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this is posted for a member who would like to remain anonymous. please post here, or feel free to pm me and i will pass your message along to the member. thanks!____________________________________________I have a situation that I need some impartial feed back on. Saturday the little girl (4) that lives across the street came over to play. DD is 8 and was working on homework on the computer. DS (6) and little girl were playing outside on the swingset, then inside in dd's room and in ds's room. Doors were open and I was in the house, though not directly in line of sight at all times.Little girl goes home and tells parents that my ds "got naked" and encouraged her to do the same in order to play dress-up. Little girls parents are freaked out because little girl has never seen any boy naked before. They do say that little girl said there was no touching or any encouraging to touch.DS swears that he did not take his clothes off. He does say that little girl put on my dd's Minnie Mouse dress over her clothes which my DD confirms. He has ADHD, but is medicated, and SPD. The SPD effects his small motor skills and he does have difficulty in dressing/undressing himself. His clothes did not appear to have been removed since I helped him dress that morning. I also can't come up with a time that they were in a room long enough for this to have occured. They were moving from room to room, inside to outside, asking for paper and crayons to draw, playing with Build-A-Bears and dressing them and asking for gumballs. DS is also very modest and doesn't like for anyone to see him naked outside of the immediate family. I will say that we do not make a huge deal out of nakedness. While we don't run around the house in our birthday suits the kids have seen us in our underclothes, when they were younger naked and they have seen each other. Being only 2 years apart they used to bathe together. They each know what "parts" the opposite sex has and they know the proper terms.So, we have two children with two different stories about what happened. Of course, I want to believe my child and they believe theirs. I understand that they are concerned. My biggest problem is when they saw the other neighbor kids come over to our house on Sunday they immediately went over and told them about what (allegedly) happened on Saturday. We do not want our son labeled or seen as a troublemaker. Nothing like this has ever happened before and he is a good kid.I have talked to DS and stressed to him (again) that our private parts are private and we do not show them to anyone nor ask anyoned to show theirs. He knows this and reminded me that the ped also stresses this at every well-child check. Both children are now only allowed to play with this child outside, doors are never to be closed when friends are over and I will make sure that two kids are never playing alone. They will need to be in a group of at least three. Other than these steps what else can I do? What would you do?___________
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1st, I'm sorry u haven't rec'd any responses to ur post up to this point. 2nd, Sounds like neighbor is blowing a little out of proportion? My DD (5) had a schoolmate boy (6) over for a playdate several weeks ago. Like urs they were outside / inside / playing in various rooms. I was there all the time and w/ them most of the time. I was cleaning up in the kitchen and ask DD to show him the bathroom. They weren't even gone but 1 min and she returned saying she'd seen his privates because she didn't leave him @ bathroom and he didn't close door.My DD even told the son's father when he came to pick him up.They laughed the situation off and so did I. I did explain to DD that she was supposed to show him bathroom and then come back to me while he closed the door. I guess my biggest concern would be how ur neighbors are handling this. Since u know they talked to your other neighbor. I think I'd make a point to explain to both neighbors the steps you are taking to make sure this doesn't happen again.
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I would want to talk to the parents of the little girl. Explain what you said about your son not being able to dress himself. Most importantly though, they need to know that it is unacceptable for them to go up to other parents and label your kid. I can see it from their point of view, but it's still not fair to label a child without all the facts.
It's such a shame that they are over-reacting in this way. So sorry for you. :(
He's 6? And no history of any sexual abuse? I think your neighbor is taking this too far. I think all I'd do is say while you don't think anything untowardly happened you'll make sure that they are in your line of sight when playing. I'd also ask that they not gossip because neither of you want to be the talk of the neighborhood. Kids can be mean and it won't just be ds affected, but their girl too.
The playing dress up think is totally age normal. I also think they are blowing it way out of proportion, especially when even they admit there was no touching and that the stated purpose of any alleged undressing was to play dress up, and not to see each other. They are definataly crossing the line to talk to other parents about it. For one I would not have this child play with my kids again since her parents seem prone to get over excited about things, I would worry what other innocent things they would take and blow up. I would also explain to the second set up parents just what you told us.
REPLY FROM ORIGINAL POSTER:Thanks to everyone who has replied here and also on the crosspost!We spoke to the parents of the little girl and explained that since we weren't 100% sure that this actually happened ds would not be punished. We did tell them that we discussed it with ds and that he understood the rules.In the time since then they have let their daughter play very little with my children. Even outside where they can watch her. Needless to say it is a bit uncomfortable, but oh well.As for the other neighbors, they've been great. They also have an older daughter and a younger son so they've alredy dealt with the whole nudity thing. Our kids still go back and forth across the street to each others' house and play well together.To answer Crick's question, no there is no sexual abuse in his history. I'm sure that's what they're so concerned about, but they even say that there was no touching or even encouraging to touch. I think that they're just way too overprotective!I do feel sorry for little girl across the street to be socially isolated. If my kids are playing with the other neighbor kids then she's not allowed to play. Her mom is pregnant again and all I can say is that it's a good thing it's another girl or else little girl would be getting an eyeful!
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Just saw this post. When my brother and I were kids one of the little girls down the street (the younger sister of one of my friends) accused my brother of exposing himself to her. My parents questioned him and he said he hadn't done anything like that and they believed him. A month or so later the little girl admitted to her parents that actually her uncle had exposed himself to her but she was worried about getting him in trouble so she'd named my brother instead. Obviously in this case it was something serious they needed to deal with but just another possibility....
Relax..... You have taken precautionary steps and have done all you can do. Even if it happened, it is a normal part of development, but it is also possible the other child likes drama or experienced something with soemone she cannot tell on. There is nothing wrong with your son. I know it can be embarrassing in todays socitey and panic. But try to just enjoy your son and not let others opinions affect you. If you are dealing with predujice, maybe get some literature on normal kid play and possible acting out of sexual abuse or just fibbing (on the little girls part)to educate people. I sure hope your son is not having any lingering affects of this. Good luck