" I’d suspect sexual abuse, and yes, she’s doing it for attention, but her choice of doing THAT for attention is why I’d suspect sexual abuse."
Yes, greck, but if it’s abuse why would she want to attract MORE attention to get more of this kind of abuse?
Well, handy, because sometimes when kids are abused they learn this is the only kind of attention they can get/are worthy of. Especially if the only attention she gets is the abuse… anything may be better in her mind than being ignored.
It’s a crap lesson but that’s how I felt at that age. The only time males gave me any attention at all was to try and get sex from me. My father began teaching me that I was just his property to do with as he chose when I was a toddler. By the time I was in elementary school I saw myself as just his rag doll. I had been conditioned that my feelings counted for nothing and that obedience was all that was important. I had no female role model at all unless you consider my mother sleeping on the couch all the time a role model. My father would come home and either scream at us and smack us around a bit or he would order me up to his room to molest me.
I would have been much like this girl but my father promised to kill me and any boy I let touch me.
tanookie, you have my deepest sympathies. As a physically abused child, I can partially understand what you are saying. If you are ever in need of someone to chat with or just a friendly email, I am here for you. Your story, just like the OP, provokes profound concern upon my part.
Zenster, that was the kindest words anyone could possibly respond to tanookie, and bless you for them. Kind words to people who’ve been abused as kids are healing and wanted, as you must know, because you went through some rough times yourself.
I suffered physical and sexual abuse as a youngster. The hurt continues to affect my ability to trust anyone.
I don’t know if this is what is going on with your cousin, ladyfoxfyre, but I do know that a child who is behaving these ways needs help, care, and from someone who is open to understanding. You are right to be concerned. It is NOT normal behavior!
Zenster, that was the kindest words anyone could possibly respond to tanookie, and bless you for them. Kind words to people who’ve been abused as kids are healing and wanted, as you must know, because you went through some rough times yourself.
I suffered physical and sexual abuse as a youngster. The hurt continues to affect my ability to trust anyone.
I don’t know if this is what is going on with your cousin, ladyfoxfyre, but I do know that a child who is behaving these ways needs help, care, and from someone who is open to understanding. You are right to be concerned. It is NOT normal behavior!
Checking in as both a therapist AND someone who was abused in childhood…yes, these are very concerning behaviors. I can’t imagine shrugging off these types of things as normal if I were her mother, unless I had a need to deny something quite serious. As for thw whys behind her behavior…kids who are neglected or emotionally abused lose the ability to differentiate positive versus negative attention. Any type of attention will fill the void. And kids who are sexually abused, as tanookie already eloquently described, often feel that sexuality is their only worth, the currency with which they must relate to others. I worked with a 9 year old girl who displayed a lot of these behaviors, especially the notes and phone calls to boys offering sex, etc. It was horribly sad, but her mother was at least willing to do whatever it took to get her help.
What are your options here for helping? It sounds like going within the family isn’t helping. Can you place a call to her school or the local child welfare/social services office? It may make you extremely unpopular within the family, but that’s no reason not to do it, when compared with what a terrible road this girl is headed down.
Thanks for the sympathy. I’m one of the lucky ones. I got out of my parents house with my life and my sanity relatively intact. I also found a husband who is kind and supportive and willing to be whatever I need him to be to get me through the rough patches that have dwindled to almost never now 
My husband literally saved my life.
I would like to say that one of the hardest things people can do is get involved. But it really is important to try and get these kids some help. Yes it certainly will make you unpopular. My mother didn’t leave my father because ‘we would have had to have lived in an apartment’ Gee mom the shame. So apparently my innocence was worth the squalor of our really really nasty house to her. I’m really thankful so much has changed in how people view sexual abuse. I’ve talked to a lot of people about what happened to me and the ones from my childhood always say ‘but you were so normal’ I was too scared not to act ‘normal’ but I wasn’t really a normal kid. I had no friends and was ostracized by pretty much every group. My father was a pillar of the community in my elementary school days and he felt that protected him and in a way it did … now we know priests and teachers and others in their esteemed positions are just as able to hurt kids as anyone else. 25 years ago this wasn’t the case.
Not sure if that made a lot of sense … haven’t had breakfast yet