Attempted diversion/coverup of child abuse.

I think you did exactly the right thing. The teenager was old enough to know that his behaviour was inappropriate and unacceptable because he took your child to his room so that he could expose himself in private. If he had not known or understood then he would have done it in public. Anyone who condones or excuses this behaviour is aiding and abetting him.

I know this has torn apart your relationship with your in-laws but your first duty is to protect your children and other children from any potential threat. If the young man is accessing child porn sites then he is already abusing children by default as he is providing the market that leads other children to be abused.

starrycole
Yes, you can move on from this, but it will take time, and your previous relational patterns will shift, and how they evolve onward from this won't be easy. Have no doubt that you did the right thing by speaking out, and I admire your stance in not apologising. Never an easy road to take.
Be very clear about your daughter's boundaries, and do not put her in any situation that makes you uncomfortable.
Any good counsellor will not give advice, nor tell you what to think or do, but in the process of being together, hopefully you will discover what you feel and think and what coping strategies best suit you. CBT sounds a very good option at a later date.
One day at a time seems to me to be a good way of tackling the rawness of all your feelings, and will give you breathing space in dealing with the fallout, and the changing family dynamics. It's not a race; it's important you remember that.
All the very best. x

Hi Grans

My previous post was much longer than it needed to be so thanks for readiing - I guess I just needed somewhere to rant!

I had a counselling session and feel a bit better afterwards. The counsellor was very sympathetic although she didn't tell me what I ought to be doing next, or really give any of her own opinion - which I find a bit fustrating.I think perhaps CBT might be more appropriate but I'll see how we get on over the next few weeks.

A previous gran here wrote about cognitive dissonance and I think that is exactly what everyone is suffering from.

I know the right thing to do is to allow a relationship between my inlaws and my children but I will just have to take each day as it comes. It all feels so painful still.

Anyway - have a great evening and thanks for writing back,

Really appreciate it!

Starrycole

There's some others on here who really know their stuff, too Jess, but thank you. I hope I can help.

enough maybe when but it is obvious to me from various contributions that you know your stuff in this department.

starry Its so good of you to update the situation and tell us what has been happening,I would say go with your own instincts on the contact side of things with your inlaws if you do not think it safe then its not safe is it ?when will give you the utmost support and help and you will not go wrong reading her views on this.((hugs))

Not much about my career on there now Jess. Will pm you Starrycole

Starrycole, our sympathies are with you. Your instincts are not wrong. Listen to wise and knowledgeable advice from whenI'm64 - if you look at her profile you will see that she has many years of experience behind her . Remember your counsellor is there to listen to you, support you and help you to grow and develop but may not have an expertise in child protection issues. Counsellors do not often give advice.

I don't know if you can move on yet, until you know how safe your children are with his family. It may be that just your husband would eventually take them to visit in the long term, so he would need to demonstrate his understanding of child protection and be prepared to challenge any inappropriate behaviour or language that woud undermine this. It's no use taking a child to a house where they will feel unsafe because they experience the family not believing them, or ignoring what they have said.

Is your BIL now undergoing any assessent or treatment as a result of his behaviour? If he is, part of it will require that he demonstrates that his parents do know what he did, and they should not collude with him, but encourage him to continue to self-regulate his behaviour and not jeopardise any child's safety. This doesn't make for the responsible introduction of children into the household, and social services would question why a child who has been unwittingly involved in the original incident is being taken back there?

Have you thought about asking the NSPCC if you and our husband can talk these issues through so he can get someone else's opinion that will explain why you are so oncerned?

Hi Grans

I thought I'd update and say hello. I hope you are all well and enjoying sunshine.

It's been a month past since I wrote here. I've been doing some intensive professional counselling but it's taken a month (an hour a week) just to get through my emotions and detail the saga to my counsellor. We have not yet moved onto CBT / positive actions just yet....

Where I am today, is that my husband would like for us all (that's me and the inlaws) to reconcile and at least tolerate each others presence infront of our children. My inlaws refuse to see me and only want to see my children (without my presence).

Furthermore, my ILaws want me to apologise for the
- 'hurt I have caused them',
- for needlessly pressurising them,
- and for my selfish, narrow minded views with intent of destroying their family.
Apparently, until I make these admissions I am still disowned.

My husband does not want me to mention my real motives ever again to his parents (he still believes I deserve the verbal abuse from his parents 'because I entertained dialogue with them'.) We have been threatening each other with court order threats over grandparents rights to see the children as I don't want the children to see my inlaws without me.

My husband feels extremely undermined. We originally agreed that he would handle it but I still directly entertained dialogue with his parents (on my own)

In truth, my husband and his parents have a very different coloured lense when they look at his brother/son than I do. They see it as 'what has happened - all he did was strip his clothes of'.

I have the lense; 'what could have happened' i.e. 'my daughter could have been raped'.

I would like to think I can take the moral high-ground and apologise for the hurt my inlaws feel and for feeling 'cornered'. But my inlaws just couldn't take my opinions and I completely snapped/breakdown at their reactions when they turned toxic towards me. In truth, I would do the same all over again and threaten them again if they didn't say something - I would.

Everytime I tried to talk to my inlaws they turned toxic. I lost confidence.

It is a desperately sad situation and I am so sad at the loss of their friendship with me as they are lovely grans. I am sad that I have been made out as an evil bitch when I know I am not and I am even more sad that my husband is feeling so torn as well as not being 'on my side'. It's ok for his parents to speak to him and burn me out. If he was trully a good husband, he would say to his parents if you don't accept my wife, you don't accept me.

I just wonder because I thought being a gran meant you have years of experience to enable you to have a good birdseye view of a situation, to rise above name calling/slandering your daughter in law (me) and to look at the long term future.

I'm for one would be happy to provide an olive branch and put a line under this but I'm just not prepared to say sorry for what I feel, fundamentally was integrally right to me.

Do you think we can move on from this at all?

Kindest,

Starrycole

Starry, abuse of any kind is always a highly charged subject and its not surprising that you are having to cope with a huge amount of emotional fallout from this. I suspect then everyone is very shocked and frightened and as we all respond in different ways to extreme emotions this might explain the response you have had from your relatives. Be strong, you have done the right thing, not just for your children but for the young boy concerned.

I know nothing about such abuse, and find it difficult to understand. Perhaps this is a problem for your family as well, do they perhaps think that this young boy's abusive behaviour comes from within himself or was he too subject to abuse? That would of course open a huge can of worms - so perhaps their anger and shock directed at you is part of a greater fear of someone else being an abuser. Untill the professionals have done their job you, and they will not know, but thankfully you have started to get answers. This will hopefully lead to some strategies that will help both the boy and you and your extended family.
I do hope you are getting some support, you should not go through this alone. All the best, and please stay strong.

Keep going starry. You have done the right thing. If your DH thinks about children being in this youth's company unsupervised, can he 'hand on heart' say he would be happy to leave him to it and be sure that no children would be harmed? And if that doesn't do the trick, ask him which child he would like this youth to be fantasising about to get gratification? I'm sure he won't be offering any child he cares about, so what's the difference?

Years ago (I might have mentioned this before) a famous American psychologist/therapist who works with offenders who abuse, said 'you have to tackle it when you come across abuse. One day you will walk past a child and neither of you will give the other person a second thought, but you just might have saved that child's life from being ruined by your actions now, and you will never know.'

Good to hear from you starry and I'm sure I speak for all when I say that we are glad to help in any small way. It is not your fault that your MIL is unwell. Really not. You have done the right thing and done your best under trying circumstances.
Counselling a good idea - because you obviously need support. Any of us - even those of us who are much older and have been through all sorts of rubbish in our lives - would be finding it difficult in your shoes.

WhenIm64, glammanana, dorsettpent, pettalus, JessM and other Gransnetters (I hope it's ok to call you that?)...thank you for writing to me. Its restoring my faith in grandparents again

I feel much more calmer now however, I am seeking counselling to manage my anger issues.

I approached my mother-in-law, on my own and in confidence. I thought we had a good relationship such that I thought I could speak to her about anything. I tried my very best to accommodate her son (who has just turned 16, he was 15 when the incident happened) into our lives again. Mother-IL is having mental breakdowns and recently went into hospital because of it and so the very few family who do know the reason why, are extremely upset (with me).

I've been vilified by my husband for speaking to my mother-in-law 'on my own' and for 'stiring up the tornado'.
I've been vilified by my inlaws for voicing the same and repeating the same (narrow minded in their words) opinion (which IMO is to enpower their son who is expecting a child - with knowledge). And under no uncertain terms have I been told that this is completely wrong and unnecessary.

I've been called everything under the sun and worse and dare I even speak to anyone else about anything without my in-law's permission, for the fear of god they would do this and that to me and...blah blah and so on. You get the picture. Funny, because I came to my inlaws first and I still got the ball-ache.

The expectant parents (my SIL/BIL) now know about the boy, but when speaking to my SIL, she seemed quite frosty to me and she asked NO FURTHER details. [My god, if it was me, I would be doing a major research with everyone, talking to police, child protection, the parents and even the boy, I want to know EVERYTHING).

On the surface everyone likes to have a happy face but underneath (certainly the way I feel)...it feels like it's all a lie. It doesn't feel like what a family ought to be, where you feel you can trust them with your children and be able to speak to them in confidence.

I'll get through this and so will my husband but I don't feel I can trust anyone in there and I certainly don't feel safe with my kids there with any of them!

Petallus it's both age and degree of deviant interest, as some older offenders may be naive and too scared to go further, whilst some youths may have been systematically abused and become corrupt themselves. A boy of 14 could be just becoming curious or be well along the path of planning and targeting children for himself and/or for others. It needs assessing.

I, personally, would not want the victim that we know of to be left to worry that this youth may do the same again if a little cousin was taken to visit and the adults were not vigilant.

petallus I would be worrying that my 14 year old may have encountered some inappropriate sexual experiences.. virtual or real.

Starry How awful for you. You have received some very good advice from many very well informed GNs. I support you. It certainly takes a huge amount of courage to address issues that ultimately leave you vulnerable to backlash from furious family members. Keep strong. You have nothing to feel sorry for. Quite the opposite, in my opinion.

When do you think the age of the abuser makes any difference? The thought of middle-aged men in organised paedophile rings sickens me and I'm fairly illiberal in my views when discussing with friends what should happen to them. But we are talking about a boy here.

I was thinking about the situation just now and came up with the question:

Could I in all honesty say that if my 14 year old son was found to be exposing himself to a young child, I would be happy to report the matter to the police.

Petallus I didn't actually say no child should visit, I said he should not be allowed unsupervised near children (although I do think in some cases this should be the rule). It would be social services who would require that no children should visit whilst he remains untreated, for precautionary purposes because some offenders have been known to use the proximity of children to fuel their deviant fantasies., which can seriously undermine attempts at successful treatment

Trying to be as positive as possible, Alan is little more than a child himself (maybe 14 when he exposed himself to Starry's child last year). I sincerely hope that he gets counselling to find out why he is behaving in this way (has he been abused himself for instance?) and everything eventually calms down in the family and cordial relationships can be restored. On the plus side, Alan admitted everything to his parents when challenged and from what Starry says her son was (seemingly) fairly matter-of-fact about the incident.

I wonder if the family could do with a bit of help in sorting things out. For instance, why is the brother who is expecting a child saying nothing? What about the conflict between Starry and her husband? The situation sounds hugely stressful for everyone concerned.

I suppose I'm thinking damage limitation (obviously whilst making sure the children are protected). So When I don't really agree that no child should visit when Alan is at home, just that he is not left alone with them.

Starry these ladies have been very supportive of you and have given you such good sound advice. I hope that advice helps you to stick to your guns and carry on with being courageous. As for the parents of the boy involved, I should think that they simply cannot believe that the son they love and brought up could behave in this manner. By being so horrible to you it is easier then cutting him off from them. Also they are concerned maybe about 'what the neighbours, friends and other family members will think'.So they blame you. I daresay sometime in the future they will fully realise what their son has done.
You know you are doing the right thing and I really admire you for what you are doing. You know us Gransnetters will always at least listen to you and carry on with their excellent advice. Good luck and I hope your little chap is ok.

I think you have done the right thing and admire your courage to persevere. Well done to you, don't let the others get you down, easy for me to say I know, but you are right as the folk here say.

starry do not let these people get the better of you,you have done the right thing for your child any possibly any future victims,a friend of mine when I was at school reported abuse and her mother disbelieved her the member of the family then went on to abuse other children and he was jailed,the pain the abused children went through could have been stopped if she had been listerned to in the first place.Stay strong.

One of my biggest regrets is not having pursued a suspicion of sexual abuse in a pupil because the Head master would not believe it. With older children it is unfortunate that some teenagers make false accusations but when the children concerned are young it is vital that you 'interfere', as your in-laws seem to consider it.

starry You have done the right thing, if he had not been stopped now some poor child would have suffered.