Child Abuse

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Perhaps because I love to be around children, listen to them, read them stories (until I just can't take it anymore LOL) that sometimes they tell me things and I don't know what to do with it.

Once, a child told me tearfully how other girls tease her in school. But don't tell my Ima (mother) she said emphatically, she'll be upset! I swallowed hard. Luckily, in this case, she talked and talked and talked her way into finding a solution for herself. By the end of it all, she was happy with her new plan of action and was back to playing around.

Well recently, a child told me that someone *touched* her. All my alarms went off. I stayed calm and asked her to describe what happened. It sounded like it only happened once, it was by an older boy from a family that the little girl (and her family) goes to, and he actually went into her clothes and touched her in her private part. I praised her for saying "no" as much as I could and then went and told the mothers what happened.

The boy's mother's reaction told me that this boy has gotten into trouble before. Not sure if it was from the same type of behavior or not. But I sensed that not much would be done because of that....

This is tormenting.