
Most of parenting isn’t too hard to figure out, but we have a bit of a parenting crisis that I’m just not sure what path to take and need your help, hivemind.We have a happy, fun 6 year old rising 2nd grader (young for his grade but turns 7 soon), let’s call him H. Happy, smart, fun loving kid no issues there. He was in a summer camp last week which happens to also take place at the school he goes to, so he knows many of the kids. Two of his classmates, let’s say Joe and Mike (obviously not their real names) were in his camp.His grandma (my mom) helps us and picks him up from camp for a couple hours most days until we get off work. So grandma calls us in a bit of a tizzy and reported that H told her that Joe and Mike were with him in the club house on the playground and they had all exposed themselves and invited him to. And it gets worse, he also said that they were playing the “penis in butt” game (I kid you not) and that they were going to watch him and invite him to participate “in five weeks.” So yikes. Grandma having a fit of course. We are closer to the parents of Joe, so we call his mom and before we even get midway through the story she is like, “not again!” Apparently, Joe and Mike have been caught exposing to one another before by their parents. Our friend, Joe’s mom, obviously flustered and upset and says she will do more to keep Joe and Mike apart and is so sorry our son got pulled in. Mike’s mom, who we also know and like, just don’t know as well, calls us and is also very distraught and apologetic. She has Mike in therapy and reading between the lines a bit thinks he might have been taken advantage of in the past, hence his behavior. Both Joe and Mike are not problem kids by the way, and H likes them just fine but doesn’t consider them to be his closest friends.So now… what to do? Grandma thinks we should report this to the principal of the school, or even law enforcement, which would no doubt create a bit of a circus and certainly wouldn’t be good for Joe and Mike, nor would it be good for H other than it would likely most definitely prevent it from happening again by resulting in the removal of the kids from school (suspension? Expulsion? I have no idea).My spouse, however, is on the other extreme and thinks we should simply warn their incoming teacher (they are all in the same class, it’s a small school one class per grade) that these three kids need to be kept apart, and perhaps banned from the treehouse and watched more closely (and hinting at the reason without giving the exact specifics).I’m sort of in between. I mean this sounds like a serious deal, these kids are 6 and 7 years old and they are playing at penis in butt? I need to protect my kid and maybe try to get those other kids out of there would be the most effective way. On the other hand, they are kind of innocent/young and I do feel bad for the other parents and they are taking the steps they should with their kids (therapy, etc) and willing to at least alert the teacher.To further complicate, this is kind of a second question, our son told his babysitter about the incident too and she came to us worried, and of course our son could likely tell other people unless we tell him not to, but I don’t want to tell him not to because reporting this kind of thing to a responsible adult is exactly what he SHOULD be doing and I don’t want him to think it’s wrong.Finally we talked to H about keeping his privates private (we had of course told him this before but obviously it didn’t work) and told him not to play with Joe and Mike and he understands that what they did was wrong, but I worry he could easily be pressured into it again because he doesn’t seem to take it too seriously (which is both good and bad).So yeah, like wow, what should I do? What should we tell the school or other authorities? What should we tell H? What should we tell the parents of Joe and Mike? This is a hard oneShorter: Two of our (6 year old) son’s classmates were fornicating on a playground and invited our son to watch/participate, how seriously do we treat this and what consequences do we demand for the kids involved AND how do we avoid this happening again and hurting our kid? via /r/Parenting https://ift.tt/2MdKLAm
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