Yikes!! 11 year old and sex

[pepperidge]

HI,

Over spring break we got together with some old friends that we see about once a year. They have a daughter my youngest son's age and they used to hang out a lot together before we moved about 4 years ago. After about two hours together on the beach (not having seen each other since last summer), they went inside to get something and apparently agreed to have sex. Dad who was supervising let them go in, thinking that they were going to come back out with camera. (fortunately they didn't find camera!)

We found this out because the girl (who is not at all a difficult child) confided in her mother that they were having sex and she was worried that she was might get pregnant. Now from everything we can gather, all (gasp) they did was take off their clothes and lie on top of each other. (Clearly there are some gaps in their sex ed, it would appear.)

My youngest has Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) and is quite impulsive. Also beginning to go through puberty. Neither child is exposed to inappropriate videos etc. Guess there must be talk at school, but really I am still flabbergasted that they would even try something like this.

Needless to say, we were upset, angry and about fifteen other things. When we talked to him about it (calmly after the shock wore off), we tried to take the tack that curiosity is normal yada yada but there are apprpropriate boundaries. I am really not sure he even gets why we are upset about. There is a real immaturity there. I am not clear at all how much was driven by sexual pleasure and how much by more of an immature curiosity. His knowledge of what even sex is is not even clear. Needless to say we have also provided some remedial sex ed.

I also explained to him that it is likely we will never see this family again. That didn't seem to register--perhaps again Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) inability to really think ahead to consequences. I am actually pretty depressed about that, as these are very good friends. It is so hard to find good friends who seem to like your difficult children and the whole family treasured the relationship. I am devastated that this happened with her daughter --though I think the daughter is not entirely blameless.

Among other things, this has made me aware that my youngest difficult child is going to need a whole level of supervision beyond what I expected. At this point, while I would expect it is still many years away, I am certainly not going to let him go to parties etc.

Yikes. This is just way out of my parenting league. HELP!

p.

 

[Loving Abbey 2]

WOW! I'm so sorry!! While I know this is a very shockiing experience, I have hear over the last 5 years or so about 10, 11, 12 etc year olds getting pregnant and giving birth. jSo I'm glad to hear that they didn't actually have sex. Everything is happening so much sooner for kids! I have no words of wisdom on this. My difficult child is 8 turning 9, and she already has more questions than I was prepared for.

Good luck!!!

 

[Wiped Out]

P,
I'm sorry this happened. I haven't had to deal with anything like this yet so I don't have any advice. Just sending gentle hugs and a prayer that maybe someday you will be able to reconnect with this family.

 

[Jena]

hi

ok i can't imagine how shocked you must of been. it is shocking and upsetting. yet at the same time maybe you don't have to lose your friends. i understand that you are in fear of having the both of them together again. yet maybe all of you, both families could get together with both kids and talk openly about it. maybe sounds crazy. yet maybe if you approach it that way they will understand taht it's ok to be curious yet they are not ready for that step yet. that its' important that they keep their friendship.

was the other family upset with you and your son and family?

 

[amazeofgrace]

hmmmm must be in the water, because on top of being rapidly cycling, my 11 y/o difficult child has been obsessed with "sex" and all things "sex" because they had "the talk" in school. It's made dinner talk quite colorful. But I have a almost 17 y/o difficult child who probably hasn't even kissed a girl yet, and 11 y/o who comes home with his pockets full of girls phone #'s and has already planned on kissing his girlfirend (but she's not ready, LOL) I am frightened, and I say that very seriously. I went through labor and delivery with a 15 y/o, geez

 

[pepperidge]

Thanks for the kind thoughts. I need them!

Talked with my son's psychiatrist yesterday. She is going to bring it up at the next meeting in a few weeks. She is concerned, among other things, that he could put himself in a situation with some legal consequences.

We are very fortunate that our friends were very gracious and kind about the whole thing. That was a real blessing.

Their daughter didn't want to see my son again on vacation so we didn't see them again. I don't know what the long-term fallout will be for the friendship-- I think they need at this point to see how their daughter deals with it all. My son is sort of oblivious to it all, while the girl is more conflicted and bothered I think. But I can't imagine they will be real comfortable with getting together with us--particularly since it would involve getting together in a vacation setting since we live so far apart.

 

[AmyH]

I feel your pain in this situation. My 12 yo difficult child recently confided in me that he had played truth or dare with a 14 yo cousin and things got way out of hand. I know kids are courious but when is the line crossed and at what age is it more than couriousity?

difficult child said other boy cousin 12 also dared him to kiss 14 yo girl cousin so he did, (couldn't just say gross and leave) Well one dare led to another and she ended up performing oral sex on him. I was livid!
All of this happened when difficult child was at BioF house. At the time the cousins and their parents lived there.

diagnosis did not want to confront his sister about it because he knows everything will be blamed on difficult child (because it always is, in their family). It scares me because kids are being exposed to these things earlier and earlier and they are not ready for the consequences.

 

[change]

I'm so, so sorry that this is happening to your family. Though it's a bit of a different circumstance...my son was arrested back in November for assaulting his own biological sister (both adopted together) in our home. It was not his first physical attack on her but the first of this kind. I'm not comfortable putting down the details here in writing but you can probably fill-in the blanks. It was violent and horrific and because he is developmentally behind in puberty, (THANK GOD) he was not able to complete the act but it was very violent and now she is a wrck and scarred for life. He began "experimenting" on other children first at age 9. We were alarmed because sometimes the circumstances were like you just described, other times, they were aggressive. He had about an incident or 2 a year. Either way, we warned people and had him closely supervised and still no one would help us or admit him into an Residential Treatment Center (RTC). We were not living a normal life at all. We felt like wardens. He attacked both genders. It didn't matter. I'm not trying to scare you...just want to warn you to seek help and MAKE others listen. I don't know what we could have done differently but now our family is broken-up and everywhere we go we are faced with questions of "where is ______?" and my daughter has to deal with that too. It's awful.

Good Luck.