Sexual behaviour towards another child need advice urgently

[Worriedmum34758]

My DS (5) has came to me with something very worrying. He had a few friends over to play and he said that a girl (4) had "licked ***'s winkie". Im not sure what to do about this without causing a fallout (the girls mum is a friend). I do realise something has to be done but im not sure what. Please give me your advice.

Aitch

If you're reffering to my part in that thread from last night...I have no shame in being vigilant in trying to keep weirdo's at bay...they're notoriously attracted to sites like this.

The OP on that thread basically could have made things a lot easier on herself and others if she had buggered off and come back again having thought about the way she worded things.

I should have followed your example Scurry!

I will refrain now.

Sorry OP.

amazing responses, both. absolutely amazing. and your silence on the other thread is a disgrace.

my four year old would have NO IDEA what he was doing
social services = mumsnet mania
go to the mum

Not amazing at all. I shall refrain from saying what I think because of the personal attacks.

As I said, I wondered when you would drag another thread into this discussion.

what a shame your psychic powers let you down so badly the other night then, scurry.

if you cannot see the link between you attacking thelibster for not sharing your paedo-panic on this thread and your behaviour on the other, i am surprised at you. but not for the first time.

Well, I guess you will have to put up with it.

Not sure why you are so anti-me but it probably has to do more with your insecurities and deficiencies than anything else. No paedo panic at all, just basic child protection procedure. Sorry if basic investigation doesn't agree with you but I guess you will just have to accept it or keep quiet, eh?

Good night

goodnight, scurry. i'm not anti-you, as it happens. i'm just shocked at the amount of people who were happy to call paedo on someone entirely innocent but who feel no compunction to go back to the thread and apologise. i would never have believed it of this place.

agree, secondcoming, it could be tricky. but like i say all my friends' kids are doing a lot of licking at the moment so it could be raised like that. if the mum says 'oh yes it's driving me bananas she is doing it all the time' then i would be a bit reassured but keep an eye out. i mean, why was the boy's winkie out in the first place? what were they doing? there is little or no information from the OP.

All I know is that sexual play is perfectly normal. The only thing which should be of any concern at all is the "licking" and even that, though not common, is not totally unheard of. Sexually abused children are, in fact, more likely at this age to show their disturbance through aggressive behaviour rather than sexual. Older children may engage in sexual behaviour when sexually abused but it usually has an aggressive undertone ie often they will "play" with much younger children, a kind of sexual bullying. Not saying that it isn't worth mentioning to both the mothers involved but you're playing judge and jury here. Mad as hatters!

i don't think embarrassment should mean the default position means ring social services.

the whole situation on this thread has little context.

my twins (B/G) were playing in our shed - they were about 5 or 6 an older girl (10 ish) told them to do some sexual things, dd knew it wasn't right and came running in. we spoke to the dad who totally defended his daughter and said that my kids had made it up. i phoned the police who spoke to all involved. BUT i did speak to a parent.

Be absolutely great if you talked to the mother and she said, "Oh god, DD walked into the bedroom when I was giving DH a blow job, we thought she was asleep". Not ideal by any means but hardly a hanging offence and certainly not indicative of sexually abusing parents.

Now, you see, custardos situation, older child coercing younger into sexual behaviour and father's total denial, would ring alarm bells. Far more than this.

true, especially with the age difference. i do hope that the police got to the bottom of it, custy.

indeedy

I'm with scurry and tsc on this.

Playing doctor is a completely natural, of course, but that usually involves just pulling pants down, having a look, maybe some touching.

Licking does seem quite an odd thing for a 4 year old to do.

The first concern should be about the child. Tbh, if she is being abused by someone in her family or her parents are watching porn when she's awake etc, they will be unlikely to fess up in a conversation with the OP.

And Aitch- it's really not on to drag stuff from other threads. You seem to be so aware of MN's rules and conventions, so how come?

i was just providing an FYI as their silence on the other thread suggested they hadn't seen the update.

you know we have no other info than she 'licked his winkie'. why was the winkie out, would seem to be a good question. who was driving the game? what were they all doing? the OP hasn't posted with any further info, so i wouldn't ahve thougth anyone was in much of a position to come to a conclusion tbh.

Well, a parent could give any likely explanation to fob you off, or accuse you of lying or accuse your DC of lying, but how would you know it was true? Parents are capable of lying and getting very defensive.

The point about having this investigated by professionals is to find out what is really going in the life of a young girl who would do this. I think regardless of the closeness in ages this should be done. The only girls I ever knew growing up who were interested in looking at boys' private parts (pulled down a neighbour's pants to get a look) were from a home where, in hindsight, there was probably abuse going on. A girl of 4 would probably not be interested in getting up close and personal with a penis under normal circumstances, and especially 'licking' it. Most would say 'yuck!' at the thought.

I would phone the NSPCC (and they will probably say to call SS.)

True, but you can tell a lot by someone's reactions you know. Most innocent people would be horrified and anxious to get to the bottom of it or 'fess up to being walked in on by accident or something, but if they bluster and try to put the blame squarely on another's shoulders then there's possibly something fishy going on. The most important thing is that these kids were roughly the same age and we have no evidence that it was more than a momentary thing in amongst a lot of other play. We have no evidence that either child is obsessed with sexual play. As I said sexual abuse results in aggressive behaviour mainly rather than sexual. Oddly enough weird sexual behaviour at this age is more indicative of emotional disturbance than anything else if some kind of external cause is being sought, and that may have come about for any number of reasons rather than abuse of any kind

@ mathanxiety I played "doctors" with a lot of the kids in my street when I was little and I can assure you there was no sexual abuse going on in my house! I love the "from a home where, in hindsight, there was probably abuse going on." I can see the pursed lips from here! Unbelievable!

Folk with sexual hangups, the ones who see sexual causes in every type of behaviour considered a bit "strange" are usually the ones with sexual abuse "ishooos" in my experience

thelibster,
what do you mean by your last post? WHo is someone with sexual abuse "ishooos"? The word "ishooos" is most frequently used tongue in cheek to take the mickey out of people.
DO you think that people who are worried by a four year old licking a penis have been sexually abused? If indeed they have then they are the best people to know whether we should be worried about this or not.

IF you mean that the people with "ishoos" haven't been abused, but just feel uncomfortable with the notion that a little girl would take it upon herself to do this, then that shows people feel this behaviour is unusual at best .

I also must correct a mistake you made above about abused children being violent rather than acting out the abuse. That might be true in some cases, but not all. Especially in a culture which does not allow girls to be openly expressive and violent. A little girl is more likely to reenact the abuse, or become withdrawn, than become violent

No pursed lips, no, I assure you. I went to school with those girls, and they were neighbours. It was extremely sad for the girls. None of them reached their potential in school. All were sidetracked by promiscuity and had babies during their teen years. Their self esteem was non-existent, probably as a result of how their parents treated them ("Fuck off to bed before I break your leg" etc. They were locked out of the house from morning to dinner time during the summer so that their mother could make it spotless, and they often asked neighbours if they could come in to use their loo.) They were abrasive enough characters in school, especially as they got to about 12 or so, and inclined to be cliquey.

Maybe it was a more innocent time and the parents of the neighbourhood, mine included, possibly thought it was none of their business, but looking back, there was a lot amiss in that home and a lot of people of my mum's generation wished they had talked together about things they were noticing at the time.

I stand over my opinion that a 4 year old girl wouldn't be normally or naturally inclined to lick a boy's penis. Maybe look (and maybe laugh or poke fun) but not lick.. I don't think this comes in under the heading of 'playing doctor'.

I disagree with your assertion that sexual abuse is more likely to result in aggression than in acting out of a sexual nature. Further, I don't think you can separate sexual abuse from emotional disturbance -- where there is abuse there is most certainly a lot of emotional fallout. When a child acts out sexually in this way, then it behoves those with responsibility for the child, or those who are concerned for the child to find the reason for the behaviour, find out what is disturbing the child.

What is a sexual abuse 'ishoo' and why is there an element of 'ner ner' on your part here?

When I was 5yo I acquired a little boyfriend (4yo) and we got up to all sorts (kissing and.... more). Neither of us were sexually abused, we did have parents who didn't try to discourage us (they thought it was just kissing) which was stupid because being kids we naturally tried everything we had heard about (we both knew the mechanics of how babies were made, he was more curious and pushy about it then me!).

I guess what I'm saying is that it sounds potentially well within the bounds of normal curiousity to me, but a lot depends on the specifics. If I were OP I would speak to the other parent so that she can investigate and discourage, I would be very reluctant to report to SS or their lackeys (NSPCC, have had a bad experience with them, too).