I'll show you mine if you show me yours.

[LAS14]

Today in The Globe there was a story about a mother's year long effort to get her son's name expunged from all records relating to a report of sexual assault on his part of a classmate. Her son was 6 at the time and the assault consisted of putting his hand up her skirt and touching her "bum" as she put it.

The title of my post has to do with my memory of such things in my own childhood. That phrase was common and aroused smiles. Seventy years ago when I was six one summer playing "doctor" was pretty popular in my neighborhood. (I do have a memory that goes back pretty well, in some cases to 18 months old). In other words, "back in the day," such a reaction would never have happened.

I'm well aware that lots of work needed to be done on the front of educating people about sexual assault, all the way from rape to pressure in the work place. But I also worry that our children't first explicit introduction to sex will be that it is a crime. Any thoughts on how to strike the right balance here? For what it's worth, the laws themselves are a total muddle. In Massachusetts children under 12 can't be charged with a crime, but the case is being made against the close relationship between schools and the police.

Here is the story that got me thinking. Sorry. It's probably behind a pay wall.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/02/20/metro/somerville-mother-is-stunned-how-can-school-officials-accuse-her-6-year-old-son-sexual-misconduct-report-him-police-charges-racism-ensue/

[Laelth]

1. It's an interesting and important question.

Frankly, I have no answer.



-Laelth

[Timewas]

2. Assault??

That was not assault that was curiosity, if they had used that "back in the day" a fairly large percentage of us would have records for sexual assault..It has gone beyond stupid..

[thx64536]

3. Some limitations on consequences

I may be going too far here but it seems to me you should not have to carry an albatross on your back your whole life for something you did when you were 6. I think you have to be able to form complete sentences before you can be held accountable.

I think the worst thing I did when I was 6 years old was I inappropriately laughed out loud in public when Susan Policastro peed on her seat next to me in kindergarten. I know now I was being insensitive and I would act differently if it happened today.

[Rorey]

5. I don't think you're going too far at all.

More damage was probably done to BOTH children because adults handled it like it was a life-changing thing.

[Rorey]

4. At six years old

I think anyone who has had a six-year-old knows that they imitate what they see because they're learning about life. They're curious. I'd have a difficult time calling that "sexual assault".

A better reaction would have been to explain to BOTH children about what's appropriate. That's my opinion as a mom and a grandmother.

[MuseRider]

6. I was just going to post this.

It is the time for LEARNING. I doubt they even really have a good handle on what sex is. Maybe I am naïve about that but I would hope 6 year olds are still all about investigating and learning. They can easily learn what is not a good thing to investigate.

[chowder66]

7. +1

[pandr32]

8. Curiosity driven behavior presents a teaching moment

This is where a responsible person that the child respects explains what personal boundaries are in a way that the child will understand.

[SoonerPride]

9. This

Excellent reply

[MineralMan]

10. There's a difference between the show you mine/show me yours thing

and reaching up under someone's clothes to touch them, really. At age six, kids should have been taught to not violate the physical privacy of others and about the basic concepts of consent.

When I was five years old a couple was visiting my parents' house and had brought their 5 year old daughter. We two kids knew each other well, since there was a lot of visiting back and forth and babysitting going on.

So, while our parents were playing cards in the living room, we two kids decided to play doctor in the bedroom. My mom came in to check on us, and there we were, naked as jaybirds, checking each other out. Mom calmly said, "You kids put your clothes back on." We did. Then the other mom joined my mom and we got a little lecture about getting naked with other people. That was it. Nothing really changed, but we never took our clothes off together again. Well, not for over a dozen years, anyhow. But that's a different thing, altogether.

By age six, it had been made clear to me that touching other people's "private parts" was taboo, so I never did that, until I was a teenager and mutual consent was clear.

At age 5, curiosity is a high value motivator. By age six, lessons about physical privacy should be made clear to children. In the teen years, curiosity and hormones make all the rules sort of obsolete, but the concept of consent needs to be clearly taught before that stage of life.

As for the seriousness of what happened with those 6-year-olds, it's not all that serious a thing. A lecture is in order. A stern warning is in order. Permanent records of such things are not in order, it seems to me, unless it becomes a pattern of repeated behavior.

[LAS14]

11. That's a really good distinction, between a cooperating act and...

... an act on the part of one of the children. Parents and teachers would do well to keep it in mind when they talk, quietly and in an explanatory, not judgemental way, about what is OK and not OK as you get older.