in feeling affected by what my daughter has just told me

[joedar]

Haven't posted in a long while, been too busy with life in general. Daughter who is 12 came home from school and told me her 'friend' who we don't know all that well, came into school today, stating she was feeling very sad, because her parents are breaking up, as her older sister says her dad has interfered with her. I just can't get it out of my head, and to think of that young girl carrying that burden on her shoulders today, makes me feel like crying. I also feel so sorry that my daughter had to hear it.

PS hubbie is away at moment, hence the need for post, I just needed to share it with someone.

Poor little girl.

I've not got children that age (and boys at that) so I can't really offer much advice or help, but will happily BUMP for you.

that is really upsetting to hear

do you know family involved?

some people arent like us is a truism.

I had a friend at school who finally admitted that her step-father had been abusing her.

It was a shock for us, she was always hostile to him, but he seemed so nice. We were only 14 and had no idea.

It is a shock. You will be affected.

YANBU

We live abroad and she is one of 3 english speaking teens in the class, to be honest it scared me as I have met the parents (just once) but spent an hour or so chatting, and they seemed very kind, perhaps the older daughter is lying, but I really feel kids don't make things like that up. I feel disillusioned and saddened, I will go to bed with a heavy heart tonight.

You really just never know!

I guess this is the reality of life and I can't protect my girls from the uglyness of it.

it is a shock i understand.

Thanks for sharing! Feel better for telling someone.

your poor daughter must be feelign confused as well.

Yes I think my daughter is feeling confused, and she sensed my upset on top of that so that didn't help, tommorow I will chat to her about it. When we both feel better.

Wow. How horrid. Don't know what to say really. It's one of those situations you think you'll only read about and it won't apply to anyone you know. You must feel the need to sit down and have a very serious chat with your daughter about things you had hoped to avoid. We often field awkward questions from our kids with vague comments about 'strange men who want to do nasty things to children' without ever needing to be too specific, but your daughter is clearly at at an age where she needs and deserves specifics to be able to get her head around this. I don't envy you! It's hard to know how to explain something like this when you don't really understand it yourself.

Between the ages of about 10 and 13 I had a very good friend who was also a neighbour. Her parents had had an acrimonious divorce aand she had had a younger sibling who had died aged 2. Her mother remarried a chap who everyone thought was very friendly and affable. As she went through her teenaged years she was a 'nightmare' child. She was always being expelled from schools, getting into minor trouble with the police, and everyone said she was a liar, an attention seeker, and a fantasist. People put it down to her turbulent childhood and her sister dying, etc. Eventually we lost touch, but when I was about 20 I heard through the grapevine that she had accused her step-father of sexual abuse. The thing is, he had often made inappropriate sexual comments and suggestions to me, always in the veiled form of a joke or a harmless bit of fun, and though he never actually harmed me or touched me, I was acutely aware that it was inappropriate. Because I was only ten or so I couldn't quite articulate why I felt uneasy, so I didn't tell anyone. When I think back now, as an adult, I see the signs so much more clearly and I feel bad that she when she tried to tell people she was branded a troublemaker and a liar.

I don't know what help that is to you, but I had to get it off my chest!

It is shocking. I'm not surprised you want to talk about it.

Something like this happened with my ds, though he was considerably younger than your dd and I had known before he heard.

I talked to him about it and it became clear that children gather what they are capable of from information like this, and not much more. So, in my ds's case, I left it at a fairly general chat to establish what he knew, what he thought and some very general stuff about "feeling uncomfortable" and bodily integrity. As I said, he was a great deal younger. I did keep checking in with him, though, to see how the other child was being treated in the class. It seemed that the class dynamics just ambled along pretty much unchanged.

I suppose you are going to have to have a more in depth chat with your dd. I, personally, would be interested in how the other girls' friends are handling it - both the impact of the break-up and the possible abuse.

It is awful. I was thinking of the other child just the other day, and thinking just what you have said - that some children have to carry terrible burdens very young.

I think TiggyR and BennyandSwoon are tight - in a way, it is only in time that the real impact of what your dd has been told will become clear to her.

And I'd suggest that you might well be in some degree of shock now. I certainly noticed that, with myself, I thought about the incident at odd times and each time thought about it slightly differently, probably as the shock i felt wore off and the impact sort of made itself clearer.