What are you supposed to do when you witness a family member being raised poorly? I mean it’s nothing abusive of course, but I don’t see good things in their future if the continue on this path. My cousin’s are three and five and are already swearing, the eldest is extremely overly sexualized and neither have any sense of right or wrong. I don’t want to see them in trouble, but I’m not sure what to do or if there even is any right thing to do, I thought momberries might have some ideas. Thanks.
[name]Just[/name] out of curiosity, how old are you yourself? If your a young teen, I wouldn’t approach the parents because it could appear condescending/inappropriate having a young teen give parenting advice. If your older, I think mentioning something to the parents should definitely be an option. You’ll have to be careful as to how you approach it, though.
I would casually mention to them next time you see them, in a non confrontational manner that you noticed that the kids have been swearing a lot lately/misbehaving/being inappropriate and your concerned that something may be going on with them. You could say that you know a child called X who is the same age as the 3/5 year old and he never swears or misbehaves and your wondering if their kids behaviour is age appropriate. Be sure to let them know that you think they’re great kids etc., and just sharing concerns.
If you are young, say age 13-14, I would confide in an adult and get them to mention it to the parents instead.
Keep a close eye on them and report any concerns you have to another family member to see if anyone else has noticed the behaviour.
I agree, but you can also help by being a stable appropriate role model for them to follow. I have no idea what their home life is like but it sounds extremely casual and discipline is lax. If their parents ignore your concerns the only thing you might be able to do is just be around them a lot and show them through example that all adults do not act that way.
I agree completely with pink. It’s hard. I’ve been through similar with my sister. At least in that case I could talk to her, but you run the risk of them not listening. At least you spoke up no matter what happens afterwards. If you bring it up, and you should, be ready for the possibility of backlash. I know, as a parent, it is not fun being told what you’re doing wrong. Sometimes, though, it needs to be said and it absolutely does in this case! Stay strong and I know you’ll make the right decision. Good luck [name]Molly[/name]!
I think being a good role model is the best thing. I have an old high school friend with two young children who hit (or as he says, “stand up for themselves”) and swear. Their mother is a conspiracy theorist who doesn’t think HIV leads to AIDS, doesn’t pay taxes, and doesn’t work in order to avoid taxes. I’ve talked to him about it before, but he just steamrolls over me, and dismisses it. It’s a bit of a mess, but what can you do? Unfortunately, you don’t need a license to have kids. [name]Just[/name] be there for the children as they get older.
I am sorry, but an overly sexualized 5 YEAR OLD and no one has jumped on that fact immediately?
As a survivor of child sexual abuse, that is a major major red flag that I WISH someone had noticed in me as a child the way I look back now and see in my childhood self, if someone had noticed it could have saved me from a million terrible things and gotten me the help I still should probably seek. A child that knows of sexual things before they should generally doesn’t know of them from just watching TV. It generally means they are being introduced to the concepts in a very different, more damaging way. That alone is a reason for a call to Child Protective Services to let them know what is going on and let them investigate it, if there is something going wrong there, hopefully they will find out, and maybe you’ll have helped saved a child from a fate I wish no one had to imagine.
I don’t think it’s anything like that Kibby, their parent run away from them and their responsibilities more than they at home and I can’t see my Uncle doing that, though I don’t know my Aunt that well. She speaks out at dinner with random sexual things “Mommy look at my vagina” is a popular one, everyone ignores it, she’s also very sexual when it comes to baths, which she worryingly takes with her brother. It seems to be more attention hunting.
First of all I wonder about the “extremely overly sexualized” comment. I thought first you just meant she dressed in sexy clothes (mini skirts, hot pants, short tops, low cut tops, bikinis, etc.), but after Kibby’s comment I started wondering. Can you please specify?
Unless there are any serious red flags (and it doesn’t sound like there are) I honestly wouldn’t say anything, especially as you are so young. I don’t say this to criticize you, but critique from a teenager will probably not be welcomed graciously. I don’t know if this is all there is to it, but by what you said in your post, technically there’s nothing wrong. The fact that your parents don’t feel the need to say anything also backs this up for me. At 16 you are still very young, and there are certain things you need to be properly grown up to understand and be able to deal with. Do you know if they’re trying to deal with these things? Kids hear swearing everywhere, it’s actually a difficult thing to make them stop doing, especially if the parents use a lot of swear words. The sense of right and wrong… at three I wouldn’t be worried… at five, maybe. How often do you see them? With or without their parents? Not meaning to sound like a cliche here, but no one knows what goes on behind closed doors, and some children are little monsters.
Just saw your reply to Kibby. She doesn’t sound overly sexualized to me, she’s interested in her sexuality, it’s completely normal. Maybe someone should talk to her about these things in a serious and grown up fashion.
Actually I disagree with ottilie. This is not normal pre-adolescent behavior. It does sound like attention-seeking, which is normal, mixed with something potentially a bit darker. 5 year old children don’t explore their ‘sexuality’-- they explore their bodies, their anatomy, they’re fascinated by differences, but it is not on their normal emotional/cognitive spectrum to use sex as a way of drawing attention to themselves, or as a tool.
Having some experience with this, I agree with [name]Blade[/name]. If you’re not an adult yourself you need to speak with an adult such as your parents - someone you can trust to do the right thing. I would venture to say someone needs to check on this situation, talk to this little girl and the family. It’s my opinion that an experienced professional needs to ascertain if there is abuse. It wouldn’t necessarily be the parents. But in my experience, where there’s smoke, there’s fire.
Unfortunately things like this get overlooked, people talk themselves into thinking everything is ok, so they say nothing, and sometimes that means a child keeps getting hurt.
Hang on, I didn’t mean exploring the sexuality, I meant that a fascination and interest in the reproductive organs and all that is normal. Or was that just me? I think I knew what sex was and what everything was for since I was three-four.
Also, before I know what sexual behaviour in the bath is, I’m not judging.
I’ll just say this and shut up: I’ve been around two little girls at different times and in different circumstances, ages 4 and 6 at the time, who behaved the way you described. [name]Just[/name] a bit over sexual, a bit preoccupied with their anatomy. Not just curious on occasion but atttention seeking. Very long story short, it turned out both were abused. The 4 year old particularly badly. The abuser of the 6 year old (and her 10 year old sister) is in prison now.
I am not saying this to freak you out, and of course this may not be happening to your cousin. But man, we all wish we had done something sooner. [name]How[/name] many incidences of abuse could we have saved them from? You know? It haunts me. And tbh I have some firsthand experience as well.
It sucks that you are 16 and having to deal with this without adults to help you. I don’t want to tell you what to do and I am not there to give my opinion firsthand nor am I a child development professional. I am just speaking from my own experience, and based on that I would get on the phone with CPS. That’s my two cents.
Meanwhile I’m praying the kids are ok and everything works out.
@ottilie it was a misunderstanding then. You are right-- which I tried to echo above-- exploring anatomy is perfectly normal. Having a vague, if not entirely accurate, idea about sexual reproduction is also normal at that age. What’s abnormal and alarming is using sex as an attention-seeking device this young. It shouldn’t be possible.
Anyway OP, about your other concerns-- swearing and general brattiness-- not much you can do there, except actually man up and speak to your aunt/uncle about your worries.
I have a cousin who can be problematic (except he’s older than me.) What helps is that he looks up to my big brother, who has a lot more respect and drive than my cousin. So I think a possible solution is to just generally connect and become friends with your cousins (start off just talking to them, then perhaps draw pictures, make a cake, make a dance routine, have a water fight in the back garden), because:
They will have more to do and will have less time to be bratty. The attention-seeking behavior could mean they’re just bored and don’t get much attention from their parents.
You are older and they will look up to you and want to be more like you. They could benefit from having a healthy, realistic role model.
In the event there is abuse going on, you will be in a better position to spot the signs. It would also benefit them to have someone to trust in the long run, even if there is no abuse.
Beyond swearing, brattiness and flashing, they probably have a good personality that just doesn’t get them the attention they want. So you might just forward to seeing them. Currently they sound challenging to be around but you’re posting here so you clearly care about them, and you may find a friend in them.
Also, if they achieve something (good piece of work at school or just a nice drawing, ect) then praise them for it. If they want to show you a picture they’ve drawn on the computer or whatever, go and see it.
Would also like to say there is nothing wrong with taking your concerns to a family member, even your aunt and uncle. I’m also sixteen now but that doesn’t mean we have to wait for the world to turn a few more times before we speak our minds.
I can’t obviously point the finger at any of your family members and definitely do not want to, but in situations that involve sexual abuse of a child, the statistics show that it is more often than not somebody the child knows, or somebody involved in the childs life regularly. Less than 2% of cases are by a person the child does not know.
30-40% of sexual assault victims are abused by a family member.
[name]Non[/name]-parental relatives – 35%
Friends and [name]Peers[/name] – 15%
Stepfathers – 13%
Biological Fathers – 9%
Other Acquaintances – 9%
Boyfriend/Girlfriend of Biological Parent – 5%
Biological Mother – 5% http://littlewarriors.ca/info/statistics-research/
[name]Just[/name] because you can’t see someone being capable of committing such atrocities, doesn’t mean they aren’t. Again, not pointing fingers, just a strong need to educate, http://littlewarriors.ca/ It’s worth reading about and researching to be an advocate for the safety of every child in your life and your future children even if it’s not the case in this specific situation. All I can say is know the signs and keep your eyes open.
[name]Just[/name] my thoughts here and I’m not trying to be uncaring or dismissive at all. Everyone here seems to have their own personal experiences with the topic. I’m no different. Please don’t jump to any conclusions about me based on my reply.
I don’t know what “being sexual during baths” means. My mind can jump to conclusions what this means and I can’t imagine that an adult (parent or you as a babysitter if this is the case) would allow something like that to happen without speaking to her. Are baths not supervised? Not that she will never do it again, but you act like this happens all the time and she is allowed to “be sexual during baths”
Saying “look at my vagina” does not sound like a child is being abused or has a strange fascination with body parts. I don’t see that as an “over sexual” comment at all actually. She is using the proper term – I dont know if you are uncomfortable with her using the word vagina or find that weird for a 5 yr old (and that is why you are calling it oversexual), but please know that many families choose to use the official words and not “pee pee” etc. To me it sounds like she is being silly and trying to get attention and in the past, she has gotten the most attention by being silly and shocking (not saying things like “hey mommy look at my ear.” or even just saying “hey mommy” over and over again). When kids learn new words they tend to get silly and repetative with them.
Your aunt should talk to her about appropriate behavior during bath time, dinner time, etc. That is not your job to do. If I were in your position, I would bring it up to my parents. Maybe just see if they are uncomfortable with her saying vagina during dinner or if they think she is using too many swear words. They might choose to go to your aunt with concerns, but they might not. I really don’t think it is your place to say anything about your aunt and uncle’s parenting skills. As far as swearing, when you hear them swear, you can say “don’t use the word ___ around me. that is not a polite word” I am sure any parent, even one who allows their child to swear, would not be offended or upset by you saying that. If the parent did question why you said that, I would just tell them you thought they would appreciate you giving a reminder.
Now if you had concrete (or even probably cause) evidence that something more was going on along the lines of abuse, definitely be more persistent in speaking up to your parents or going directly to your aunt/uncle. For a few comments at dinner, swearing, maybe wearing “trashy” clothes – that’s just a personal difference to me. The bath thing, I don’t understand what you mean, but it could be innocent like playing house or doctor, which is normal for that age range.
What happened in the bath the one time I was there was that she pushed her brother down and started rubbing against him and saying ‘Oh [name]Jamesie[/name], that feels good on my vagina.’ which makes me feel like it’s more than just interest in anatomy and even if it is she could be seriously hurting her brother and his perceptions of the world. I was in charge of that bath so I took her out of the bath, tried her off and put her in time out in her room, she started crying and her mother came up and apologized to her and failed completely to see anything wrong in this situation.
I’m not sure how much help I will get out of adults my parents both agree that it’s none of our business, my grandmother doesn’t want to see it as being the parents fault (because their father is her pride and joy) and my grandfather doesn’t want to admit that any of his grandchildren might not be innocent. Anyway my aunt thinks my family and I are snobs and my uncle thinks whatever she tells him to think.
A whole constellation of what might be loosely termed ‘sex play’ is normal; forcible simulation of intercourse is not.
And I agree with cruchymama in that vagina itself is not a troubling term-- very appropriate. A big red flag would be if she used graphic profane/sexual terms like p****.
Like all doctors-- especially ones that work in emergency rooms-- I am trained as a mandated reporter. What you have described would absolutely merit an evaluation by CPS (in fact if I was interviewing a patient, heard this story, and did NOT call them I could be disciplined by the state medical board).
Why don’t you start with talking to your own parents? Asking their opinion?
I’m 16, neither of my parents or grandparents want anything to do with the problem so should I have liaison or bring it up casually?