I can only hope that when I’m a parent I can handle myself the way you did.
And that I can teach my kids enough for them to act like yours.
Holy shit.
I’m speechless. The mind, it is truly boggled. Vibes and hugs to you and mudgirl.
I am so sorry for your family, Norinew. I am so glad your daughter trusts you enough to come to you with this kind of thing. Hugs for you and your whole family.
Have the police said anything about testing the boys for diseases as part of this whole process?
I have nothing but admiration for the way you handled this, norinew. I’m not sure I could have stopped myself from throwing a brick at their heads or something. It sounds like you’re raising a very smart, very capable little girl there. I hope CPS and/or the cops take this seriously. Jeez.
… I don’t know if I could stay as calm as you could. You’re doing the right thing, and I salute you for it.
norinew, I’m so very sorry to hear that you, and mudgirl have had this happen, and you have to deal with it. You and she seem to have handled a situation that would have had me in jail with wisdom and clear thinking. I am in awe of you. And even more in awe of mudgirl.
Here’s hoping you can keep your cool long enough for CPS and the police to build a proper case.
{{{{Norine}}}}
You handled that so well, and in a way that will be beneficial to mudgirl. You did not freak out, so your daughter was not made more upset than she had been to start with. You believed her and did something right away. What a precious gift that was to her.
And from the sound of things, you are treating her no differently than you did before this happened. I belong to a sexual abuse survivors group on LJ, and one of the things many of them say is that they hated how people treated them as if they were somehow different afterwards because it made them feel worse about themselves. Your ability to treat her the same as always may be the most important thing you’ve done.
My admiration and condolences to all of you. You for handling it well and being the sort of parent trusted by her child, she for knowing enough to stop things before they got too far and for coming to you. I know I couldn’t have handled it anywhere near as well.
Now, if you’ll forgive me, I’ll indulge myself in a couple of daydreams in which those boys are thoroughly taught that this sort of behaviour Is Not Done.
I just got back from my buddy’s house, who has an 8 year old daughter. I can’t even think of what to say about this situation??? I hope this situation passes as easily as possible for you and your family.
Have you talked any more to your daughter about what happened?
Oh my god that’s awful. I’ll be thinking of you. Sounds like you’re handling this as best as such a thing can be handled. Peace to you and your family.
I am not a counselor. Nor do I have any degrees that would apply to this situation.
Having said that, I want to suggest that I think letting mudgirl bring things up if and as she wants would do better than making her talk about them, now.
Someone from CPS is already scheduled to come over to talk to mudgirl about what happened. If she suggests a more aggressive therapy program, that’s fine - but for now, mudgirl has been told that she did exactly right, and that she’s not in trouble. People, and kids in particular, tend to believe that there is some kind of trouble when they have to keep talking about something they don’t want to discuss.
Right now, mudgirl seems remarkably free of any sense of damage being attached to her. I would want to tread very carefully to make sure that she does not come to feel that what has happened in any way makes her damaged. And IMNSHO forcing her to talk about what happened will emphasize that even more than the growing circus is going to.
Let it go for now, please.
But by all means, check my gut feelings with a professional soon, too.
Oh my God. I think I want to hit something.
norinew, please give her an extra hug for me, really tight.
Yup, seconded.
So, uh, what usually happens next in a situation like this? (I haven’t lived in the US much since 1986, so I’m a little sketchy on this kind of thing.) As in, will the police try to “put a scare” into the boys (and their parents) and that will be it, or will the kids have some kind of juvenile record/be taken away from their homes, or what?
Oh, wow, norinew, how awful. All I can do is echo what everyone else has said – you are a terrific mom, and you handled the situation absolutely perfectly. I know mudgirl will have few if any lasting bad effects from this mess as a direct result of your own response. Give her an extra hug from me and Isaac and Rusty, my two silly dogs, okay? I’d send Rusty over to sit on your feet and tell you you’re wonderful if you lived any closer, he makes everybody feel better when he does that!
The boys will probably find some really, really serious trouble raining down on their heads, CairoCarol. These days that kind of situation is not shoved under the rug. At a guess, the parents will possibly find all their kids removed by CPS, and the boys will have charges brought against them that, if they’re convicted, may follow them the rest of their lives – I’m not sure at just what age sexual misbehavior charges stick permanently; they may not, with boys this young, but then again, they just might. Which would mean they’d have to register as sex offenders wherever they live for the rest of their lives. A few years ago received a notification in the mail of a registered sex offender moving into my neighborhood; that’s how seriously it’s taken these days. Also, the parents may also find themselves in some kind of legal trouble. IANAL and all of this is strict conjecture, but something tells me these kids are going to be in some deep shit. And deservedly so.
Keep us updated on the case, btw. I want to know what happens to these punks. At 13-14, they’re old enough to be in some serious trouble.
:eek: :eek: :eek: 
:mad: :mad:
{{{{{norinew}}}}}
I’m sitting in my office at work, with tears streaming down my face. I can’t begin to imagine how you must be feeling inside, but I applaud your strength of character in doing just what you needed to do, and saying just what you needed to say, to help mudgirl.
My daughter is only 15 months old and the thought of anyone trying to hurt her in any way makes my blood boil, so you have my undying admiration for staying calm and in control.
I’m know I’m going be unpopular for these questions: (1) Were there any other kids in the yard besides your daughter and these two teen boys? (2) If not, WTF were you thinking? Where was your head that you thought your little girl was ok w/two teenage boys in the area?
I’m the mom of two daughters, & I’d never have considered letting either of them be alone with one, much less two, teenage boys. Teenage boys are testosterone-driven. One teenage boy alone is bad enough, but get two together & they feed off each other.
('kay, Phil, calm down…) Norine, take the little bstrds to court, & make sure your daughter gets some sort of counseling (depending on what insurance your family has).
You & family are in my prayers.
Love, Phil
Well, here it is 4:30AM, and I don’t think I’ll sleep any more tonight.
I’ll address this question first:
The yard she was in with the boys is directly to the east of the house. The windows in the house all look out on the yard. Our cousin Bill lives with us, in the other half of the duplex. Bill was out there with mudgirl (well, he was sitting on the front porch). There were other kids there, too, it wasn’t just her and two teenage boys. I was upstairs in the bathroom coloring my hair. But the shade in the bathroom window was halfway up and the window was open and I could look out anytime, and I could hear her playing in the yard. She just got some water guns, and her and some other kids were playing with them.
Bill had to go in for a few minutes to take a call from his pharmacy. But, like I said, the window of the bathroom I was in overlooks the yard, and I could hear what was going on.
Apparently while Bill was inside, the couple of other kids left, and it was only my kid and the boys, and when he came back out, he didn’t see the kids in the yard (even though I could still hear them; I wouldn’t have seen them, either if I’d looked out, but I’ll get to that in a minute). He was just about to go looking for her when she came back and went into the house to talk to me.
I have a neighbor that lives just to the west of me (the yard is to the east, remember), but her yard is large and behind her house and actually runs behind my house, too. Right next to my yard, is the tail end of her yard, and she has a shed there that she keeps her lawnmower and stuff in. The reason I could hear her but Bill couldn’t see her is that the boys had taken her behind the neighbor’s shed.
As for what I was thinking? Well, I was thinking I was right there within ear shot. I believe there’s a fine line between being protective enough and over-protective. The situation sort of spun itself out of thin air. No, I wouldn’t have sent her out to play with two teenage boys, but like I said, there were other kids for a while, too. I don’t think these punks planned this. I think the opportunity presented itself and they took it. And yeah, teenage boys are hormone-driven. But the normal ones deal with those hormones by jerking off and by trying to screw teenage girls, not by trying to coerce 8 year old kids into doing that!
Obviously, if CPS thinks I carry part of the blame in this, well, I’ll have to deal with that. And live with it.
OK. Deep cleansing breath.
Someone upthread mentioned keeping things as normal as possible, so in that spirit, I’m still sending mudgirl to the day camp program she’s enrolled in. I expect to hear from CPS later this morning, and if they want to talk to her earlier in the day, I’ll just go pull her out early. My 17YO has a doctor’s appt. I need to take her to at 11AM, but I gave the police officer my cell phone number so they’ll be able to reach me anytime they need to, and the doctor’s appt. shouldn’t take long anyway.
I talked to my husband again last night around 11PM, and he does want to kill them. While I admit that would be viscerally satisfying, I won’t let him do it. Well, not until I can help, anyway.
Believe me, I will follow this as far as I have to, and make sure that the full extent of the law is applied. Our insurance certainly will cover counseling, but even if it didn’t, there’s a wonderful place in town called the Family Crisis Resource Center, and they are set up for counseling and help for women and children who’ve been physically or sexually abused. There’s never a charge for their services. But for now, I’m following mudgirl’s lead. I’m proud of her that she handled it the way she did, but she seemed kind of shocked that I was calling the police. I think she just thought I’d go lecture them or something (although if I’d gotten close enough to lecture them, I really would have gone postal and hurt someone). I’ll see what CPS suggests.
Well, to put down what I’m feeling inside right now would take a long, long time. But I will say it’s amazing how “normal” you can act, and how you can hold it together, for the sake of your kid.
Mama Tiger, since we have no fenced yard, your dogs wouldn’t know what to do with themselves in this tiny house! Though I do appreciate the borrow-a-dog program offer (hey, you should go into business). For now, she’ll have to be content with her two gerbils, four guinea pigs, two cats, one betta fish and one tarantula! 
CairoCarol, as I mentioned in the OP, one of the punks who lives across the street from me has already been in his share of trouble, but I don’t think any of it has been. . .physical. . .in nature. More like stealing other kids’ bikes, shoplifting from the local stores, etc. I don’t know if he realizes how much more serious this is, and maybe he thinks that being a minor will protect him. Certainly the law won’t be as harsh as they would if he were an adult. But the police officer was pretty clear that this will not be a case of just “warning the boys not to do this again”.
This is how I feel, too. When CPS comes, I’ll see what they suggest, but for right now, I’ll keep things as normal as possible. I did tell her, though, that if either of those boys sets foot on our property, she is to come tell me, or her sister, or Bill, immediately. They will not come on my property, ever again.
Oh, I freaked out all right. I’m freaking out right now, in fact (shaking and crying), but I didn’t let her see that.
At the end of the school year, they had an assembly on being touched inappropriately. They were given the directive: “NO. GO. TELL.” (Say “no”, “go” away from the situation, “tell” a responsible adult). She brought home a little coloring book about it and she and I discussed it. I told her then that she could tell me anything, and I would deal with it, but that if she tells an adult who doesn’t believe her, she should keep telling people until she finds someone who does believe her.
For everyone else, thanks for the kind words and good thoughts. It really does help.