Sexual harassed DD6 in unisex toilet

[LittleCoffeePot]

I initially posted this using a throwaway account in AIBU for traffic but it got derailed accusing me of lying and being obsessed with toilets(?) and my account deleted. This is my main account so I'm hoping this wont be deleted as I genuinely need help and advice.

Monday night, my DD6 comes and tells me that the week before, when using some unisex toilets for a different classroom at school that she wasn't familiar with, she was struggling to lock the door and a boy offered to hold the door. These unisex toilets are unsupervised. While using the toilet, the boy gathered a group of other boys and they opened the door twice to all laugh at her while she was on the toilet. She was in floods of tears telling me this and now doesn't want to use the toilet at school. She said she told a teacher or TA but they didn't do anything.

Obviously I immediately brought this up with the school and they have 'investigated'. They implied that it was my daughter's fault for not being able to lock the door and that from now on she's going to be accompanied by an adult to the toilet. They said the boy's mother has been told but they're 'working on' an apology from him. They're also 'investigating' the member of staff who was told but did nothing.

I had no idea that the school even had unisex toilets as the ones I'd seen in Early Years were sexed. I'm horrified that the unisex toilets for young children are unmonitored and that the school has failed my daughter in allowing this to happen.

I've escalated the issue with the head but am expecting to be brushed off with a 'well we've sorted it now' as they've informed me that unisex toilets are apparently the norm. How do I go beyond the school? Who do I alert to this safeguarding failure?

Thanks

Is there anywhere outside of school that you can escalate this? I wonder if the governors for example or a regulatory body.

I am both concerned for your daughter and the boy involved- what’s happening in his home life as a 6 year old for this to be normal? Was he purposely hanging around the toilet to do this? Social services perhaps may need to know.

Plus with the other boys, has the school been able to identify them?

The lock on the door being difficult to work should be looked into. It shouldn’t be a 6 year old’s fault for not being able to lock it. It should be simple enough and straightforward enough to use for litttle kids. Do you know what sort of lock it is - I’m
wondering if it’s worth the lock being changed or adapted if it’s eg too high, too stiff or needs too much manpower to use. What difficulty did your daughter have, and what do the school advise should be the protocol if another child can’t lock the door? Use another toilet?

Yes I know adults know there are sexual characteristics in your knickers, what I’m saying is children don’t know that. A six year old shouldn’t really know what the genitalia of the opposite sex looks like, much less what its for and how to weaponise it.

I also do think you have to be careful when it comes to casting young children as villains. I remember reading in a book once with a similar scenario in it. A boy of primary school age who kept trying to look up children’s skirts and telling them about the pornography he watched with his father. Now showing a child pornography is itself sexual abuse but the author of the book seemed to mentally blip over this and was going on about how the boy was an example of the patriarchy.

Obviously the boys knew that looking at a girl undressed was wrong. They clearly knew they were transgressing boundaries.

Some batshit posts, insisting the kid will grow up to be a sex offender and should be labelled as such now. I wonder if any of you actually had young children who have now grown up. Children, girls as well as boys, do stupid and nasty things. They are told off, they learn it's not acceptable, they grow up and develop adult brains. A 6 year old will not have a fully adult brain for another 19 years.

Excessive fuss at this age tends to reinforce bad behaviour rather than curtail it.

You are creating a very misshapen strawman.

Nobody is 'labelling children as sex offenders'.

The issue is that this behaviour needs to be recognised and dealt with. In an age appropriate way, as many have said over and over again.

It means recognising problematic sexual behaviour, noting the red flags, carrying out an investigation (this may just mean sitting down with the boys and asking them about it), listening to the victim, reassuring the victim, working out the causes of the problematic behaviour, addressing any potential wider issues, acknowledging and facing the issues, a discussion of clear boundaries and appropriate behaviour, a plan going forward and monitoring of the situation.

Education staff do all of this every day in many small ways, if they're doing their jobs properly.

Ignoring the issues risks allowing/encouraging the behaviour to repeat, lets down the victim and yes, eventually, when taken as part of a million small ways, contributes to a society where rape is effectively ignored and legalised and women are expected to just live with it, internalise the suffering and accede to being second class citizens.

Maybe the simplest way for people to understand this without balking at the idea that sexual boundaries have been broken, given they do not believe this is a reasonable description of these 6 year olds’ action that day, would be to say that:

• all the 6 year olds at the school will have learned the PANTS rule.

• The little girl in this school had her PANTS rule boundaries broken by a group of 6 year old boys and is naturally very upset.

• A group of 6 year old boys broke a PANTS boundary and need that explained to them.

• Yes, the 6 year old boys also ought to say ,” Sorry little girl/name. We will never do that again.”

• The school needs to teach the PANTS rule again.

• The school needs to work out how children can use this lavatory without fear of this sort of thing happening again.

OP I read and commented on your other thread. I would have been apoplectic at what happened too.

I really hope that you get this resolved and your DD is ok.

I find the minimisation on this thread sickening.

The teaching of boundaries and consent starts early, these boys would have known the pants rule at the very least, and at the worst they need additional help.

The sexual assaults statistics in mixed sex secondary schools are disturbing, it's why these situations at primary should NOT be minimised.

Yes I think dd’s school is very good at reiterating the PANTS rule, given how confidently dd can refer to it, also age 6

The Pants rule is great because it's so clear and easy to understand.

Presumably everyone can see that its relevant here.

'Pants are private'

'Your underwear covers up your private parts and no one should ask to see or touch them. Sometimes a doctor, nurse or family members might have to. But they should always explain why, and ask you if it's OK first. Remember, what's in your pants belongs only to you.'

https://www.nspcc.org.uk/keeping-children-safe/support-for-parents/pants-underwear-rule/

Poor little girl. For those saying she was sitting down so the boys couldn’t see her vulva, she was basically trapped as she couldn’t move to pull up her pants without potentially exposing herself and she would have had no idea what the boys would do next. It would have been humiliating but also frightening. As others have said repeatedly, letting this sort of behaviour go with a boys will be boys attitude is wrong. Surely nobody wants their sons to grow up thinking that they can frighten and humiliate girls and get away with it?

I'd disagree. There'll be a reason if a child is moved to do something antisocial.
Children that young do not necessarily realise what is and isn’t anti-social.* *They know what their parents say are right and wrong but they have no context for it.

But this is more than antisocial, its problematic sexualised behaviour
So you think 6 years go around sexualising things?

They replicate the behaviour they see around them. They may not understand the adult motivations for the behaviour they're copying, but that doesn't prevent them copying it.

In the case of sexually abused children, that includes sexually abusive behaviour. That is sometimes how abuse is uncovered, actually- when teachers and other responsible adults investigate why a child is engaging in sexualised behaviour, including sexualised bullying.

In the case of sexually abused children, that includes sexually abusive behaviour. That is sometimes how abuse is uncovered, actually- when teachers and other responsible adults investigate why a child is engaging in sexualised behaviour, including sexualised bullying

Yes I know that. I said something similar upthread.

Then you should know better than to mock people for accurately labelling the children's behaviour, no?

Excellently put.

Sorry I don’t know what you mean by that? Mocking?

And what label are you arguing is accurate?