I also think the 8 year-old got off lucky.
8 - Hey eat my penis.
2.5 - OK (bites down hard)
8 - That wasn’t as fun as I thought it would be.
I remember reading that kids who are sexually abused from a young age can be emotionally/mentally far behind kids their own age. That point with the knowledge of oral sex is what set my “may have been abused” warning bells, as opposed to the “saw daddy’s playboys” bells.
Thought I’d add some more information to help with the speculation. K’s parents are good, middle-class church-going folks. The father works nights and watches K during the day, so he is always supervised by a parent. It’s possible he’s been molested by a relative or something, but opportunities are minimal. The problem is, his parents want K to play by himself and leave them alone most of the time. He seems bored out of his mind a lot, and we know he watches a lot of videos and plays a lot of video games. So he plays with kids his age from all over the neighborhood, whenever his parents let him. The whole “he can only play with babies” theory has to be junked. He plays with my son occasionally, maybe once a week at one of our houses. He likes our house because it’s close and we interact and play with the kids. At their house, I think my son mostly watches him play video games.
K is a little hyper, but he listens and is mostly a good polite kid who plays well with my son. He treats him like a little brother, leading the play but not getting too bossy. My gut feeling is that he has not been molested. My wife is a kindergarten teacher in an low-income area and sadly, has way too much experience with all kind of abused, angry, predatory kids (you wouldn’t believe the stories). K doesn’t set off any of her alarms.
Unsupervised kids in urban areas are exposed to sex. They spend a lot of time hanging out with older siblings. They watch R rated movies. Nobody censures their language around them. My wife catches her 5-year-olds kissing in the coatroom and humping each other on the carpet. So it’s out there. K goes to a private religious school, but I’m sure he hears all sorts of things on the playground. I’m not sure that he knew “eat it” had anything to do with the act of fellatio. I know that as a child, I was exposed to absolutely zero sexual content at home. That didn’t stop me from playing a lot of doctor as a child and asking a lot of girls to pull their pants down.
Bottom line is, K knew he did something wrong and inappropriate. He looked sheepish when he saw my wife knocking on the door. He isn’t a predator. His parents are concerned and I’m sure they are having talks. And the good news is that my son isn’t about to do anything he doesn’t want to do. It may sound dangerously naive or callous to some of you, but I don’t have a problem with the two of them continuing to play together once in a while.
You’re there and I’m not, but the whole thing still bothers me. And besides, I don’t mean to question your judgment, but to me, sending a child as young as 2 to a neighbor’s to play sounds more like babysitting to me.
“You show me yours and I’ll show you mine” is completely normal. In our culture, simulating sex acts is not. As I said, I’d still be concerned.
FWIW, we simulated sex acts at that age, way beyond “i’ll show you mine”, and none of us were molested or turned out to be wackos. And, our talk was probably on par with “eat it” since you don’t know the proper terms.
We knew it was naughty, but I don’t know if we would have had the sensibility to conclude “this is MORE wrong if one of us was 2, instead of 8”.
I don’t think the OP should be worried, but I’d keep an eye on things, too.
In my opinion, you should have stopped typing there and aborted the idea of even starting this thread. Frankly, there’s really nothing cute, mundane, share-able or informative about this thread. Take a step back, do the math. 2 1/2 and 8: two levels of maturity that aren’t even in the same universe. Not to play the know-it-all pessimist: but I forsee a major wreck on the horizon. Sorry, when I smell something rotten, I either hold my nose and walk away - or I say Phew loud enough so someone will hear me.
I do. Maybe it ain’t my business, but 30 month olds have no business being ‘freinds,’ ‘peers’ or whatever you wanna call them with an 8 eight year old boy next door.
Just one person’s opinion.
I’ll be the second one to say “you’re there and know the situation and I’m not and I don’t”, but quite honestly the quoted material means NOTHING. Sadly. Speaking as a good, middle-class, church-going folk, I can tell you that my best friend was molested by a good, middle-class church-going guy. A respected leader of their church, no less. One of those “HE would never do anything like THAT” kind of guys.
So this isn’t a guarantee that nothing’s going on. 'Tisn’t a guarantee that something is going on, either, but yeah, keep an eye on things.
I really think you should at least consider the possibility that one of the parents of K is molesting him, or at least exposing him to an inappropriate environment. Child molesters come in all shapes and sizes and “church going people” can also be child molesters.
If you continue to let your child to go to that home, please do not rely on anyone from that household to provide the supervision, one of you needs to be there.
While some experimentation is normal in children, when they can mimic adult sexual behavior it is often a sign that they have been sexualized to some degree. K’s poor socialization is another warning sign.
It is not just children in "urban"areas who are at risk.
Assuming the 8-year-old is at the correct maturity level.
No, wouldn’t want to do that… :rolleyes: If the thread is so distasteful to you, you should feel free to excuse yourself.
I guess I didn’t make it clear enough, but K plays with kids of all ages in the neighborhood. Sometimes he’s playing with the big boys and he totally ignores my son. Other times, there aren’t any other kids around and he knocks on our door. He is not maladjusted in that way. But it seems that it is now taboo for children of different ages to play together? My best friend growing up was a neighbor 4 years older than me and he somehow managed to keep his hands out of my pants. Guess what? We played D&D together - he was the dungeon master. It was good that he was old enough to explain the game to me. I guess kids don’t play with siblings 5 years younger than them anymore - what could they possibly have in common? When an 8 YO plays legos, it’s fine. But playing legos with a 2.5 YO? That’s a big warning sign?! I’m sorry, it all sounds alarmist to me.
My wife and I take our son’s life very seriously. We talked about this situation all night long. We think sexual abuse is horrible - my wife deals with its effects every single day at her job - but we aren’t going to be terrified of it. **Of course ** we’ll be keeping an eye on it. We keep an eye on **everything ** he does - we talk to him about his day, how he’s interacting with his peers, we get to know the neighbors and his daycare provider and we analyze how their families operate and how *their * children behave. I hope I haven’t given the impression that we’re flippant about this. But children are sexual beings whether we like it or not, and it’s not always the black/white issue that this society has made it out to be. Should we ostracize K because he made one mistake? Is that really the world we live in today?
I mean, what if he punched him? That’s inappropriate and a big warning sign too, but would people’s reactions be the same? Damn. Somehow this has turned into a Great Debate. I appreciate the input, however.
I wonder if one of them is responsible for giving K the idea.
It’s not about “four years older” or “two years older”. It’s the ages they are at. 8 is so vastly different from 2 and 1/2 they might as well be living in foreign countries.
I will admit that when I was about 11, I used to play with my sister and her two friends, who were about five. But that was because I didn’t know anyone else my own age (we were in a new neighborhood) and I mostly just played Barbies and dress-up with them (because I still liked those games). Or else I read to them, or something. Then our next door neighbor introduced me to some kids up the street who were around my age and I stopped hanging around the little ones.
But I can’t imagine being really entertained by a two year old, except on the “Oh, aren’t they cute! I’ll be the babysitter” level.
That his parents are church-going folks mean NOTHING. Hello, we’re living in an age where a big news story is the number of Catholic priests molesting children!
He’s already stated that this kid comes by once in a while to play. It’s not a constant “bosom buddies” kind of relationship. I see nothing wrong with it, as stated. The OP isn’t an idiot…he knows a flag when he sees one and he dealt with it. i think he’s handling it just fine. If something else begins to look suspicious, I’m sure he’ll take the appropriate steps.
Pay attention to Diogenes the Cynic, JohnBckWLD, and madmonk28 posts. Been their done, done that. And it ain’t fucking t-shirt that you get. It’s deep emotional scars that last forever and do affect in normal relationships. Call the appropriate authorities, not to punish the 8 year old but to get him help and find out who made him ‘think’ that way.
Your son told you everything that happened and he didn’t fall for the “eat my penis” trick, it seems like you have nothing to worry about because if anything does ever happen you will hear about it.
I bet had your son fallen for the trick about “eating penis” the 8 year old “K” would have been bitten and would never dream of trying it again.
Not to be all fear-mongering or anything, but that’s the sort of person of person/family situation my father and his siblings grew up in, and I think I’ve posted about that subject once or twice. Unfortunately, “they go to church” is not always the freedom-from-bad-stuff we might wish it were.
I think I was around 8 or so when me and my brother used to gather up all the neighborhood kids for “You show us yours and we’ll show you ours.” We tried lots of stuff, touching, prodding, etc., but didn’t have a clue about sex.
A neighbor kid got me alone in the woods and asked me to fondle his penis. He was about my age. I didn’t go for it cause it just didn’t seem right; it wasn’t exploration, it was too directed.
Years later I heard he was homosexual. He certainly seemed more ‘coached’ than the rest of us, who were fumbling through experimentation.
Jesuchristo.
It may be “out there”, as you say, but that doesn’t mean it should be.
Obviously I don’t know the kid involved, so I’m basing this on my own experience with 2.5-year-olds and 8-year-olds, but I have to admit that the entire scenario seems a little odd to me, given that we have a 2.5-year-old ourselves, and the idea of him having an unsupervised play date with an 8-year-old kid (boy or girl) is pretty foreign to me. We don’t even feel that my 10-year-old brother has the emotional or mental maturity to be able to babysit our son unsupervised yet. Now, I would have no problem with Whatsit Jr. playing with my brother when my parents, or other responsible adults, were present. But frankly, I don’t think that he’s old enough to be trusted with the charge of a toddler. I would have even deeper concerns about an 8-year-old in that situation. I don’t know if the kid in question usually plays with your son in the presence of his parents, or what, but you did mention in the OP that the kid brought your son back to your home, which to me suggests that he’s basically in charge of your son while they’re playing together.
Personally, I think that 8 years old is a little young to be babysitting without adult supervision – and that’s what is essentially going on, as a 2.5-year-old is not old enough to take care of himself without supervision of some sort. Particularly now that you’ve had this strange “penis” discussion, I’d be extremely wary. Yes, it would be great if the world were all sunny hearts and flowers and parents didn’t have to worry about this kind of stuff and everyone had the best motives and all kids of all ages could just play with each other happily without anyone getting hurt, but unfortunately in the real world that’s not always the case. I think in your situation, I wouldn’t prevent my son from playing with the older boy, but I would make sure to always be present when playtime occurs. (I would also be wary of leaving supervisory duties up to the other parents; yes, it’s unlikely that they’re child molesters, but as many people have pointed out so far, the fact that they are a seemingly nice and friendly church-going family doesn’t mean squat, and I’d err on the side of being too cautious in a case like this.)
Your kid has great language skills for a 2.5-year-old, by the way. Either that or mine has crappy language skills. 
Most of his sentences run along the lines of “Downstairs now. Want bacon.”