The Rational Basis® of Happiness Podcast

(this is raw unedited text, computer transcribed directly from the audio)

Jennifer, you have a problem with your son.

Yes, yeah, Tom is nine years old. And in the summertime, he was playing with a friend and a little sister who was just being potty trained and she pulled her pants down and he touched her. The father came over and explained what happened. And, you know, we kind of chalked it up as curiosity. He was in trouble and talk to a private party says I have many times.

Okay, when you say trouble, what would actually happened if I were him, we took away consequences. We gave them consequences. And we took away things like his bike and he was grounded. You can play with friends. That type of thing.

How long was he grounded for one week?

Okay. And then tell me what else that works?

Well, when he got in trouble, the thing that really troubled us and made us concern is he said, You know, I wish I was dead. I'm bad boy. You want to put a knife in my heart? And right away? We're like, no, no, you know, that's, you know, that's not what we, you know, I think, I'm not sure where it came from. Like with talking to his pediatrician, he had said, Sometimes kids do that divert the attention, something else because immediately, you know, he is we I am a divorced parents. And my husband and I, his stepdad, we were talking to him. And, of course, he spoke to his father about it. So I don't know where that came from. So we thought that problem was handled well, on Monday, I got a door or somebody ring my doorbell, and it was a father of a little boy. And he said that Zach and his son are playing with his little sister and touched her private parts.

Okay, what's the age difference? She's four, she's four, and he's now nine. Okay. And when I asked him about it, you know, he said it wasn't through the, you know, it was through her clothes. But so I'm very concerned is the third, you know, this is gonna be a reoccurring problem. Is this more than curiosity? Did I not handle the first situation better?

You know, I would say you can't go back in time. I would say you haven't. Who's that in the background?

Oh, I have two other little ones.

Oh, you are busy then? Yes, I do. Girls boy.

Pardon, you know, little girl or I have a little girl. She is 15 months.

So are you concerned about that too?

A little bit? Yeah, a little bit. You know, it's crossing my mind. You know, I did the whole went to the bookstore last night and read through everything went online, you know, look through different questions. And, you know, just really, I'm really concerned. Is this something I should have him seek therapy for? Or is this I'm making a big deal out of?

Yeah, here's what I like to do in these situations, especially when it's just once or twice. It's that kids experiment. If he had touched the little girl's elbow, nobody would have made a fuss, right. If he saw that her elbow was a different shape than his and he touched it, it wouldn't be a big deal. But because it happens to be the private parts and because adults have a much bigger context than young kids than an eight year old or than a five year old. You know, our context is oh my god, sexual molestation, you know, you're going to have a pervert on your hand, right? Where you start, you start catastrophizing, but then what happens is the parents themselves become the problem. Because when they catastrophize they do they make the issue small or big in the child's mind. Right? They make it huge in the child's mind and the child feels an enormous sense of guilt that's totally out of proportion to the one incident to like touching the elbow. And so if at the time the consequences had just been, you know, everybody's got their own body and that belongs to them. And you when you get to the private parts on a you can touch your own private parts in in private in your bedroom or in the tub. You know you that's those are yours. You can't touch anybody else's. You know, when you get older, we'll talk about it. We'll talk about other issues. But, you know, because Because sex can be very nice, but not at your age. You know, if you had a talk like that, and you never took away the bike, you never grounded him. It wouldn't have grown the his focus on it.

Okay, so how do you think it's handled?

I would just say I would I if he's nine years old, if he were about 10, or 11? I would tell you to get the books by Peter Mayle. Where did I? Because he beat winter? What pardon?

Is it called what's going on down there?

He may have a new book, I know the books that I used with young kids who were actually sexually abused. And I tried to help them put things in proportion, where what's happening to me? And where did I come from when they start asking, you know, how a baby's made, and he's at the precipice, you know, 910 1112, you know, you get into the preteen years, and kids are smarter than nowadays than in the past, they could probably tell us the facts of life, I would not, I would try to think of your husband's history of what's called kitty play, it's not considered sexual. It's not considered sexual perversions or anything, it's just called kitty play. Okay, now the problem, you know, you get the age differences. If you had five and a seven year old, you know, in the tub, touching each other's pots, maybe was a little girl and a little boy began being bathed together. You know, if a parent doesn't make a big deal of it, it's just a natural fact of life that we have different body parts, and kids are naturally curious. We want them to be curious. Yeah, so you could not have a pedophile or something, you might be having a future doctor on your hand, who was interested in body parts? Right?

So I would have been a Disney World kid, I like to say like, yeah, ever been the kid that accepts the stories? He always has been a fact kid like, No, Mom, that's not true. You know, he wants to know the facts will give him the biology then. And in your mind, instead of imagining, oh, my God, what about future pedophile? Think future doctor, right? Think future biologist or something? Because I think then you won't have that knee jerk reaction of horror. And you won't be constantly monitoring him. And you can give him the facts. But then you give him a feeling to that he's not bad, but He can be trusted. When he said, I wish I was dead. That's how badly it hurt him. You know, if I did something that I didn't know, was wrong. And someone yells at me, like, why did you open that door? You know, nobody's supposed to go into that room. And I thought, Oh, my God, I did something horrible. That's called an unearned guilt. I didn't do anything wrong. I just didn't have all the facts, right. And so that that real strong sense of people can just descend on me and give me an arbitrary guilt is powerful. If he links it to touching young kids, then you want to break that connection in his mind by just lessening it just saying, and I wish I hadn't yelled at you when you were younger. You know, it's just, it's you're learning about biology, you just really need to know that everybody's body parts are private. And you can also see if there are any stories that he would tell you, maybe there's something going on at school, you know, maybe somebody's touched him. You know, when he was you know what, when he was little, like four years old him and his cousin. were touching.

Okay, I would call it kitty play in your own mind. I don't know the age difference, but we're right at the end of time, Jennifer, so thank you so much for your call. And I hope that helps.

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