two adults in charge of 9 children. That is a very high ratio so all children should have been being supervised at all times. If there were four years olds then they should not have been alone at all. I suspect that this happened in the loos and the ten year old boy knew he would have to do it behind the adults backs. There is a safeguarding issue with the mother being in charge of a ten year old who thinks he can bully younger children like this and scare and upset them. It should be recorded as an incident and I don’t think her son should be allowed to attend the club anymore. She will try and keep it quiet I think you should report it to the club. They need to be aware of this. 4 year olds are tiny. I would not send my child into a club if I knew about a supervisors son getting away with this behaviour.

@AllThingsServeTheBeam
this is where it starts….don’t let your son become a sexual predator when he is older. Teach him now about boundaries with others who are vulnerable.

She has send me a very well worded email expressing apology etc and offering to speak to someone else and also apparently there is CCTV footage I can view.

the only thing I will say though is that, despite having mentioned her son being involved (and specifically saying my son probably misidentified him as a girl due to his hair) to me several times over the phone, he is not mentioned once in the email. Which I think is quite telling.

Just do as everyone has advised - make a formal complaint.

Maybe read all my comments ay...

Presumably she has done safeguarding so she should know its not for her to sort. However we'll meaning her apology she should know this is not for her to deal with but a dsl. This must be looked at and reporting properly and every club will have a clear safeguarding policy and reporting strategy. Apart from your ds she should be concerned about her own ds as inappropriate sexual behaviour at that age could be because he has seen or been abused in some way. Check out nspcc and report

The OP is handling this the right way, this 10yo doesn’t need to be criminalised. I knew I’d seen something on a friend’s Facebook in the past. Not what I would have posted myself but just showing that children do stupid things without thinking of the consequences. Her son was 15/16, old enough to know better, much more mature (in theory) than a 10yo

Her son was 15/16, old enough to know better, much more mature (in theory) than a 10yo

A 16 year old kegging his mate of the same age is really not comparable to a 10 year old asking to see a 4 year olds genitalia and then going about trying to move the child’s pants.

Your poor wee boy. That's awful

10 year old and 4 year olds are allowed to mix, there nothing wrong with that. All children would have to be supervised as it’s a safeguarding issue and mum could take it further if it was found they weren’t but you cant see everything going on presumbly why an adult didn’t intervene.

Would you say it's way too much to Jamie Bulger's mum?
10 years old is more than old enough to know that's massively wrong.

What procedures should you suggest as kids are kids and do silly things within seconds for no reason? For it not to happen each child would need to be supervised by an adult each at all times and that’s never going to happen.

They did it, explicitly, to see his penis.