Foster Sibling Crushes

I don't know what others will say, but I'm thinking that you should get your SW in on the conversation. I feel like this is a case where you don't want it to look like you're hiding something. What's her background (not that you have to put it on here- but I was wondering about SA)? This could be something that the SW needs to know to research her past.I would add some house rules to the ones that you have about "appropriate touching." And, do line-of-sight supervision when they're together.How does your AS react to it?

Well, it could be just her personality too. Not saying I wouldn't still have safeguards in place, like you have done, but I have known some kids (both genders) that just "do" that! My BFFs little boy was like that, always had some kind of crush on some female...his teacher, his neighbor, his sisters friend (and me at one time too). He was raised in a healthy home....just has always been a ladies man! He started it really young... like 1 or 2. He is still a ladies man at 15 but a wonderful hearted teen that treats women with respect. So, I also would involve the SW, just to cover your bases, but sometimes it CAN be just a personality. Just wanted to give you another perspective.

SW is aware of it, and feels it's normal age appropriate behavior. She actually chuckled when I told her about the incident. (It was a you show me yours and I'll show you mine) There *may* have been SA in her past, but it seems unlikely. It's more normal curiosity IMO. AS is also curious.. but she seems to be the instigator as he'd rather be playing boy games! :-) I'm trying to figure out ways of channeling her attention to OTHER things than AS!! :-)

This is a mountain-sized red flag that there likely has been sexual abuse, IMO. PP was right, you need to document all this in email to CW, to document and cover yourselves. I read a long thread on another forum recently that was men telling their stories of having been sexually abused. Most of them were quite young when it happened. It was stunning to read story after story. The one common thread seemed to be that they didn't complain or tell anyone. Shocking. It was almost as though there was something unique about how a young boy would view it. My point is that I think you should talk to your son multiple times about this. Perhaps give him a code word he can use, like "cat marbles" or "purple clouds" to let you know if something happens again. He could say this in front of the girl. Perhaps give him a scale from 1-10 to indicate how aggressive/unusual it was, with 10 being the worst. I would check in with him at least twice a week, somehow. Now some stuff from "how to cope" books I've read. Tell him that his *only* job is to tell you or your husband. After that, it's the grownup's job to figure out what to do. Talk about this, and other sexual body issues, using correct terms, reasonably frequently. If you are too shy to talk about it, how will your child find the courage? If it's a subject hidden in the dark, you send the message that everyone leaves it in the dark. If you send the message that you can and do talk about this like you talk about other topics, then the foundation is there for the child to *continue* the discussion. One can use pop songs, TV commercials, etc. to bring up mini discussions. It was easy for me to talk to my son at 3 about not smoking, why our family doesn't, why it's bad. I clutched about talking about sex, thus the trip to the library to check out 5-6 books and learn how to get over it. (Didn't read all of them, just the ones I liked.) Once I got started, it became easier, have continued with many children, different ages in age appropriate ways, including teens and early 20s. Hope this helps.

Whoops, I didn't see your second post. Do you feel it's a big deal? I got the impression from your first post that you did, especially given that there was a series if males she is giving "crush" attention to. (Tried to delete above post with the edit button, but didn't work, sigh.)

Alys1.. I keep going back and forth with it being a big deal or not. A lot of people have said it's normal for kids that age.. but what concerns me is the depth of her crush on him, and not putting them in a situation where curiosity can arise. I want to guide her to have healthy boundaries with boys, but I don't want to scare her at the same time into becoming a nun. I'm hoping what MOmmy said is true.. I guess what also concerns me is that her mom is a bit like this.. obsessing over men, and it's not been good. I don't want her to follow in those unhealthy footsteps.