Difficult situation

[Poing]

We have reported possible sexual abuse of our DC to the school she is at. We are fairly certain of this claim, due to DC's story remaining the same over time and also due to doctor assessment. We have twice informally discussed it with the head and have now discovered our our child is displaying signs of abuse, and therefore formally reported. DC will start psych after Christmas and we are in the process of changing schools.

From what my DC has explained, the child's behaviour exhibited signs of possible abuse.

The parents of the child responsible for the offenses have not been informed, but a request for a psych assessment has been submitted after the holidays. The school says they are reluctant to submit a child safety report until after this assessment.

The problem we are having is that the school is now minimising and denying that what transpired at school actually occurred. They say the children are never unsupervised and of course are now questioning my DC's story. They then said we need to get a gynaecological exam by a child gynaecologist to prove the truth. My DC will not even be naked alone in the shower, so the trauma of the exam...I cannot bear thinking about it.

They have also told parents whose children have indicated possible abuse that it is unlikely to have happened. Another mother has come forward with me to say that her own DD had something inserted by this child and caused damage, so went to the head doctor. The school said this mother is imaging things.

The mothers I thought to be friends are siding with the school. I started even doubting my own story when interrogated by the school unexpectedly, until I remembered the doctor's report and everything that has transpired.

I am sitting here beside my children, wondering best how to protect them and defend my decision. My husband said this is why child sexual abuse is so under-reported. I don't cry yet here I am sitting beside my DC nearly in tears. We are going forward with everything, and of course we have to. The safety of our DC comes first.
But this is much harder than I thought it would be. I don't know what I am asking. Just need to keep calm and focused and expect nothing from everyone else.

“Child safety authority”

What is that?

Whatever you report to in the UK would be equivalent.

The police

There is no equivalent to a “child safety authority”

There is social services but they would simply direct you immediately to the police as not their remit at all

This is a crime OP.

Ok

I really hope “OK” means that I get the severity of this and I’m not going to be pushed around by the school and get the police involved

Do you think ok would mean otherwise? When your child has been abused and the school is butt-covering?

On the basis of your orcvious posts, I did wonder

This is awful.

Report to the police and the school regulatory body, I.e your countries equivalent of OFSTED.

I think my biggest fear is the horror of what is coming, of the involvement of social services, of the psych, of finding out what exactly happened. I am terrified and unable to do anything except persevere. My poor DC, my poor family. We had a horror year two years ago with another DC spending months in hospital and rehab, and I was thinking how life does that. A really hard time and then it gets easier, and back it comes again. An eb and flow.

*ebb

OP

The real horror has already happened.

Now your job is to limit it as much as possible for your daughter going forward

Surely it can't do any harm to report this immediately to the police for investigation?
Even if it turns out that procedures in the country you're in are different, it won't have done any harm.
I'm afraid I'm really not following your logic.
But I wish your DC well and hope that the abuse accusation is taken seriously and investigated properly. And that appropriate support is given to the child.

If you are in a fee-paying school then it is very likely the school will want to keep this as quiet as possible... it is not beyond the realms of possibility that police won’t be involved. School May do their own investigation and act on their findings.

I live in a country whereby mandatory reporting has only just been introduced (where it is the long- accepted norm in U.K. and my home country). Have also worked in countries where it was basically impossible to report all by the most serious of crimes against children... they simply didn’t have the procedures in place at that time to deal with it as an issue. Sometimes if the school felt strongly they acted by informing employers of parents involved (like in abuse cases), but that was as bad as they got.
You will also need to assess the availability of a good child therapist locally to follow up with your child... would this be available?
Sadly, the U.K., NZ, Aus etc have done amazing work over the last 30 years around this type of issue but most of the rest of the world has a long way to catch up. It can be hard to remember this when you are at a swanky expat international school but scratch the surface and you will be shocked.

Penyu, thank you. So much. Those were my exact sentiments. In my home country, things are done differently, and I was expecting that response here.