SS being inappropriate with DD *trigger warning**

[Tryingoworkitout79]

I don't know what to think. My youngest DD, 5, was behaving oddly last night, trying to look in my pants, which is strange for her as she's quite uninhibited and comfortable with her body and mine (and used to them). Talking to her, it seems that SS, nearly 8, asked to see her 'privates/bits' over the weekend, she said no, she didn't want to and he moved her shorts to one side so he could see, saying that he wanted to. This apparently happened in the kitchen when I'd gone upstairs to get something. WTH!

DP rang his mum (as he's back with her now) and gently asked if she could ask him about it (arguably we should have waited till next week when he's with us, but though it was a good idea to let her know) and she's hit the roof telling us we're sexualising young innocent children!!

Yes, I'm utterly furious and feel a whole wide range of strong emotions that SS did that to DD when she said no.

But I'm not for a second suggesting that at their age it's sexual.

What the hell kind of message does that send DD, at this young age, that saying 'no' to someone seeing or touching your body carries no goddamn weight?!!! Jesus.

Ahh I had been reading as a half brother. Of course that changes things. I do feel for you OP it must be so difficult.

Would you be able to tell everyone on this thread how you can be 100% sure he won’t do anything like this again? A stern telling off and magically the problem evaporates, really?

Have you stopped to consider dds feelings about him being near her again?

I feel we’re your coming from my SS was about 7/8 when he started to … ‘explore’ his body shall we say which was very awkward and uncomfortable ~ he did it watching his iPad with his headphones on not realising the noises he was making . His dad didn’t seem bothered at first but he would do it randomly around the house and my DD was 3/4 at the time and no matter how many times I had to tell him he just was oblivious to what was wrong with it. We had a chat with his mum and turned out he had been doing it a while … I was not happy with this at all. Things were resolved after several more grown up chats but it made me feel I didn’t want him in the house. He seemed so young for that behaviour and I am certain schools teach or educate the children around this age about these things . They just seem to young to me for this already

Thank you. DD is confused I think. More confused than upset, but it's still heartbreaking.

But I was reassured this morning when she was playing with her toys and singing to herself, like she normally does, before school. I know that doesn't mean it hadn't affect her, I'm sure it has, but it was some normalcy at least.

At almost 8 years old and about to go into Year 4, he knows that this is wrong. If he was innocent then he would've asked your dd in front of adults and not waited until they were alone. Your DP could tell his son that this is inappropriate, but the boy already knows. He will soon hit puberty and the abuse towards your dd (and other girls) could escalate. I think SS need to investigate why the boy is sexually abusing your dd. Hopefully SS can find out and help before he gets any older.

I can definitely appreciate that Gelpens

Please, please, please look on the NSPCC website and look at PANTS. Both children need to understand how serious and not OK this is, don't listen to his mum, it absolutely is serious.
At almost 8 I imagine he fully knows that this is inappropriate. My daughter is 7 and has been taught about consent and our privates are private etc and she has recently developed more awareness eg feeling uncomfortable without a vest on... mum is probably embarrassed he did this but she needs to grasp the seriousness of this, what happens when she lets it slide and he does it again when he's older.
I would also be asking where he has learnt this behaviour and asking if it has been learnt from somewhere else. Please don't let this slide

Are you going to still be in a relationship with your boyfriend? It’ll be incredibly difficult and unenjoyable dating a bloke whose kid can’t be trusted. His kid is not your problem, focus solely on your poor daughter, stuff like that really fucks a kid up for life (I speak from experience).
Have you told her father?

If it’s a one off and she has no further contact with SS I think it’s likely she will recover fully and may even forget it.

If she is forced to share a home with him, living in fear of a repeat incident or even worse then she will be deeply damaged perhaps irreparably.

No man is worth this.
You can still have a relationship with him, but it’s impossible to imagine it moving forward whilst the children are young.

You sound brilliant OP, you are safeguarding your daughter from potential further abuse and being emotionally supportive.

As the SS mum is being so dismissive, it makes you wonder what is going on in his home environment which your DP may not be aware off? He should be exploring this with his son. He should also reach out to other services, maybe social services for support on how to prevent his son abusing anyone else.

You are doing the right thing keeping them apart, your daughter wellbeing comes first.

Please bare in mind that if it is sexualised behaviour it comes in most cases from being a victim of seeing inappropriate things it's not the child's fault and the child as in ss needs support

I hope to god it was a one off. Certainly I've not suspected before and DD hasn't done anything 'odd' before like last night. I really hope she forgets it.

She won't be seeing SS again, and she has two much older sisters that she adores so there's a lot of love around her. I'm planning on doing something nice with all three this weekend.
I think we might all look at the PANTS things on NSPCC website together. They did all that years ago but it might be supportive for her if we all
sit down together.

I don't know what will happen with the relationship. But yes, absolutely, we will not all
be sharing a home under any circumstances.

Thank you safety, I don't feel brilliant, but that's really kind.

DP will tell the school when he can talk with the teacher, I'm not sure if they will then contact SS? Mum will be very resistant but nothing can be done about that. I thought his home life was tough a while back but better now. I don't know.

Alarm bells going off all over the place for step son too, I agree. It's a safe guarding issue.

It sounds like the DD does understand boundaries - she said no and that she did not want to. The SS ignored the boundary and moved her shorts to look.

Good for you. Decisive, confident response that is entirely reasonable.

Your ss will need intervention, support and help from school, ss ad parents but that is not your problem. Your only responsibility is to your dd.

I am glad you and dd have a loving family outside of this relationship. You don’t need to worry about the future for now. You have done exactly the right thing.

People are way overreacting to what has been described. It sounds like childhood curiosity to me. It’s ridiculous to suggest they must never see each other again. He needs to be given a stern talking to. He’s only 8. So he’s a child too. His mother has also overreacted.

@Cailin66 Easy to say when you haven't been the victim of a "curious" older brother. And this isn't even her brother, it's her mum's partner's kid.

thank you GCall, appreciate you saying that.

Perfect illustration of minimising - thank you for posting and highlighting why we have such serious issues with children being abused and it is swept under the carpet or labelled kids play.

In what world is it okay for a 8 year old boy to ignore the word no and uncover a small five year old girl anyway? Every child knows that is wrong, every child knows it’s violating another child. The added aggravating feature is waiting until she was alone without her parents.

How can op possibly trust him not to do that or something worse again?

Do you leave your dd in situations like this out of interest?

It's the fact he continued when the girl said not to which is worrying, it's more than normal curiosity at that stage.

Don’t be ridiculous. The SS not being in the house while this is sorted will not hurt him in any way, shape or form, but it might protect the daughter.

This. This thread is frightening me. Fucking hell.

I think you need to get some professional guidance on this before you go any further - speak to the NSPCC and the school. I say this as someone with a good bit of personal experience in this area, but what you are describing does not necessarily in and of itself mean this is abusive or sexual. It's very normal for kids that age to be curious about each others bodies and to talk about them and want to see them. What isn't okay is the fact that your dd said no and he didn't respect that.

That doesn't necessarily make it 'sexual abuse' as lots of siblings do annoying and mean things to each other when the other says to stop, but they don't. These things by themselves are 'normal' but it's how they have played out together here that's problematic. So this could be an entirely normal sibling interaction but feels really wrong to us as adults because we're seeing in through the lens of what we know about abuse. But it could also be a sign that your SS has experienced someone else asking him to do the same and thinking it's normal to do it anyway even if someone says no (again, without realising the inappropriate context that we all can obviously see).

I think you need to tread really carefully here and get professional advice. This could be a totally innocent non-event that simply needs a parent to talk through with him about respecting when other people say no, especially when it comes to do with anything about their bodies. But it could also be a red flag that he needs some support and you don't want to go in all guns blazing because it could cause him to shut down and be unable to talk about anything going on that he needs to talk to an adult about.

Teacher here and this is sending my spidey senses off, for both children. Ignore the mother - report factual information to the school (I.E. don’t try and guess why he may have been sexualised at such a young age).

Well done OP for raising a young woman who, despite language delays, was (a) clearly able to articulate to SS that she did not want this and (b) who knew she could tell you this. I’m sorry for her that he did not respect her no.

Plus everything @GCalltheway said. You always believe the child, always.