Severe lies between our children and friends children HELP

[New15]

Long one so will try and compress down!

I have 14 (Boy) and 10 (Girl)
Lifelong friends have 2 kids 14 (girl) and 13 (boy)

these people we see every weekend, we holiday together have been through good and bad together and are so important to us.

Background being both my friends kids have been caught out lying about Drinking, Vaping, talking to adults in a sexual nature over the internet sending explicit pictures to other people in the last 6 months or so.
My kids are the model of good behaviour, neither have ever done anything wrong (I’m so lucky) my boy 14 is massively into sport so his health is priority. We have different parenting styles, I am more of a gentle parent with the others being the opposite.
Both my kids are always honest and upfront and have never done anything to not have my trust.

my Daughter 10 last week said she had something to tell me and got really upset.
2 weeks ago, whilst round their house. My daughter (10) went in their sons room (13) for a few minutes a which is totally normal and had said he was having sexual conversations with other friends over PS5.
he had turned and said sorry did you know about that stuff?, to which she responded “yes, I did sex education at school last week”
He then proceeded to show her on his phone what I believe to be porn. He also asked her if she knew what it was. At 10 years old she was trying to describe what she saw, but struggled as she didn’t understand it, however I knew what she was talking about straight away. She felt uncomfortable and pretended to need a drink to which he said, if she was to tell me, he would say it was her and she would get into trouble.

Now she does have Tourette’s and struggles with decisions and some emotions massively which is why I assume it’s taken her a week to pluck the courage up to say something.

I rang my friend and explained what I had been told and that I was so shocked by it. The friend apologised to which I said it’s not your fault but please speak with him and let me know.

we knew he would lie because he lies about everything until it’s black and white in his face to which he couldn’t lie.

my friend rang me back the next day and said her son (13) has swore down he absolutely did not show her anything. There was nothing on his phone. That he had said, she had overheard him laughing in about sexual stuff with his friends which he apologised for but that was it.
I explained, that what my daughter told me, she couldn’t have known, and the way she explained it proved she didn’t know what it was, only she knew it wasn’t right.
My friend then proceeded to tell me my daughter probably knows much more than she lets on, and I should baby proof her phone! (Her phone has always been for school walking only) and she doesn’t have access to the internet at all.
So basically my friend has took her sons word and now it is incredibly awkward.

what do I do?
this is someone who is considered as family. We love each others kids like our own, and despite her kids going off the rails a little and lying Iv always loved them like they are my own.

I don’t know how to approach it at all!

My daughter had asked what was going on and I had to tell her that they believe he is telling the truth. To which she broke down in tears, and said she wish she never said anything. Which makes it worse I want her as a young girl to be able to tell me things that make her feel uncomfortable and to be heard. - And this isn’t a little white lie or swearing ect. This is a teenager lying about showing my 10 year old something extremely sexual.

this whole experience as a parent has me overwhelmed.

Thoughts from an outside viewer are greatly appreciated!

I don't think anyone's saying it's grooming (although it might be.)

It's definitely sexual abuse and it's definitely a crime.

So contacting the police is appropriate and of course they will take an interest.

Clearly you need to brush up on your reading comprehension. The OP has known all along about her friends’ children sending sexually explicit images and engaging in sexual chat with adults online, and it only seems to have struck her as a contrast to her own ‘good’ children and ‘good parenting’. Despite knowing, she continued to put her children into situations where they were in contact with these children alone, with tech in the room.

Safeguarding her own children from known sexualised behaviour from her friends’ children does not seem to have occurred to her until it was too late, and a vulnerable ten year old has been exposed to pornography.

And when she posts on here about it, her concern is chiefly that her friend believes her own son rather than her DD., rather than the harm that occurred.

Deeply skewed priorities.

OP has also said that the friend's kids have been engaged in sex chat online with adults, and sending explicit photos. She says the police were involved but no action was taken as it had all been deleted. Can you see that the 13yo showing the 10yo sexually explicit material is part of a bigger picture and not "kids exploring"?

It's a fact that grooming behaviour starts with small, deniable, minimisable actions and escalates. pp are advising her to cut contact so that this doesn't escalate and her dd can be kept safe from a child who appears not to have been safeguarded himself. They are advising her to involve police/ss/school to minimise the likelihood that some other unsuspecting child gets treated the same way and to get some safeguarding in place for the friend's kids, who have every appearance of being victims themselves.

This very much is red light behaviour. Advising her to ignore it is really irresponsible. As for being "amused", words fail me really.

So you mean, before, by allowing her children around these kids at all and especially alone. I can agree it’s ignorant to have done so.

She is now handling it; ending the friendship and reassuring her daughter that she did the right thing and that she is believed.

OP has also said that the friend's kids have been engaged in sex chat online with adults, and sending explicit photos. She says the police were involved but no action was taken as it had all been deleted.

She has said - and repeated - that it was the elder daughter, not the son, who'd done all that.

Clearly you need to brush up on your reading comprehension. The OP has known all along about her friends’ children sending sexually explicit images and engaging in sexual chat with adults online

Maybe you should improve your comprehension skills. The OP says in her second post:

Just to clarify it was the girl who was caught sending things to other boys. The son has never done anything sexual (that we know of)

Holy moly at last a voice of reason.

Not minimising what has happened, but it seems people have not read the OP's posts properly.

Also wondered whether there are a lot of cultural aspects playing into this and responses on here - it's all very 'girls are innocent/pure' and 'boys are creeps/evil' - just no balance.

13-year-old boys (I've had them! and daughters too) are in fact often very immature and I'd say a 10 or almost 11-year old girl (assuming she is Y6 as OP says she walks from school) would be at a similar level of maturity as the boy. He is not an adult, he is a child for Christ's sake.

Boys do banter and use inappropriate language - most of us with boys who are on group WhatsApp groups have seen it. Tends to peak around Y8/9. Not saying it's right, but these are well behaved boys from lovely, caring families.

Sadly no government to date have banned access to porn for children. This is a great travesty.

But, let's step back a bit.

OP was sexually abused and so - rightly - would be on alert. Even if you try to be balanced when something so awful have happened to you, it will be more difficult to keep an objective view.

Setting the scene:

10-year-old girl goes into the 13-year-old boy's who was gaming with his friends online. Assuming he was wearing headphones as most kids do when they do gaming and didn't know she was there (those of us with boys will know how they can get hyper focused on the game). Perhaps it was a shooting type game, adrenaline-fuelled and possibly the boys didn't actually talk about sexual things (or maybe they did - unless you were a fly on the wall...) but used sexual swearwords. Not appropriate necessarily but not unusual and he was in his OWN room.

When he noticed the 10-year-old, he APOLOGISED for using those words and asked if she'd heard about it before. Presumably because he was worried she wouldn't have in which case he would have felt bad and maybe worried he would get into trouble for introducing new 'bad' words to her.

10-year old said YES, I know this stuff from SEX EDUCATION at school. If the boy just showed her some porn (again we are not sure) it's obviously not great, but they are still very much kids, boys too at that stage, and kids at that age find anything to do with forbidden stuff or sex/kissing on TV incredibly cringe worthy but might be something you'd share if you thought someone else had had insight. This is clearly not grooming, it was not even premeditated. Calling the police I think would be OTT.

By all means, comfort, reassure the 10-year-old she did the right thing coming forward, and of course great that OP mentioned to the boy's mother.

One thing though, the boy's mother wasn't defensive immediately, but apologised and said she would speak to her son.

She obviously did, he denied some of what she said but most was similar to the girl's story. Tellingly, the boy's mother afterwards suggested OP baby proofs 10-year-old's phone and that the girl may know more than she lets on. I can only imagine this is because the boy mentioned something the 10-year old said. That could be him deflecting but why are we 100% sure? If she walks to school with friends, they presumably have smart phones even if she doesn't. To assume that the 'perfect' 10-year-old is completely unaware is quite naïve.

I do have a pet hate of parents who assume THEIR child is completely innocent in whatever situation they might be and who would never look at both sides. Seen it happen before, not with regards these types of serious accusations but similar where parents say 'Johnny definitely doesn't have SnapChat etc, I've asked and he said he doesn't', when my son has shown the kid has a profile. Perfectionistic children do keep things from their parents because they don't want to be seen as not perfect anymore. It's important to be aware of this. The way the OP describes her own children and how she 'loves' the other children (but clearly doesn't), is quite uncomfortable and strange reading tbh.

But also, Tourette's is generally found to have co-morbidities mostly OCD. OCD is frequently related to now reading social cues correctly or being able to control impulses (same as tics), obtrusive thoughts - these can be so pervasive that the person creates memories which are not always factually correct. Studies on how those with Tourette's / OCD process memories slightly differently. OP says that her daughter has some emotional/decision issues - I'd like to know more about this before everyone jumping to conclusions. I'm not saying OP's daughter is not telling the truth but I think it's important to be balanced in reviewing.

Being caught vaping and lying - depending on what it was of course - is not unusual in teens!!

I do think the OP is doing the right thing stepping back, but I also worry about the one-sided responses on here.

Would hate any of those on here that scream 'paedophile', 'groomer', 'creep' of a 13-year-old CHILD to ever be selected for jury service. God help us!

That's as good as the same as me allowing my children in to my 13 year old nephews room, which I do - regularly and without incident. It's not the OPs fault that this particular 13 year old is a depraved little creep.

We all have different boundaries & ideas about privacy don't we?

It's not something I did.

Not because I suspected nefarious reasons but sometimes teens just want to be in their rooms & left alone.

Also wondered whether there are a lot of cultural aspects playing into this and responses on here - it's all very 'girls are innocent/pure' and 'boys are creeps/evil' - just no balance

100% this. A lot of purity culture seeping in to people’s judgements here.

What? Not all 14 year old girls seek validation and sexual encounters with adults online, the vast majority do not. An even smaller number of 13 year old boys are committing non-contact sexual crimes against 10 year old girls. All teenagers do not vape, drink or send sexually explicit images to people. This wild fear that people have of teenage girls is bizarre. There are thousands of teenage girls behaving very nicely, getting good grades at school, trying and failing to copy the odd make-up video off TikTok, practising a musical instrument and cringing over encounters with similarly aged boys.

I agree.

13-year-old boys (I've had them! and daughters too) are in fact often very immature and I'd say a 10 or almost 11-year old girl (assuming she is Y6 as OP says she walks from school) would be at a similar level of maturity as the boy. He is not an adult, he is a child for Christ's sake.

What the actual fuck is this gaslighting bullshit. This is exactly the kind of thing groomers say to girls - you're so mature for your age. The idea that young girls are somehow sexually mature or just as mature as older males is nothing but misogyny that excuses sexual abuse.

As is the idea that we shouldn't hold males accountable for their behaviour because they're immature - boys will be boys! No, he's above the age of legal responsibility and definitely old enough to know better.

A crime has been committed. A child has been sexually abused. The efforts some commenters are putting into trying to minimise, excuse and downplay what's happened is truly disturbing.

No. A 13 year old boy sexually abuses a 10 year old girl. So yes, the boy is getting blamed and the girl is not. That's not about purity or about shaming boys. It's just the facts of the situation.

Friendship aside for now.
Your DCs wellbeing and protection are your main priority in life. This has to take precedent over a friendship.
Awkward as it is I understand completely - you have no choice but to end any unsupervised contact. Your daughter has trusted you as her means of protection. If you let her down, she'll never feel she can rely on you to protect her.

If only life were that black and white. 💁🏼‍♀️

The situation is that black and white.

Whether the boy is also at risk or vulnerable to abuse from others is also a question and this is another reason for getting the police involved. All children should be safeguarded and protected.

Sending a nude to a consenting recipient of the same age is very different to sending nudes to adults online. Watching porn isn't even in the same category as engaging in sexual encounters online or showing porn to young children.

There's no need to be spiteful. The OP has said she's lucky hers are no trouble. Just because she thinks that, doesn't mean she's deluded. Some teens are a lot more trouble than others.

What she's describing are children who are completely off the rails, very detached from their parents and extremely vulnerable to sexual abuse, grooming and prosecution. That's not at all normal. I know a lot of teenagers and whilst they might have had a sneaky vape or the odd drink here and there, they are not routinely engaging in this type of behaviour and if caught would own up and show remorse, not lie.

Sexually abuses? He showed inappropriate content, after she came into his room and it wasn't premeditated.
It is a worry but if it's not happened before taking it to the police is too much in my view.
The age of criminal responsibility in this country from 10 years of age is a travesty, but that is for another day.

From reading OP's posts, the boy never sent a picture to the 10-year-old. It was his sister who had sent some, but don't recall it was to the 10-year-old.

My kids don't send pics like these to others - as far as I'm aware and I do check - but kids do. It's not right or healthy in my view, but many do it. Adults do it too. I'm of a generation where I find all of this very strange for sure!