Help! My Kid’s a Pervert
James used to love hanging out with his older brother, Colin, although Colin usually resented having to put up with his kid brother going everywhere he went. Four years is a big age difference when you are thirteen and you kid brother is just nine. You have a lot more experience in the world and you know answers to questions that have never even entered his little mind. It feels good to be big. But the kid is a real nuisance hanging around all the time. One day, Colin struck on the ideal solution and he decided to teach James some new ways to play.
Kathy was puzzled by James. He didn’t seem to want to go anywhere with Colin today. She’d never known him to be so standoffish. She had to make that important meeting and now James didn’t want to stay home with Colin. He didn’t want to do any of his usual things but he was being difficult and wouldn’t say why. Nothing was distracting him and the time for the meeting was looming, so she decided she would have to push the issue and let the boys work out what to do – she had to go.
Kids!
A couple of weeks didn’t make any difference. Kathy had hoped that James would get over whatever was bugging him about Colin but he didn’t. He seemed to be going to extremes to avoid being left with Colin. She asked Colin if he knew what was up but he just shrugged and said he had no clue. He said some other things that brothers say about each other but she knew to ignore those. She was none the wiser for her efforts.
Life seems to save up problems to dump on us at its leisure but she wasn’t ready for what came next: James started deliberately missing the afternoon school bus. She really didn’t have time for this! It was hard enough fitting in her job and trying to raise her sons while she was both mother and “father,” handyman, laundry queen, head buyer and family CEO, but when he missed the bus, she had to squeeze in the extra drive to school to get him on her way home from work. This was annoying! Big-time annoying and he heard plenty of her thoughts on it all the way home. Most kids would get the idea that it’s better to catch the bus than to catch a dose of irate mom, but not James. He missed the bus the next day too.
The color drained from her face as she heard the words before it surged back in fiery anger. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing as the School Counselor broke the news. Her James had been busted for trying to touch a girl “inappropriately” – “Nine-year-olds don’t do that,” she protested, but apparently they did. Other girls said he’d tried it on them. “So that’s why he keeps on missing the bus,” she thought. Her angry thoughts began to flood her mind with so many punishments that she hardly heard the Counselor telling her James needed help. He’d really need help after she was through with him!
Variations on this story are repeated daily. Parents like Kathy are faced with embarrassing reports like this and the fallout that follows. Kids like James struggle to work out how to handle problems they didn’t ask for from people they trusted without “spilling the beans” about what is really going on. Their fallout continues through the rest of their lives and most often they do their best to deal with it in secret – no one ever knows.
Here’s some thoughts for Kathy as she tries to deal with James:
Making too much of it – driven by our own fears and insecurities, building fear and distrust instead of bridges. How we react tells the kid the real story we are thinking – opening doors or slamming them forever. No need to plunge into self-flagellation about what a rotten parent you are . . . it’s not about you or your mistakes.
Not making enough of it – your kid drops a morsel to test how you react. When kids tell something sexually specific or say how they don’t want to be with a certain relative . . . it’s time to LISTEN to them. It’s not a kid being weird, it’s a muted plea for help. And before you can help, you have to get ALL the facts – half-information and leaping to conclusions will prove very costly to all parties.
Like it or not, you are dealing with a victim who may still be exposed to his or her abuser yet lacks the experience or vocabulary to recognize what is going on. Your reactions are setting the kid’s reactions and self-perceptions – acting out your own insecurities gives you the chance to regret your action forever while not putting an absolute stop to the abuse puts the victim straight into living hell.
What has been done cannot be undone – life has changed now [like it or not] and you are forced to work through all the tentacles of ramifications and consequences. It’s inconvenient but it is what it is. Welcome to complexified parenthood!
You’ll have to work out how to reach out to siblings who also may have been affected. As you keep working with the sexualized child you must also keep relating to the unaffected siblings – building better protection for them while not spreading trauma or fear – avoiding unnecessary disclosure while disclosing enough to protect them. Tough call.
You’ll have to work out how to deal with perpetrators / abusers in your family circle and you’ll need to treat this seriously and adequately. For an adult it’s clearly a crime and needs to be dealt with on that level – hard to do if it’s grandpa, and especially so if you have memories of his activities in your own life-story, or your sibling’s partner, or your brother or . . . This is not for the faint of heart, the repercussions will ring for years to come, yet it can’t be ignored – your kid will not be his or her only victim and despite what you want to believe, it won’t stop with your kid. There’s always more.
And another thing to remember about the perpetrator is that he/she may have also been abused early in life and what is happening is the downstream revelation of the coping mechanisms of a chid who never got any help. It’s still wrong but . . .
What advice do you have for Kathy?
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Posted on October 19, 2012, in Relationships, Self-awareness and tagged acting out, child abuse, helping the victim, identifying the victim, parenting skills, Sexual abuse, sexual experimentation, siblings, single parent challenges. Bookmark the permalink. 6 Comments.
There are myriad of issues here, and it is going to take time to sort it all out. Unfortunately, for Kathy, time is a precious commodity; however, at some point, and this is that point in time, she will need to examine her priorities. Is work worth more than having your kids grow up to be emotionally balanced human beings?
Kathy certainly has a time dilema, but her children have a life dilema they cannot work out on their own. Depending on the depth, of the problems, work, and money may become very un-important if one, or both of her kids have been molested. However, molestation may not be the problem here. This could be a situation of monkey see, monkey do. These boys have no positive male role model, at home, and are learning things about themselves, and others, on their own. The question now becomes is this a matter of proper sex education, age appropraiate, of course, or is this a matter of molestation? The answer to this question will determine the course to be taken.
mark
Like so much in life, this is a tangled web with an urgent demand for significant change. We ignore the signs at our peril and out desire for quick fixes often leaves festering wounds in our kids. Thanks for your insights.
In no way am I suggesting a quick fix. I only caution Kathy to be mindful this will take time to unravel. Getting the right answers hopefully will lead to the right path. This could be a matter of the elder brother being the victim of sexual abuse, and getting the younger brother involved. Is Colin being molested, and now exposing his younger brother to the abuser, or inflicting abuse done him on his younger brother? The nature of these type problems will require Kathy to spend more time with her boys, and seek out an appropriate environment where they will open up. What works for one, may not work for the other. I feel for her, and the boys. She needs to make herself very available as these boys go through whatever type counseling she deems best for them. I see we have a recomendation for prayer, and faith based counseling. I have no real problems with this approach, but believe she needs to look at all options. The school should be a resource for her to find various resources to help her children. Seeing how James is already on the schools radar, availing herself of the resources they offer is an option. The bottom line is the proper diagnoses is essential to the right course of treatment. It is imperative if one, or both of these boys have been molested, to get the perpetrator off the streets, and into jail. My prayers go out for this family.
Right on, these situations are complex and can’t be solved by grasping for the first “solution” that comes along. You raise powerful insights and actions to take. Molestation cannot be ignored and nor is there a quick recovery option. Sadly, many families have to wrestle with these issues, worse, many kids never get any help at all. I especially like your advice to follow the trail back to the perpetrator – there’s always a trail if we look for it.
At the risk of sounding too simplistic, first take it to the Lord in prayer. Then, considering everyone involved in the problem at this point, visit a Christian Family Counselor for herself first, then to decided upon a plan of approach with the Counselor for the child victim(s). Ask Kathy to stay with the plan, step by step, no matter how long it takes, or how many skeletons in the closet are discovered, clear through to the end. Believing and helping the victim(s) is of primary importance, in my opinion.
Simple works! There’s nothing quite like having an outside opinion – it can break through our denial and alert us to stuff we simply didn’t see. Situations don’t just happen and nor do solutions. Friedman’s book “Generation to Generation” has great insights on how the family system produces victims and a counselor can really help with getting the family back to health. Any tips on how I find good counselor?