child abuse question

I have a question for you guys. This is very personal and I'm going to try to keep this as short as possible.

1.5 years ago, there was an incident involving my daughter at the daycare. All 3 kids were 4/5. This little boy who we will call "Boy 1" told her about a cool spider web and asked her if she wanted to see it. She said yes and they went there. I guess another boy followed (Boy 2). "Boy 1" then pulls my daughter's pants down and then pulls her panties down (they didn't come down with the pants), he touches her on her butt crack and tells "Boy 2" to do it too.
My daughter said she tried to kick the "Boy 1", missed and ran to the teacher and told her what happened.

When I picked up my daughter, they told me nothing except that "a boy TRIED to pull her pants down". The teacher seemed pretty upset though but I remember all the times the boys lifted my dresses and didn't think anything of it.

I'm driving home and I keep thinking about how upset she was and I asked my daughter "what happened today". She then tells me the story above as I told it to you guys. I flipped out. I called the daycare right away and asked for an explanation and to also tell them that this is what my daughter was saying.

We asked her several times what happened and she was very clear on what happened.

My husband and I were livid. How can this happen and no one see it happening and why did they not tell me when I picked my daughter up? We talk to the director of the daycare and she keeps putting it off to "child curiosity" and that this is "normal".

We went around and around with this woman and she never told us what to do, who to call etc. She even told us that "sometimes children get isolated on the playground". WHAT?
They wouldn't even put him in another room but they did make sure that they never spoke or interacted. That wasn't good enough. After talking to our daughter and asking her what her feelings were, we demanded she be moved to another room so she got moved to the class above. She already knew the children since they have playground time together and we made sure we asked her what she wanted to do.
She wet her bed every single day and we had to hold her all the time. She still talks about it and every time she gets a new teacher/class, she doesn't want to go because she doesn't want a mean boy to do what "Boy 1" did to her.

My husband and I went to talk to a counselor without daughter and then we took her in at a later date and the counselor talked to her alone. I have no idea what happened. I asked for the records but they have no mention of her assessment with the 1 on 1 time.

So what I want to know is this: Is this normal behavior? I don't think it is at all.

I'm asking now because I just got a note from the school about a seminar thing they are having next week about "Protecting your child" including topics like "proactive steps to protect your child", "what to do if you think something has happened" ...

The guests include "Child Abuse Network", "Department of Child Services", "Family and Children's services", Police....

I had called DHS (department of child services) after 2 months of not knowing who to call. No one knew who I should call, what I should do and I was totally lost. Not even the psychologist knew.
They determined "no lack of supervision". They jsut talked to me but they also didn't give me any info.

So what is making me all livid again is this: DHS is one of the participants and yet, the daycare which was DHS rated didn't tell me what to do.

I am thinking of going and asking "shouldn't a DHS rated daycare be able to tell me who I need to contact, what the steps are?"

And while I know that this isn't the worse thing that has happened to a child it still makes me mad. My husband thinks they could have prevented the whole thing. Maybe so but the part that makes me mad is the obvious cover up that came afterwards, the lack of concern for my child, the lack of information.

I tried to make this short..sorry!

It definitely sounds like it was mishandled right from the get go, even by the teacher! It has obviously seriously affected your daughter and I would be pursuing it. Those boys should not have gotten away with what they did, young or not! Is this something that you would feel comfortable speaking about at the seminar, perhaps one on one with one or more of the guest speakers afterwards to ask them for their input?

Hmmm it is a tricky situation. Obviously it was not okay since your daughter was badly affected by it.. Generally I would say kids ARE curious, and they were all the same age and I bet that stuff happens alot unfortunately. It would be a little different if it were older boys doing that..but in this case they were probably just curious.

Personally I would also be wondering WHERE Boy 1 learned it, especially since he told Boy 2 to do it too. I dunno, that just stuck out to me.

Hope you can resolve this

If I can get this straight-this just happened again or just the one time a year and a half ago?? Are the same boys still at the same daycare?? Any type of written report-the other parents contacted??
I don't have children but after I graduated from college yrs ago I worked for a public health program and we (this is 20 yrs ago) back then while not trained on child abuse were advised to look for physical marks and make a report. We did have a couple of suspicious cases.
Is it possible to change day care?? This place does not seem to have the childrens best interests look after. I would think you would be able to file a report and have this childcare place looked for other cases.
I would wonder why they are having this seminar-have they ever had it before??? More unknown complaints perhaps. If any of the speakers have business cards I would obtain and not talk to that night but get in contact the day or two after the seminar.
Good luck.

The seminar is at her school. She is in kindergarten now and doesn't have daycare. She left that daycare 6 weeks after that when pre-K started and went to the daycare at school.
I would have changed immediately but I couldn't because of schedules. All the daycares open at 6:30 that i found and i had to be at work at 6:45 and this one was on site and opened at 6:20 and I had no one to keep her or to drop her off there for me. My husband got home at 7:30 and i wasn't going to leave her home alone for an hour.

Kids are curious, but pulling down someone else's pants, and then underwear, and touching, is not just curiosity. I would have asked for a meeting with the parents.

It sounds like the daycare is understaffed. Children that age should be within sight of responsible adult(s). What you described took a couple of minutes, and the children shouldn't have been off by themselves and out of sight for that long. Pants going down twice on a child should have caught the attention of a teacher.

I'm sorry this has affected your family so much. My advice is, when she wants to talk about it, focus on how it made her feel (not Boy 1 or 2, or the teachers). I'd try really hard to turn it into a learning experience, talking about "personal space," why we aren't allowed to touch others without permission (including hitting), private areas and their correct names, what to do next time if anything like this ever happens again. Hang in there!

Cheers, from
SwampWitch

That's what we did. We didn't talk about anyone but her. How was she feeling and we also made sure that she knew that she did nothing wrong, this wasn't her fault and that we loved her very much.
Then we had to explain that it was not ok to touch private areas and that no matter what, if someone does it, you have to tell. We had actually already told her that if someone hurt her to let us know no matter what they say. We told that we would always love her even if someone hurt her and we would not be mad at her at all. (You know how bad guys say that mom and dad will be mad or not love you..)

She is fine now..every now and then she brings it up but it's rare anymore. The biggest time is when she is going in a new class so at the start of the school year.

I should have asked to talk to the parents. They said the parents were mortified blah blah blah..how do i know that?

I would do it now but not then. I had no idea. I guess in a way I was intimidated or something. I dunno.

Well that is quite a sticky topic. I've worked at several daycares...most recently was a few months ago. I was the primary teacher in my classroom. It was 1 teacher per 7 students- and my sister worked with me- we had 14 in our class. It's impossible to have an eye on every single child every moment of the day- however.....what any good teacher would do would be to sit/ stay in a spot where they can see ALL of their children at all times or at least attempt to. If the teachers were intereacting with their children as they should have been and having group play together- this would have never happened. I hate that this happened to your child. I do think that the little boy was curious....he had probably seen his daddy do something similar to his momma without them knowing...or perhaps that child is abused himself? At 4-5 though i think he's soly immitating what he's seen/ not meaning anything sexual by it. HOWEVER the fact still remains that your daughter was subjected to this and the daycare is not willing to do much. Honestly- I would switch daycares if at all possible. As far as DHS goes and DCS....you're pretty much out of luck- I HATE the people that work at those places- they won't do crap for the children! When I worked at the daycare center over the summer- there were 2 specific instances in which two different children were very much so being abused- we took notes every day and loged it- took statements from each teacher...and the whole 9 yards and called DCS and INSISTED that they come out and investigate- they did....and "claimed" they didn't find anything troublesome!!!! There were burises all over the kids bodies! Those jerks just didn't want to spend their prescious time and help them! I don't trust DCS or DHS ....unless a child is on life support or 1/2 starved...they won't do a thing for the most part....at least not in Memphis/Bartlett anyways It's pathetic. So don't count on them to come through for you- you're gonna have to raise some cow if you wanna get them do to anything. I'm sorry this has happened to your daughter. I do applaud you for seeking out a counselor and trying to get her the help she needs and figure out what happened. Maybe continue to do that a bit longer

I think the important thing is to keep an open dialogue with your daughter about it - not pushng it but being willing to go over it whenever she wants to, and you are doing that. When I was 8 I was assaulted in similar fashion by the bigger boy next door, and my mother refused to talk about it - different generation. So I lived in terror and feeling dirty and guilty for years, because she did make me feel it as somehow my fault and I knew it was wrong.

I do work at a kindergarden/day care, and this is normal behavior for children. They are just curious. Similar stuff has happened like this at our day care too. We talk to the kids and tell them that we are not supposed to do stuff like that. And when they are caught doing something they usually know that they are in trouble.

I have learned myself not to make a big deal about stuff like that. We have caught little boys peeing behind a tree, (because they get to to it at home), like another poster said it is almost impossible to keep your eye on every kid, every moment that you are with them.

I work with the youngest group at our day care, they are from 15 months -two years old. They bite, they take away toys, they push each other, they do almost anything that you can think of. I am very observant with them, and I have my eyes on them all the time. But it takes about 1 second for them to do something. I can have my eyes on them and they are biting before you can get to them.

They are just little, and they don't know right from wrong yet. They have to be taught.

I am sorry that the original poster had such a bad time with her day care and the teachers. We have always been there when parents want to talk to us about anything.