UPDATE: I called the police on my 13 yo son

See my previous post here. I am hoping to keep you all updated on this process as I'm sure that we are not the first family that this has happened to. Let me just say, first off, that not calling the police in this event was NEVER an option. Not only did my kid break the law, our family does not have the support and resources to deal with this on our own.After I had a calm discussion with both of my kids yesterday afternoon and gotten the full story, I broke the news to my husband later that evening. We cried, a lot. This is a heartbreaking, life-changing event. I won't say the exact details except that on the spectrum of sexual assault, the worst thing didn't happen, but it was still bad as there was some touching. Our kids have been kept completely separated since I found out, and we haven't left my daughter alone at all. Yesterday morning I called the local sheriff's office and requested to make a report. They sent out a single deputy, who was very kind and reassuring, and took down some basic information and our report, talked to us as parents, checked out our living situation, etc. He did not speak with either child (they have special forensic investigators that do that). He then stepped outside to make some calls, such as to social services, etc. Social services determined that based on the current action we are taking (keeping the kids separated and never leaving my daughter alone), they did not need to take immediate action. The deputy described that there is a process to this, which will include a forensic investigation, multiple assessments, social services, etc, and they'll determine what action to take. The consequences are on a spectrum, anywhere from a juvenile complaint & detention, to a mental health commitment. Given that my son has high-functioning autism and that this is his first offense, and that there were "only" two instances that we know of, the deputy was leaning more towards the commitment side of things but that is not up to him to determine. He reassured me that it is not uncommon for them to receive reports like this involving kids with autism, because they struggle with social skills and understanding and respecting boundaries. The deputy actually thanked us for being awesome parents and reporting it, and reassured us that they have a whole host of services to give our family support. He let us know that a detective would be in touch shortly to continue the investigation, so we are waiting to hear from the detective.My daughter was (understandably) quite upset about disclosing the information and we've reassured her as best we could that she absolutely did the right thing by telling us, that no one is angry with her, and so on. We've let her take the lead on how much she wanted to talk and beyond the initial disclosure, she's been her usual bubbly, happy self. We've tried very, very hard to remain calm with both of the kids as they need our support now more than ever.When I sat down to have the discussion with my son and told him what his sister had told me and asked him if it was true, he admitted it right away. As he has autism, emotionally he is younger than 13. He understands that it was wrong but I think he, at least initially, viewed it as "I broke a rule wrong" instead of "I did something that has devastating consequences for my entire family wrong". Although I'm very angry & heartbroken, I haven't raised my voice at him at all and I've been checking in with him often (he's been in his room for the most part since we found out). My husband doesn't trust himself to keep his anger in check so they haven't talked at all. As parents we know that this event is traumatizing for both the kids and we need to act with kindness and compassion so we can heal as a family.We're not sure where to go from here so we're just taking it a day at a time. Depending on what the legal consequences and social services recommendations are, we may try to keep the family together or we may split up and each take a child (and swap visitation), to keep the kids separate. So that's where we are right now. The shock of it all is starting to wear off and we're staring at a long, difficult road ahead. via /r/Parenting http://ift.tt/2lSSB7C