Friend's DD took photos of my DD in underwear

[lovemummyfairy]

First time post but long term lurker.

Background - DH's family live 2.5hrs away in the town in which he grew up. His best friend since school still lives in the same town. Whenever we visit DH's family we try to fit in a catch up/visit with his friend. Friend (let's call him John) is married to 'Jane' and they have one DD (9) 'Emma'. We have 3 primary aged DC, youngest is DD (6). In the last couple of years our visits to them have increased in length and frequency, partly because our children are older (DH's family tended to visit us more when DC were babies and toddlers as easier for us due to distance, then Covid obviously stopped visits for a while) and Jane and I now organise the visits as DH and his friend would leave it all to the last minute and then it wasn't always possible to see them.
Our visits have increased from just going round to their house for a few hours, to days out, overnight visits and more recently 2 night stay. My DD loves going to visit Emma - loves being friends with an older girl, loves her bedroom which is like Aladdin's cave to my DD. My oldest DC doesn't like to visit, mostly because he's an older boy, finds Emma annoying etc. Middle DC isn't fussed either way. DH, while he likes to see his friend, would prefer shorter visits as he would rather spend more time with his family.
Jane and John are very generous and welcoming hosts. DH and I have sensed that the intensity of the visits has increased mostly due to Jane's insistence which we think is because of her DD. Emma is a very bright and confident child but, by Jane's own admission, she is hard work, 'in your face' and intense. It seems that she has difficulty making or maintaining any friendships. Jane says that playdates have always been a disaster so she now avoids having any. So we think Jane likes having us visit because we have similar age kids who mostly get on well with Emma.
Unfortunately when we visited recently an incident occurred which really concerned me. Oldest DC came running downstairs to tell us that Emma was taking photos on her ipad of DD in her underwear - for a dare. I rushed upstairs, as did John, to deal with it. John spoke to Emma while I dealt with my DD .My DD looked terrified, thinking she was in big trouble for what she did. Emma started crying about something else to distract John from the main problem, something we have noticed she has done before. Obviously we checked that the photos were deleted and John and Jane reassured us that Emma couldn't send them to anyone as she can only message the two of them, doesn't have social media etc, but they didn't seem overly concerned that their child had been encouraging another child to strip off and take pictures of her.
Since then, oldest DC has told us about other things that Emma says or does while they are there, which are inappropriate. I don't think that I dealt with the situation as well as I could have, it all happened so quickly and looking back I wonder if I could have done anything differently.
Also feeling awkward about future visits as we don't want our DC, especially DD, to spend so much time with Emma,but don't want to affect the friendship we have with John and Jane. So, more of WWYD rather than AIBU?

Exactly this

@Jellycatspyjamas
So you would report the parents to Social Services? They might have time to look at this: maybe not. I still think it’s more of an SEN matter.

Its not a case of reporting the parents to social services as a child protection referral, it’s about seeking support for a young child with sexualised behaviour, there needs to be an assessment of need and safety planning in relation to other children given the 9 year old involved a 6 year old. There may well be a SEN issue, in which case social work can refer for assessment, but there’s also a safety issue possibly for the child but also for other children they are in contact with.

@TizerorFizz Because even if it's probably fine, the risk that it's something so awful is worth flagging it.

If it's not sexual abuse, then it becomes the start of the journey to a possible SEN diagnosis. Either way, the child gets the support they need. This is definitely a child that needs some kind of additional support.

It really isn't about the parents. It's about the child's best interests.

I would be delighted if turns out to not be sinister. But I couldn't live with myself if I was in a similar situation, I didn't report it, and I read about the child in the papers many years later.

People not raising safeguarding concerns is how at risk children slip through the net.

My 9yr old definitely has some rowdy boys in her class who'd say things like the arse comment (and probably worse!) that doesn't especially worry me.

I think the point that you are missing is that Emma’s behaviour could be a sign that she is being abused. However unlikely it is, that a fact. You do not dismiss potential signs of abuse because a child has SEN. Of course there’s always a bigger picture, and that’s why it’s best that a social worker deals with these things, because they can access the full picture.
You are making it sound like the child would be investigated because they have done something wrong and that’s not the case.
unfortunately though, it probably wouldn’t even meet the threshold for any social worker investigation but they would at least contact school and check to see if there have been any other concerns raised.
Nobody has said anything about removing autistic children from their parents, but as you said, nobody knows the cause of the behaviour. Just because somebody is autistic we should not ignore potential signs of abuse.

Do you understand how the system works?

What system do you mean?

there are alot of pictures of women on social media in underwear and bikinis... is it possible that the 9yo saw this on SM and was trying to recreate .... rather than anything harmful?

Unlikely, but there may be another reason behind it. I am not a fan of unsupervised play and this is one of the many reasons why. If it was my friends daughter, all play going forward would need to be supervised and in an open space until I could assess the problem.

I would like to think that I would try and safely support my friend (the mother)

In my view it’s something an educational psychologist should look at. That’s the first step. Possibly a child psychiatrist.

@TizerorFizz

so what would you actually do if you were the op?

Because that isn’t the “first step”

That would be the “first step” if you were the parent in this scenario, had sufficient money to pay privately and was concerned

As someone who, as a child, had another child do innappropriate things to me, please shield your DC from this girl. You're right, she's only a child herself, but it still has a harmful effect on your DD.

This behaviour is ringing alarm bells for me. Children who behave like this usually have experienced sexual abuse. I'm not sure what you can do specifically, but I you need to take this very seriously and keep your kids away, in my opinion.