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For the parent's out there...

{tpc}

{tpc}

Professional Poker Tournament Loser
Joined
Feb 20, 2008
Messages
3,609
Location
Berkley, MI
Heh...as reluctant as I am to post this, I need advice. I am the father of a 5 yo boy and 7 soon to be 8 yo daughter. I am divorced from their mother, so I get my weekends/dinners etc etc. Today I was informed, first by my mother but then later by my 7 yo that she was touched inappropiately by a boy in her class at school. Not going to go into details, but thankfully it was not as bad as it could have been.

Now we are the only ones she has told, and I have spoken with her mother and we agree to bring this up tommorrow with the school. Actually with the principal tommorrow night as we were meeting with her anyways about my son, who needs some occupational therapy.

I am not sure how to handle this. My wife is out, and won't be around to talk for a little bit. I can't take my mind off it though. The worse thing is my daughter asked me to come to a school party tommorrow during the day, normally I can't make it, but I may this time just to talk to the teacher at least about this situation. The problem is, other parents may be there, the same parents of this other child. I guess the problem is if something gets out of hand, I don't know how I will handle it. I'm afraid of my own actions, and I'm normally a pretty level headed guy. Back me into a corner though...heh, I just don't know. I would put everything on the line that she isn't lying or confused about this, and thats not some parent/child bond or anything...I would die defending it. Anyone that tells me otherwise...well its going to be an issue of some sort.

Funny part is I kinda feel bad for this other kid. I doubt its his fault, most likely the product of bad/improper parenting or worse..abuse of his own. I feel bad that this could end up in a life altering thing for him in a negative way. On the other hand, it may be positive for him. Either way, my child did nothing wrong, and I feel very strongly that nothing at all should change for her, aside from the other child not being around her in the least.

Maybe I'm way off base. Never having dealt with or heard of anyone dealing with this, I have no idea what to do or think. If anyone has any thoughts or any knowledge on the subject, please post it here or if you rather, pm me. If not, no worries. Thanks for letting me vent. I don't know if I really feel any better, but its better than penting it up.

Time for a drink. heh.
 
I've been lucky so far, my eldest daughter is now 11.......whew!

I think you should definitely talk to the teacher about this. Maybe have a meeting with her by yourself, then I guess have the teacher speak to the parents of the boy. You said it wasn't as bad as it could've been, so a meeting with the parents and teacher after the initial meeting would be appropriate to voice your concerns and go on from there.

That's too young of an age for any angry parent to confront any kid and directly ask them why they did this and if they had a problem or something. Thankfully for me, my daughter's classmates are getting older where I can just go in there and start clotheslining people
 
My mother was a elementary/ middle school counselor. These issues are always brought to them either by the parent or the principal. I would advise talking to the school counselor first, before going to the principal.
 
follow up. make sure they actually do something about it. that's terms for expulsion. if he isn't, they didn't do their job.
 
NASTY said:
I've been lucky so far, my eldest daughter is now 11.......whew!

I think you should definitely talk to the teacher about this. Maybe have a meeting with her by yourself, then I guess have the teacher speak to the parents of the boy. You said it wasn't as bad as it could've been, so a meeting with the parents and teacher after the initial meeting would be appropriate to voice your concerns and go on from there.

That's too young of an age for any angry parent to confront any kid and directly ask them why they did this and if they had a problem or something. Thankfully for me, my daughter's classmates are getting older where I can just go in there and start clotheslining people
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BigJake6904 said:
My mother was a elementary/ middle school counselor. These issues are always brought to them either by the parent or the principal. I would advise talking to the school counselor first, before going to the principal.
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IMHO this is solid advice.
Try to keep your wits and stay calm.
Prayers sent your way Brother
 
It would be very difficult for me to not be at the school before they could even get the doors unlocked. Hopefully the school, as well as the parent/s, will step up and do what's right. If not.... :whistling:
 
Well, to lend another view. Children at that age are not generally sexualized, meaning that their brains are not wired to view sexual contact as sexual.

My first step would probably be to try and figure out whether we are talking about prolonged aggressive behavior (meaning the kid should be transferred into therapy by an experienced child psychologist) or if this was more exploratory, glancing touch sort of behavior in the vein of the ol' you show me yours and I'll show you mine stuff that small children sometimes get mixed up into.

I guess what I'm trying to say is probably try and see if the kid in question would even understand what he did and also not try to push an unwelcome series of thoughts on your duaghter either. As a smart parent you've probably trained your children to alert you immediately if anyone tries to touch the wrong places, she may just be alerting but not really understanding it as you do. It'd be really good to sit down there and talk to her and not assume anything, seven is extremely young, if he's seven too I wouldn't assume anything.
 
If it were my daughter, the authorities would be involved. There is somewhere that this kid has learned this behavior and they would find out. Something like this happening while in the care of the school is not acceptable.
 
dagoR6 said:
Well, to lend another view. Children at that age are not generally sexualized, meaning that their brains are not wired to view sexual contact as sexual.

My first step would probably be to try and figure out whether we are talking about prolonged aggressive behavior (meaning the kid should be transferred into therapy by an experienced child psychologist) or if this was more exploratory, glancing touch sort of behavior in the vein of the ol' you show me yours and I'll show you mine stuff that small children sometimes get mixed up into.

I guess what I'm trying to say is probably try and see if the kid in question would even understand what he did and also not try to push an unwelcome series of thoughts on your duaghter either. As a smart parent you've probably trained your children to alert you immediately if anyone tries to touch the wrong places, she may just be alerting but not really understanding it as you do. It'd be really good to sit down there and talk to her and not assume anything, seven is extremely young, if he's seven too I wouldn't assume anything.
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I'm going to agree with you, but at the same time disagree. My wife just found out that one of her best friends' relatives daughter was being abused by the daddy. The little girl apparently had shown some signs along the way that weren't picked up on. She would pose for photographs, sometimes to the point of being provocative. It was brushed off as her being older than her years and watching too much tv. She had behavior issues not normal for a girl her age, etc. The father had been taking pictures of the daughter and trading them on the internet. Mom found them on the computer. The little girl was sent to a councilor and child psych were they found out he'd done a lot more than just take disgusting pictures of her.

If he's that age and touching inappropriately to the point that your daughter describes it and you find it to be sexually inappropriate then I'd lean towards that boy having some experiance that would make him act that way.

I say go to the school and make god damn sure that no one tries to snuff it out. Institutions have a habit of trying to get shit like that to go away.

my $.02 worth.
 
That's too young of an age for any angry parent to confront any kid and directly ask them why they did this and if they had a problem or something. Thankfully for me, my daughter's classmates are getting older where I can just go in there and start clotheslining people
Click to expand...
My mother was a elementary/ middle school counselor. These issues are always brought to them either by the parent or the principal. I would advise talking to the school counselor first, before going to the principal.
Click to expand...
Well, to lend another view. Children at that age are not generally sexualized, meaning that their brains are not wired to view sexual contact as sexual.

My first step would probably be to try and figure out whether we are talking about prolonged aggressive behavior (meaning the kid should be transferred into therapy by an experienced child psychologist) or if this was more exploratory, glancing touch sort of behavior in the vein of the ol' you show me yours and I'll show you mine stuff that small children sometimes get mixed up into.

I guess what I'm trying to say is probably try and see if the kid in question would even understand what he did and also not try to push an unwelcome series of thoughts on your duaghter either. As a smart parent you've probably trained your children to alert you immediately if anyone tries to touch the wrong places, she may just be alerting but not really understanding it as you do. It'd be really good to sit down there and talk to her and not assume anything, seven is extremely young, if he's seven too I wouldn't assume anything.
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Oh man...oh man. Having a daughter myself, this would make me red line in about .002 seconds. Generally, a knee jerk reaction at times like this is not good. I think the folks quoted above gave some good advice.

Mainly, continue to try to calm yourself down so that you can more effectively deal with the situation. Your daughter will benefit the most by you effectively handling yourself and learning all the facts of what happened.

After dealing with this situation and in regard to this boy, I would make damn sure that necessary steps are put in place that it does not happen again to your daughter or anyone else. Be wary of areas in school where children can play and not be observed by school staff (ie. tunnels, play houses, etc.).

If it were me, I would not hesitate for a minute to go to the authorities if I felt that this situation was not being handled appropriately by everyone involved.
 
{tpc} said:
Funny part is I kinda feel bad for this other kid. I doubt its his fault, most likely the product of bad/improper parenting or worse..abuse of his own. I feel bad that this could end up in a life altering thing for him in a negative way. On the other hand, it may be positive for him. Either way, my child did nothing wrong, and I feel very strongly that nothing at all should change for her, aside from the other child not being around her in the least.

Maybe I'm way off base. Never having dealt with or heard of anyone dealing with this, I have no idea what to do or think. If anyone has any thoughts or any knowledge on the subject, please post it here or if you rather, pm me. If not, no worries. Thanks for letting me vent. I don't know if I really feel any better, but its better than penting it up.

Time for a drink. heh.
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Sounds like you're handling it right, IMHO. At that age, it's very possible the "offender" in question didn't really understand WTF he was doing, and was just emulating something he saw somewhere.

I'm not excusing the behavior in any way, and it certainly should be dealt with (and you seem to be handling it appropriately), but I just wonder how much a kid at that age could really understand the implications of what he did.
 
Ok, so just got back from the school. First, thank you everyone for your thoughts and advice, pms, and well wishes, I really do appreciate it.

Second, after confering with the teacher, she said she didn't see or hear anything from anyone and was apologetic about the whole thing (this really helped calm my blood pressure a bit). She is going to talk with my daughter and get her take, then talk with the boy and get his, and then go from there. My daughter is ok with that and seems to be ok about everything...I don't think she understands what happened the way I understand it, and the boy may not either. I tryed to get ahold of the school counselor but she is only there tuesdays and wednesdays, so assuming the boy is back on monday, I will talk with the teacher and see what comes of it.

The boy has been out or school since this happened. It didn't seem odd at first, until I saw his parents had signed in at 8:25 this morning for what was listed as a "meeting" and left at 10. So there may be more to this than I know. Either that or my ex said something to the teacher this morning when she dropped them off for school, however the teacher didn't alude to that later on when I arrived. And I think she (the ex) would have called to tell me she did so, but who knows. Just seemed a little strange when I put it all together. The incident took place on tuesday. The boy hasn't been in school since tuesday and today his parents were there for an hour and a half "meeting".

I think where the bigger problem is in this case is that my daughter didn't tell anyone till a day or so later. I don't think she did it purposely...shes been in good spirits and being a kid, likely was distracted. But the reason it didn't come up in class was that they have been told by the teacher not to interrupt during "story time" when this took place unless you are "on fire" or something like that. The teacher agreed that maybe this rule was a bit too strict and knowing my daughter, she didn't want to get in trouble for interrupting. The get rewards for being good each week, and I think she has missed a reward like once in the past 2 years or something. The teacher shall be reinforming the class of what is and isn't important to interrupt her with a different way from now on.

Thanks again, just wanted to give you all an update. I have to go back tonight to talk to the priniciple about another matter, so it will likely come up again with her. Maybe she can lend some more insight into whats happened or will happen. Other than that, I will have to wait to hear from the teacher next week.
 
{tpc} said:
Ok, so just got back from the school. First, thank you everyone for your thoughts and advice, pms, and well wishes, I really do appreciate it.

Second, after confering with the teacher, she said she didn't see or hear anything from anyone and was apologetic about the whole thing (this really helped calm my blood pressure a bit). She is going to talk with my daughter and get her take, then talk with the boy and get his, and then go from there. My daughter is ok with that and seems to be ok about everything...I don't think she understands what happened the way I understand it, and the boy may not either. I tryed to get ahold of the school counselor but she is only there tuesdays and wednesdays, so assuming the boy is back on monday, I will talk with the teacher and see what comes of it.

The boy has been out or school since this happened. It didn't seem odd at first, until I saw his parents had signed in at 8:25 this morning for what was listed as a "meeting" and left at 10. So there may be more to this than I know. Either that or my ex said something to the teacher this morning when she dropped them off for school, however the teacher didn't alude to that later on when I arrived. And I think she (the ex) would have called to tell me she did so, but who knows. Just seemed a little strange when I put it all together. The incident took place on tuesday. The boy hasn't been in school since tuesday and today his parents were there for an hour and a half "meeting".

I think where the bigger problem is in this case is that my daughter didn't tell anyone till a day or so later. I don't think she did it purposely...shes been in good spirits and being a kid, likely was distracted. But the reason it didn't come up in class was that they have been told by the teacher not to interrupt during "story time" when this took place unless you are "on fire" or something like that. The teacher agreed that maybe this rule was a bit too strict and knowing my daughter, she didn't want to get in trouble for interrupting. The get rewards for being good each week, and I think she has missed a reward like once in the past 2 years or something. The teacher shall be reinforming the class of what is and isn't important to interrupt her with a different way from now on.

Thanks again, just wanted to give you all an update. I have to go back tonight to talk to the priniciple about another matter, so it will likely come up again with her. Maybe she can lend some more insight into whats happened or will happen. Other than that, I will have to wait to hear from the teacher next week.
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It sounds like it's working out okay. more importabtly it sounds like your daughter is not thinking of the event as a sexual invasion, which is very, very good for you as a father. She knows enough to say something, but at the same time she's not "taking it to heart" the way you would, can't ask for a better outcome on her part, in terms of a bad event having the damage minimized as much as possible.
 
I would also still have a meeting with the principal and counselor, if you have not talked to them yet. In our school system it's almost impossible to have a meeting that does not have everyone in the room. I also like to give them something in writing that lets them know I expect some kind of future report about the course of action that was taken to resolve the situation.

What a though thing to deal with though, sorry to hear it. Like others have said at that age you have to wonder about the boy's environment.

Good Luck
 
Im not condoning the actions of the boy but..

They are 7, not 17. Without knowing the full spectrum of exactly what happend its pretty hard to reach a conclusion. Without anything else to go on other than "touching", I really have to chalk it up to the ignorance of children. Do I think he needs to be set down and explained that the kind of behavior he engaged in is appropriate? Absolutley! Children dont understand all these "grown up" rules, they must be taught. How many of you parent have really sat down at told your child "Now Tommy, you are not supposed to touch people in certain places"? We expect kids to figure this out on their own and when they dont (big surprise) you have some people calling for police intervention! There is a reason we have minimum age laws for children... because they often dont know what they are doing. Why are some calling for him to be treated as an adult and hauled off to juvi? Youve got a good 4-5 years before sexuality even starts to really enter their minds, and another 3-4 on top of that before they even get the nerve to engage in sexual activity. Some of you are really wanting to slap a sexual crime on a 7 year old that will follow him the rest of his life? By that reasoning why dont we just haul off kindergartners for assault when they hit or bite eachother?

Id let the teacher or principal know "hey, this happened, I dont think he meant anything by it, but just keep on eye on it" ask his parents to have a talk with him (or ask the teacher to relay that to his parents) and let the parents deal with their child.
 
B.L. Sims said:
Im not condoning the actions of the boy but..

They are 7, not 17. Without knowing the full spectrum of exactly what happened its pretty hard to reach a conclusion. Without anything else to go on other than "touching", I really have to chalk it up to the ignorance of children. Do I think he needs to be set down and explained that the kind of behavior he engaged in is appropriate? Absolutely! Children dont understand all these "grown up" rules, they must be taught. How many of you parent have really sat down at told your child "Now Tommy, you are not supposed to touch people in certain places"? We expect kids to figure this out on their own and when they dont (big surprise) you have some people calling for police intervention! There is a reason we have minimum age laws for children... because they often dont know what they are doing. Why are some calling for him to be treated as an adult and hauled off to juvi? Youve got a good 4-5 years before sexuality even starts to really enter their minds, and another 3-4 on top of that before they even get the nerve to engage in sexual activity. Some of you are really wanting to slap a sexual crime on a 7 year old that will follow him the rest of his life? By that reasoning why dont we just haul off kindergartners for assault when they hit or bite eachother?

Id let the teacher or principal know "hey, this happened, I dont think he meant anything by it, but just keep on eye on it" ask his parents to have a talk with him (or ask the teacher to relay that to his parents) and let the parents deal with their child.
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Some children do understand this. Whether from older siblings, older kids they play with in their neighborhood or parents who allow them to view non age-appropriate material. My wife and I have absolutely taught our children, son 6 and daughter 8, that they don't touch people in certain places and they don't allow other people to touch them in certain places. We have made it crystal clear that if we hear about them doing this they will not like the consequences and if it happens to them, that they tell a teacher and us. Whether or not the boy in this case realized what he was doing, TPC's daughter realized it and knew that she wasn't supposed to be touched there. Good for TPC's daughter because she knew that that touch was wrong. I don't think the boy, regardless of his motives, needs to be hauled off to juvi, but it needs to be made crystal clear to him that touching anyone in certain areas is not alright.

I am blessed that our children feel free to talk to my wife and I about these kinds of things. They have come home from school saying that classmates talk about and are fully aware of "mommy and daddy parts" and their significance. Where these children learned it I'm chalking down to one of the three options I listed above, but with the amount of inappropriate material available to unsupervised children today is making children aware of things I wasn't aware of at their age. And I can't agree with you linking this to kids fighting, to me they are a world apart. A fat lip heals in days, but the confusion coming from an inappropriate touch can last a long, long time.

TPC, I'm sorry this happened but I think you handled it admirably. Your daughter needs to know that you would fight the world to protect her and I'm sure she has that feeling now. :thumbs:
 
I have a ten year old boy, and three years ago aren't so far back that I cannot remember.

Three years ago, he wasn't thinking in sexual terms. He wanted to play games, build his Lego creations, and explore the world. While he never tried to explore a girl's body to see what was different from his, if he had, it would not have been with prurient motivations. The fact is that kids do need to learn the rules about what is appropriate, but that for thousands of years, they've been breaking rules they don't understand because they were curious.

{tpc} I think you're handling this admirably. It would be easy to overreact and give either child a complex that will mess them up for a long time. Caution, calm, and persistence are the watchwords for this situation, in my opinion.
 
I'm not sure how I would handle this. Luckily my little girl is not quite two. I definitely feel you on the defensiveness that you naturally feel for your daughter.
 
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