Is my 7 year old Step son being abused?!

[Hayles]

My partner's 7 and a half year old is staying with us during school holidays. Tonight I overheard a conversation coming from the bedroom that he and my 6 year old son come from, where my stepson was making "sex noises" and explaining to my son about these sounds and what it means, then he asked my son to show him his penis and testes, my son refused, and he again asked and offered to show his own, which is when I entered the room!

 

I spoke with both the boys about the importance of privacy and reminded my son about the chid protection classes he took and won awards for through school, and explained to them that noone is in trouble, but we need to keep our privates to ourselves to prevent any risk of harm.

 

My son was very blase, however my stepson was looking VERY worried, almost ready to cry, so I called in his father to help me through the chat, suspecting there could be more to this. I asked the boys to talk me through what was going on, when my son reveals that these talks have been every night for the week stepson has been in town!

 

He then told us that his stepbro has been showing him the movements of sex, and verbalising things that I must say I was horrified to hear coming from my little son's mouth! He had been telling my son to play with his testes, and that it feels great, and telling him that he has two girlfriends and he slept naked with one of them and then had to rush to get clothes on as a mother was coming....

 

I am mortified, I don't know where to go or what to do with this... on one hand, it could be a child who has been exposed to far too much (We only have him for holidays so I could not speculate as to what he may or may not have seen by accident on TV etc) or is there a hance he is being interfered with?! On the other hand, I now have a 6 year old who knows things I would rather he didn't, I am feeling rather frightened and confused, but we need to sort this out and find out what is happening with my stepson in the two weeks he is here with us, as we can not risk him going home if there is a chance that there is abuse somewhere in his life, and noone knowing!

 

Help? Advice?!

[tinydancer81]

omg, i really feel for you, i would be horrified too, i think a chat is needed maybe from father to son and you need to find out where he is getting this information from whether it be friends from school, or elsewhere, this is not right.

[Catdancer]

Can you get him in to see a counselor that specializes in children asap? A third party with training may be able to help get to the bottom of this.

[Davie]

I agree. I wasn't thinking about things like this until i was two times his age!

 

I think the source of the problem needs to be eliminated as soon as possible.

 

A meeting or two with the Headmaster/Principle of the school the step son is at is also a good Idea (imo).

 

Dave.

What does your wife say? The boys mother I assume. I think some action needs to be taken very fast but very subtly.

 

Good luck to you. My deepest condolences are with you.

[Davie]

Can you get him in to see a counselor that specializes in children asap? A third party with training may be able to help get to the bottom of this.

 

I think that may be too extreme. I think the source should be found first. This is a very delicate matter. Although I do agree. A counselor should at the very least be alerted of this problem. This is indeed very very wrong.

[healthseeker]

I would get his father to talk to him alone...he may not feel comfortable talking to both of you at once. I agree that you should dig further before he goes home.

[Mutley]

Can you get him in to see a counselor that specializes in children asap? A third party with training may be able to help get to the bottom of this.

 

I agree with this course of action.

[BeStrongBeHappy]

Before you jump to conclusions, this needs to be investigated by a professional.

 

children at that age are very into 'you show me yours and i'll show mine' and they can be very curious.

 

i worked with someone whose child started showing exactly this behavior, and when they investigated it, it turned out that the boy's father had been watching porno movies in the basement, and the child was sneaking downstairs and peeking around the corner and watching the movies without either parent being aware of him doing it, and he was just acting out and repeating things he'd seen. Of course the father got in deep dutch with the mother as she didn't know he was sneaking downstairs to watch porn on cable and the son was seeing it as well.

 

The scenes this child is describing (i.e., two girlfriends and having to hurry to dress because someone was coming) sound like something out of a porn movie that he may be acting out. Children do the same thing when they watch cartoons and then run around the house screaming, 'i'm a superhero and i'm going to kill you with this sword'.

 

So the child may be molested, or he may have seen something on cable, or seen his parent having sex, or got ahold of a dirty magazine. So all roads don't necessarily lead to the fact someone has abused him, though it could well be.

 

So i'd first find a child psychologist and take the child in for evaluation. They have ways of finding that out, and whether it is fantasy or from being molested. Even if you ask directly if he's been watching movies, he can lie and say it wasn't movies if he thinks he'll get in trouble for it, so psychologists have ways of getting the truth out on the table that you might not be able to do.

[alli]

NO NO NO!!! Do NOT have anyone talk to him about this before taking him to see a child psychologist.

 

I majored in psychology in school & my developmental psychology class was taught by a professor that also worked with abused children. He said that sometimes by the time the child gets to him, the child has already had a "talk" with mom, dad, grandma, grandpa, aunt... and at that point he cannot differentiate between what actually happened & what the child picked up from these "talks". If everyone else talks to him first it will be very difficult to conclusively determine whether he has been abused or not.

 

Do not discuss this with the boy anymore. If the child brings it up, you can passively listen, but do NOT make any suggestions "were you touched here? there? did your teacher do it? your coach?" None of that. Get him to a child psychologist that specialized in abuse ASAP!!

[BeStrongBeHappy]

yes, a child seeing the parent agitated and transfering that emotion to the child is no good either. the child may sense the parents distress too and lie to either avoid the emotion or out of fear. a neutral professional party is better asking the questions.

 

and parents who obsess over the fear a child may have been molested can have that manifest in strange way. if a parent is constantly worrying that a child has been touched, if they grill the child constantly and the child wants attention, they may make false allegations against someone else because the parent asks them, did so and so touch you. you can tell me if they did. mommy will help you if so and so touched you.

 

so one has to be very careful that this doesn't descend into a hysterical witchhunt before the truth is fully brought out.

[alli]

yes, a child seeing the parent agitated and transfering that emotion to the child is no good either. the child may sense the parents distress too and lie to either avoid the emotion or out of fear. a neutral professional party is better asking the questions.

 

and parents who obsess over the fear a child may have been molested can have that manifest in strange way. if a parent is constantly worrying that a child has been touched, if they grill the child constantly and the child wants attention, they may make false allegations against someone else because the parent asks them, did so and so touch you. you can tell me if they did. mommy will help you if so and so touched you.

 

so one has to be very careful that this doesn't descend into a hysterical witchhunt before the truth is fully brought out.

 

 

Exactly. Having anyone other than a professional trained in this matter talk to the child will only taint the child's memories & words. I hope the OP comes back & sees this before any more people talk to the boy. "Leading" questions will create problems & the child will think the right thing to say is what they think they are "supposed" to say, not what actually happened.

[Hayles]

Thank you all for your help, I apologise for not replying sooner, however, we were rather busy today trying to do what we could about all of this. We have not discussed anything with either my son or stepson, other than the immediate factor which was the "privacy" issue at that time i.e. NOT showing eachother their private areas and not discussing things such as sex without an adult who could explain things properly, appropriately and accurately! (Though I would rather at this age we didn't need to discuss it at all, now we have both a 6 and 7 year old who have been exposed to FAR too much knowledge in the least!)

I instead spoke with my mother, who is a foster carer and has done courses in Child sexualised behaviour, and she recommended that we call the emergency line for child protection, to get some counselling/professional services ASAP, as well as ring the child's mother and stepfather. His mother was terrific and spoke with us in length about our concerns, she too is of course concerned and will work with us to see what we can find out.

The service also recommended that we minimise any unsupervised time with the two boys, to prevent the chances of my own son being exposed any further!

 

Thanks again for all of the great advice, though we already feel both boys have been over exposed, all we can do from here is ensure that they are now kept safe and hope to God that its nothing too serious!

[Hayles]

Oh, and thanks for the advice about the "leading questions", however, as my mother works in the area of child protection, I have obviously been raised with some knowledge on this, and thereforee we were very careful not to say anything, or ask anything about the origin of anything, just simply reminded the boys that we are here to protect them, and privacy is also there to protect them, as I said, we dealt at the time with only the matter at hand, which was ensuring no further discussion was had between the two of them! Thank you all again!