This One Has me Twisted

[Alice I]

We have neighbors that we became friendly with as soon as they moved in. They have a 10 yr. old girl; a 7 yr. old boy; a 5 yr. old boy and a 4yr. old girl.
The 10 yr. old girl and my daughter who is 6 have formed a fast friendship and Ally has actually done a couple of sleepovers at the neighbor’s house. The entire brood is usually over at my house because we have a large backyard with a play set that my husband built for the kids. The play set has a tower and roof where the slide is and it turns out that Ally (6) and the 5 yr. old boy were up in the tower playing. Emily my 3 yr old and a 7 yr old from up the street were swinging on the swings so they could not see up into the tower where Ally and the 5 yr. old were. (Thank G** - I’ll explain)
The 10 yr. old girl comes over and joins Ally and her brother in the tower and “Double Dog Dares” my 6 yr. old daughter and her 5 yr. old brother to take their pants and undies off and “Do it”.

When Ally told me about this I nearly fainted. I am proud of the fact that I did remain calm and questioned her carefully with out freaking her out to get to the truth of what exactly happened. What Ally told me and then when I had her repeat her story to her father convinced both of us that she was NOT making this up.

The children did not “Do it” but they touched each other in a very inappropriate way. Ally says that the boy forced her but I believe that is partly Ally’s drama queen act and partly the fact that she knew that Mommy and Daddy were concerned and taking this story very seriously so naturally she wanted to avoid blame for poor behavior.
We talked to the parents, who we do not want to have problems with, about our concerns and they were very upset by their daughter’s behavior. They told us that there have been problems with her (the 10 yr. old) lately since she started playing with a different child at the top of the hill. They assured us that she would be severely punished and apologized profusely for her behavior.

Here is where my concern lies. They did not mention the 5 yr. old at all. Finally I brought it up saying that they might want to talk with him about this as his 5 yr. old little brain probably hasn’t got a clue that what happened in the tower is a problem. Ally realized it was a problem immediately and that is why we didn’t find out about the details until a few days later. You see the fact that an inappropriate dare was made of the two younger kids was clear two days ago but that particular fact Ally slipped to me after dinner this evening. What we knew two days ago was that when it was only 40 degrees (F) outside Ally had her shirt off and was basically naked from the waist up. I went ballistic and that is when the "Double Dog Dare" bit came up.

I do not want to alienate our neighbors but I just don’t think it is a good idea for those kids to be playing with my girls. The father has already stated that the 7 yr. old boy has emotional problems from his previous living environment with his mother (ex-wife) and he does not like the way his son plays with my girls so the 7 yr. old is generally not allowed over with the others unless there is lots of adult supervision. This seems like a very responsible thing for this father to do so I am having difficulty reconciling my feelings in this matter.

Nothing “Bad” happened to Ally but what did happen between these two children urged on by another child was wrong on so many levels that I don't know where to begin to deal with the situation. One thing for sure is No More Sleepovers!

No one ever said Parenting is easy.

[Krum]

I just love small children's ignorance...they don't worry about wars plagues and stuff.Their little minds are just filled with joy and happyness exept when they"get a boo-boo" .I think it's very early to explain to them the birds and bees-they probably don't know what they have done.I mean take me for instance-i found out about the world's troubles and now look at me 8) .Just like that-
4 years-there's no santa( )
6 years-people die
6 years-social life can hurt at times
8 years-some junkie guy murdered some people without a reason
8 years-i realised what pain the demented people feel when i saw one
13 years-love hurts...a lot
14 years-"coolness" gets the most of us
14 years-life sux
and i kinda started growing up too fast
3 years-i started reading
the rest of my life-people think i have the potential to be a genious

conclusion:i'm just a lonely guy balancing on the thin line between genious and madness and i'm not very keen on social contacts

just forgive them and let them be ignorant little kids so they can enjoy their childhood to the fullest

btw i'm tired of always using all of my strenght to live up to people's expectations

[TDM]

jeez, that is a twisted situation. i can see that you don't what to alienate your neighbors, and they seem like nice people. but it seems that lost of nice people have evil little demons for kids. not that i'm implying anything, but a lot of people in my school who are real pricks have the nicest parents in the world. some things are just in so deep that you can't get out. basically, be glad that most kids don't remember details of their childhood. they tend to block out the mediocre stuff.