I hope you understand, that just about every person who neglects and abuses their kids claims to love them. So “I love my kids” is not a “get-out-of-investigation-free” card, nor should it be. Additionally, teachers are mandated reporters. They are required by law to report anything they believe might be indicative of abuse. They could be held guilty of a crime if they did not, and face civil pnalties as well as the loss of their professional license.
I think if you put yourself in the shoes of a mandated reporter who sees hypersexual behavior, they are going to have to report it. It’s their legal duty. Also, correct me if I’m wrong, there was no report that your daughter was being abused by you, only that she was being sexually abused by someone. Don’t you think it best that claim is investigated? What if it was another kid, or a teacher, or a shopkeeper in town? What if it comes out that someone other than you really is sexually abusing your daughter?
I know people who work for CPS and they see a lot of terrible shit. Believe me, when they encounter a case which is NOT justified, it is not some kind of witch hunt to prove the charges – on the contrary they are THRILLED to get a case they can drop because the parents are not neglectful.
I can’t figure out why it would error, try a refresh.
Here’s the lowtech version:
1: Hergüner S. Excessive masturbation associated with olanzapine in a pediatric
case. Prog Neuropsychopharmacol Biol Psychiatry. 2010 Oct 1;34(7):1349-50. Epub
2010 Jun 21. PubMed PMID: 20600465.
2: Coskun M, Karakoc S, Kircelli F, Mukaddes NM. Effectiveness of mirtazapine in
the treatment of inappropriate sexual behaviors in individuals with autistic
disorder. J Child Adolesc Psychopharmacol. 2009 Apr;19(2):203-6. PubMed PMID:
19364298.
3: Brody S, Costa RM. Vaginal orgasm is associated with less use of immature
psychological defense mechanisms. J Sex Med. 2008 May;5(5):1167-76. Epub 2008 Mar
4. PubMed PMID: 18331263.
4: Hellemans H, Colson K, Verbraeken C, Vermeiren R, Deboutte D. Sexual behavior
in high-functioning male adolescents and young adults with autism spectrum
disorder. J Autism Dev Disord. 2007 Feb;37(2):260-9. PubMed PMID: 16868848.
5: Albertini G, Polito E, Sarà M, Di Gennaro G, Onorati P. Compulsive
masturbation in infantile autism treated by mirtazapine. Pediatr Neurol. 2006
May;34(5):417-8. PubMed PMID: 16648008.
6: Nguyen M, Murphy T. Mirtazapine for excessive masturbation in an adolescent
with autism. J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry. 2001 Aug;40(8):868-9. PubMed
PMID: 11501682.
7: Realmuto GM, Ruble LA. Sexual behaviors in autism: problems of definition and
management. J Autism Dev Disord. 1999 Apr;29(2):121-7. PubMed PMID: 10382132.
8: Van Bourgondien ME, Reichle NC, Palmer A. Sexual behavior in adults with
autism. J Autism Dev Disord. 1997 Apr;27(2):113-25. PubMed PMID: 9105963.
9: Sex education and sexual awareness building for autistic children and youth:
some viewpoints and considerations. J Autism Dev Disord. 1985 Jun;15(2):213-27.
PubMed PMID: 3997748.
10: Lanouzière J, Lainé T. [Object relationship in the autistic child. Essay on
the economy of relational movements in the psychotic child. Apropos of the
observation of an autistic child and his productions]. Psychiatr Enfant.
1972;15(2):287-398. French. PubMed PMID: 4681133.
I want to high light your last paragraph, the caseworker sees no justification for this report. But is required to do the exam and question everyone in the household. No one is a suspect except the only two males around her I suppose. The caseworker that called today, and the emergency ones who came by last night both agreed that there is no cause to remove anyone from the home. I am not upset at protective services in the least bit, I am however rightly upset that something that has been reported numerous times and worked on both through the schools IEP and the service agencies therapy led to this.
Everyone surrounding Jaelyn knows what she can and cannot do, this leads me to bitch B, someone in the school who was not IDed managed to tick off the caseworker by asking her yes no questions on if she was touched here or there. If you asked Jaelyn if the sky was red yes or no, she will reply (ASL) yes every… time. Someone overstepped their bounds, both in knowledge and rights. Mind you this was stated by the caseworker who said she was going to correct the mistakes that were made. Which is step one of my getting this to a point it will not happen again. All it takes in many cases is an accusation to fuck someones life up, gossip about innocence or being cleared isn’t nearly as juicy as gossip about a child perv. As someone in a small town, I know these as facts.
So I reiterate, know autism, know the situation before attempting to rip apart a family. Even if it is only a week to be cleared, that is a long fucking week.
Mama, yes we approved all paperwork to be cross checked with the caseworker, her reaction to masturbation being known and written up on every IEP etc was, priceless.
And a sincere thank you Snowcarpet, I mean that. Thank you so much, I am sure a ton of great information will be had from them!
Egads! I don’t have cites for you atm, but I wish you the best. I had students who regularly masturbated in my other class. For some, you could redirect. For others, they’d go til they orgasmed and they’d get naked and…well…there’s no way I could ever be a sped teacher. (This was when I was a para.)
The idea that CPS is investigating a mom who clearly knows what she’s doing and loves her daughter and is dealing with the most difficult situation in the world (children and medical conditions) is just boggling. Hope it blows over soon.
Mandated reporter here and, no, hypersexual behavior, per se, is NOT something we have to report. In particular masturbation, even frequent and obsessive masturbation, is not a red flag for abuse, and neither is a lack of understanding of social appropriateness in an autistic child. A child performing acts that seem to be imitative of adult sexual behavior, like trying to perform oral sex on someone else, or a male child attempting to insert a penis into someone else’s … anything … those are red flags are would require a report. Masturbation … not.
Not sure if this is the school or one person who took it upon him or herself to make a call. Hopefully if so that person learns, not to avoid making reports, but what actually qualifies as reportable, and what does not.
In one of the follow up it was said that it was using an object to masturbate that triggered the concern. Is this a legit report? I don’t know enough to say. I was mainly trying to express though, that as long as the penalties are so dire to failing to report, mandated reporters will generally overreport.
I agree with this. A child who is disabled and non-verbal is a very easy target for sexual predators. It is certainly possible that someone else could have abused her no matter how loving her parents are. It makes sense to err on the side of caution and INVESTIGATE a situation where it is possible that abuse has happened.
I can imagine it’s scary to be investigated by CPS, but an investigation doesn’t mean that the child is going to be taken away.
Sure, it sounds like in this case the teacher (or whoever) over-reacted, but I would prefer for teachers to overreact to possible abuse than to under-react.
If CPS didn’t take someone’s report of suspected abuse seriously and a child was harmed or killed because of it, that would be far worse than if some people are offended that they were investigated.
Yes in sugar and lollipop lands that would be swell. But in the real world, with mandatory police involvement, this has the potential to ruin lives all over an over-reaction. It takes anyone a few minutes to evaluate the situation, logically and/or approach the situation correctly. As the caseworker said if they did, this would NOT have been referred! That’s the part you and Hello are missing from my followups. In a small town something like this could have my son barred from friends houses, all males associated with Jaelyn smeared. It’s easy to pull the genie out of the bottle, much harder to put it back in.
This was a busybody prude I would assume who jumped the gun and if I had any legal recourse I may be tempted to pursue it. I know with mandatory reporting etc they would be shielded but with the caseworker saying the reporter did it wrong, made a mistake leads me to believe well this person handled this wrong. And if nothing else, I do not want another family to have this happen when it could be avoided.
Rereading your post, I have zero fear of my children being removed, I have anger and after talking to CPS today I know it is justified. I do however fear the gossip.
I don’t know if you intended this as a flip comment, but that’s how it reads. Super inappropriate :mad:
Please feel free to call me naive, but I don’t understand why anyone in your community would be gossiping about this. Who exactly is going to tell your neighbors what happened? Are the teachers’ jaws that flappy? If so, that’s fucking horrendous. If they aren’t bound to confidentiality by dint of their position, they damn well should be. IMO, anyway.
It doesn’t strike you that the OP’s daughter is somewhat other than an “average” woman of her age? Women have been using language to communicate for millenia, yet the OP’s daughter didn’t figure THAT out on her own. Ergo, not all things “natural for women for millenia,” are natural for her.
Sure, but masturbation is something a lot easier to figure out than talking. For one thing, you don’t need to be exposed to other people to know that rubbing your genitals feels good. Fetuses do it in the womb and no one’s telling them what to do.
She has rubbed on objects forever, this is nothing new. Shoes, vacuum cleaners, corners of chairs, toys on the floor. This is not new behavior it is behavior observed and tried to correct with therapy for years. Both with IEP and her outside services.
Yes confidentiality is I am sure supposed to be observed. In the real world it won’t happen. At least 10 people in her school would know about it, combined with protective services and the police the last two which I would trust it’s the 10 people in her school I wouldn’t hold my breathe against talking about it outside the perimeters of acceptable. They discuss it with one another, another overhears on and on and on. Rumor mills suck.
No, using an object to masturbate does not raise a flag. Girl toddlers and preschoolers routinely masturbate with pillows, against the edges of chairs, and by rubbing objects objects against themselves. That is normal behavior. Even extreme interest in that is not abnormal. (Even infants masturbate, even to the point of looking like they having siezures.) The issue here is that you have extreme interest coupled with a lack of ability to understand the generalized “not in front of Aunt Betsy” rule. That is a problem but not a sign of abuse in any way.
Yes, she is at risk for being abused by a staff member or another child and her public sexual behaviors coupled with her poor language skills probably increase her risks. Hopefully part of her education is teaching her “Private parts means they are yours to touch in private, and yours to touch alone, no one else except a doctor with Mom or Dad there saying it is okay. Anyone else and you let us know.” Hopefully her history of public masturbation will not make the concept that someone could do something to her unbelievable if she does someday, using whatever her communication level is, express that.
Yes, we often need to file when we doubt abuse is going on because an injury is, by its nature, suspicious. Mostly that is just a hassle and mostly parents understand why we are obligated to do so. Honestly the only times that parents have gotten angry about it have been when I was actually pretty worried that the case was real. No the system is not perfect.
In this case I’d suspect the rumor mill will be among the professionals (teachers included) bad mouthing the person who made a stupid report over behavior they all knew was standard bill of fair.
The problem is we are not in the “in” group, we fought them on issues with the IEP and they didn’t like it much. So we have a strike mark with the school from the word go. As for redirecting her to her bedroom or bathroom that was the plan for the last few years according to all plans, I am now wondering if it should have been just stopped. We managed to stop the feces art, by stopping it completely not allowing it in private. I know they are not the same thing, but we have never been able to have her do something in point A that she will not do at point B.
As for your last paragraph I hope you’re right. I know the caseworker would agree and the exams will prove it but I still worry about gossip.
But why would using an object to masturbate be considered weirder than masturbation in general, especially since this girl has been using them for a long time?
For some, you could redirect. For others, they’d go til they orgasmed and they’d get naked and…well…there’s no way I could ever be a sped teacher. (This was when I was a para.)