Four years ago we went to my sister's house for dinner. The adults were in the kitchen and my five year old daughter and eight year old son were upstairs with my eleven year old nephew. The nephew told my son let's play "house" and you be the body guard. He told my son to go in the closet and not come out until he was told he could come out. He laid on the bed and pulled his pants down and told my daughter to fondle him. My son shouted from the closet asking if he could come out now and my nephew said "not yet". After a couple of minutes my son came out anyway and saw my nephew laying on the bed and my daughter touching his penis. My son shouted "what are you doing, that's really gross". My nephew said it's not my fault, your sister pulled down my pants. My son told me about it and my sister said she wanted to get her son's side of the story and she would get back to me.

Two weeks went by and she didn't talk to me about this incident. She and her husband have never acknowledged what he did or how they planned to deal with it. No apology either from any one of them. When I called her about it she says "why do you keep bringing up the past, just let it go." My other sister told my father "my nephew was only eleven when it happened and it happened four years ago - tell her to get over it". I haven't talked to my sister and we are going to visit my parents who live near my sister in Texas (we live in California). I am not planning to make contact with her since it is apparent that she wants me to just forget the whole thing. What about my daughter? I have a duty to protect her and keep her away from my nephew.

I did not report this to the police because I did not want to destroy her life. Please tell me what you think?

This allegedly happened FOUR years ago, and yet you only address it now ?!

No I have been trying to deal with this for the entire four years. I don't believe that I am only addressing it now. I am simply asking your opinion about how to handle this in light of the fact that my sister is in denial. In other words, make contact with her so that we can finally address it or just leave her alone in light of the fact that she chose to do nothing about it

I think you continue to keep your daughter away from your nephew except in groups around the dining table, and drop the subject. Your nephew is 15 now. I imagine that if he has shown similar activity all these years, his parents know, because I am sure they didn't forget what you told them, even if they are trying to sweep it under the rug. He was right at the edge of being too old to play house, to explore body parts. He may have stopped and never done anything again (unless you know otherwise). They may have asked their doctor, who said let it go unless they find evidence again. They may not have swept it under the rug except with you.

Your daughter is 9, not quite old enough to be told why you are spending very little time at your sister's. She probably doesn't remember, and I wouldn't ask.

Thank you for your opinion. I think I should drop the subject but I don't plan on having dinner at the same table with her because it has become so difficult. I feel that if she valued our relationship then she would have done something about it. I understand the fear that she must have felt. I didn't want her to beat her son up but rather get him the help he needed so that this would not happen again and where the consequences would be a lot more serious and really ruin his future

She may have been remiss for not dealing with you about this, but I think you could be wrong about 'getting him the help he needed.' Eleven is not yet an age where a parent treats childhood sexual experimenting (which just about all kids do, many quite extensively and innocently) with horror and drags him off to a therapist.
If there were signs of it continuing as he got into puberty, then yes. But you don't know, so can't make assumptions. It is typical to assume that experimentation ends with siblings, relatives, neighbors, and anyone of an inappropriate age such as your daughter, and changes into peer experimentation - usually boys getting together in groups to compare masturbation and talk about girls and whether they can get anywhere with them.
Perhaps you could talk to your own family doctor? Or do some online research on 'child sexual experimentation?'

This is a very hard call. I understand your feelings, but you don't know for sure that your sister did nothing. It could be she just didn't want to discuss it.

I agree with Joy that you take care that your daughter is never alone with her cousin, and that she knows what is inappropriate behavior.

I think you also need to have a private talk with your sister to try to clear the air. Tell her that you had/have no desire to ruin her son's life, but that you wanted to make sure this never happened again with someone who would call the police.

I've been doing some reading this hour. Eleven really does seem to be a significant cut-off age for experimenting that is out of the peer group. So again, I think it's a situation that would absolutely require knowledge of what has happened since that incident.

Since it seems your family knows about this, and have for some time, what do they think?

I disagree with everyone. I don't give a rat's behind if you're there when she's around her nephew. She shouldn't have to be in the same room with him. That's not protecting her, that's telling her that what happened isn't a big deal, so suck it up, put a big smile on your face so we can all have dinner together, and get over it.

Yes it happened 4 years ago when your daughter was 5. That doesn't mean she doesn't remember. I was 5 when my cousin started molesting me. Trust me, I remember. I didn't say a word to my parents, I was too afraid. I spent years and years going to family gatherings being forced to be around my molester. Well until I was an adult. I didn't want to rock the boat, but by keeping it all inside I broke a part of myself. She broke the major part, but my silence did the most damage.

I would get counseling for your child. I wouldn't be specific about any of this. If she doesn't remember it, lucky her. But if she does, she needs help dealing with it. I just wouldn't talk to her about it yourself, just in case it's something that she really doesn't recall. No need to make her remember if she doesn't.

But forgive this kid? Forgive the sister that didn't do a thing about her son molesting your child? NO! I don't care that he was only 11. At 11 he knew better. I wouldn't be at all surprised if he's done this since then, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if his parents ignored it again, and again, and again, until someone says enough. Not saying it should be you that says enough, but you can, at the very least, not subject your child to these people.

That's my opinion, and I commend you for protecting your child. I wish you the best of luck, and I'm so very sorry this happened to her.

There were opportunities, and an obligation as a parent, to address the issue of your nephew involving your daughter, in a sexual , pre-planned act. I say pre-planned, because your daughter was the target, the bedroom was the place to go away from all the adults, and your son was told to stay in the closet until told to come out.

That was a plan, and he almost got away with it.

Actually he did get away with it, even with your son telling you what happened, your nephew got away with it. Not only that, the nephew had a backup plan, which was if he got caught, he would claim that your daughter was the one who initiated the sexual contact, by pulling his pants down!

There was/is nothing innocent about what your nephew did. Although it is easier to say that it was 'just' kids experimenting.

I don't know what you said to your daughter when you asked her about this incident, and I don't know why you didn't confront the nephew yourself. Doing so may have given you some insight as to the pre-planned 'game' this kid had in mind, and just how much of a liar he was. You would have at least had some sense of the determination of this nephew. ( Are you certain it hasn't happened before?)

For example, he could have surprised everybody and cried, and been totally embarrassed and apologized on his own.

But, the opposite has happened. He got away with it, and adults covered it up, including you, by not directly dealing with it.

5 year olds know 'good touching' and 'bad touching'. But they are no match for someone older, with a plan, obviously.

It isn't okay to just let this go and forget about it. My advice to you is to make sure that you seek advice from a professional, on what, if anything, can be done now, including how to handle the many years ahead with your nephew and your daughter involved in family activities.

In the meanwhile, make it very clear to your daughter that she is never, ever, to be alone with her cousin, and should her cousin try to separate her from the group, she is to come and tell you immediately. Let your sister know that plan too.

I've been thinking about what I said, and much prefer what Alty and Jake just said. The deviousness of the 11 year old is troubling. So much for the borderline between childlike and not.

Must chime in as a survivor . My abuse was never dealt with as a child. I did not get therapy and did not tell anyone. I could be a poster child for how sweeping it under the rug has life long consequences.
As a adult it would bother me if I knew my abuser hurt others by me keeping silent. Guilt seems to be a common emotion in survivors
Please get counseling for your daughter and son. He may have issues as well due to seeing it and not having the power t protect his sister. I would tell your family that the sisters family is NOT to be around your daughter. Show her she is important and that you will protect her.
I would also make a call to CPS to let them know. I don't know but may be counseling will help him or prevent another child being hurt.

I'm also rethinking my advice. As Jake says, this was planned. But I'm not going to assume that he got totally away with it. We don't know what his parents actually did.

But the level of planning indicates this may not have been the first time.

I also would like to know what help the daughter was given to deal with this.

I would like to thank each one of you for taking the time to respond. At the end of it all, I want to leave the situation knowing that I did the right thing. I have two older sisters and one younger. The younger sister lives in Boston and doesn't care a damn. One older sister in Texas is the mother of this boy. The other older sister in Canada is on my sister's side. She has told my father that I need to get over it since the boy was "only 11" when it happened and it was such a long time ago. I have not spoken to that sister in Canada for 2 1/2 years.
I have many many cousins with children in Texas who support me and have distanced themselves from this boy in light of what he did to my daughter.

Two of my cousins have approached my sister in the past about him punching their kids in the stomach or intentionally hitting their child in the head and she has been very casual about it. I know about the same time he did this to my daughter, my sister (on one occasion that I know of) have received a call from the school counselor because he punched someone out at school. I am not sure how that was handled. I do believe this boy planned out his whole scheme in his head because he "asked" my son to go in the closet and not come out until he was given permission to come. I emailed my sister outlining the whole event and she responded by saying "there have been contradicting stories" about this and so I responded to her requesting that she tell me what the contradictions were since there were just three children there when this happened. She gave me no response whatsoever. My husband called the boys dad and he denied that his son would ever do such a thing. He was not willing to listen and became very defensive so my husband just hung up the phone. A couple of minutes later the parents get their son to call our home and leave a message saying he didn't do anything bad to our daughter. Yes, I think I am done. Yes, this is my sister's son (I forgot to mention that my sister adopted this son who did this to my daughter), but my first duty is not to be friends with her, but rather, protect my daughter from harm. This boy is a liar. In March of this year, one of my cousins had a birthday party for his sonin his home. During the party, this boy was in the garage with many other people and he started to name call my father (his grandfather). After the event, one of the adults who heard this in the garage approached my fatherland told him what this boy said. My father was very hurt and went to my sisters house to let them know what their son had said and degraded him in front of so many people. The dad became very defensive and again told my father that his son would never use bad language. My dad went one step further by asking of one of the adults who heard the bad language to come forward as a witness. When my sister heard the witness verify that they had, in fact, heard their son use bad words, my sister covered up by saying he doesn't even know what the bad words mean. My dad is still hurt by this and feels his character was undermined. This boy is a liar and at age 13 one should know what language is appropriate and what is not. In my eyes he has no credibility. One last note, when he was about 10, he was caught by his friend's dad viewing porn on the computer. This dad told my father that he came over to his house to hang out with his sons and he caught them on the computer. I am not sure what my sister did about that. These are two parents that clearly don't want to believe the truth. There have been many red flags. My daughter seems OK. I don't talk about it anymore but did reassure her when it happened that she did nothing wrong. My son still is disgusted by what his cousin did.

Yes, I do believe that evil thrives when good people do nothing. I will continue to stand up for good.

Your latest post does change things a bit. Had you put that bit about the father being in denial in your initial post I know my reaction would have been different.

I am even more convinced that you have done the right things in this situation at least as far as your sister is concerned. But I still would like to know what you have done in helping your daughter deal with this. Does she show any ill effects? Have you had her talk to a therapist?

Is he an only child?
Adopted, only child... recipe for denial?
Understandable but not excusable, and not good for the now teen age boy.

Hi Scott
My daughter today is a very happy 9 year old. She seems to have very limited memory of the incident in general. In light of that I have not taken her for counseling because I didn't want to open a can of worms for her. She is happy, social and doing very well in school. I am feeling that taking her to counseling might make things worse. I could be wrong! If her behavior was a bit odd then I would have not hesitated to seek help.


Is he an only child?
Adopted, only child... recipe for denial?
Understandable but not excusable, and not good for the now teen age boy.

No, he has an older sister who is 16. She was also adopted. They are not biologically related

Ok, you know her better than we do. And since you've shown pretty good judgment so far, I'm inclined to accept your assessment.

One other point. I'm wondering how an 11 yr old devises a scheme like that. I'm wondering where he learned it.

I'm not sure about where he got these ideas from. I often wonder if he was ever molested himself? Also, how did he know at age 10 or 11 that he could view porn online. Most 11 year olds wouldn't typically know about this stuff but that would also depend on what influences they have with friends, etc. Who really knows.

Must chime in as a survivor . My abuse was never dealt with as a child. I did not get therapy and did not tell anyone. I could be a poster child for how sweeping it under the rug has life long consequences.
As a adult it would bother me if I knew my abuser hurt others by me keeping silent. Guilt seems to be a common emotion in survivors
Please get counseling for your daughter and son. He may have issues as well due to seeing it and not having the power t protect his sister. I would tell your family that the sisters family is NOT to be around your daughter. Show her she is important and that you will protect her.
I would also make a call to CPS to let them know. I don't know but may be counseling will help him or prevent another child being hurt.
I have thought about reporting this and have really struggled through this for the entire four years. Right now I don't have the courage to report it because my intention is never to destroy their life. I guess what I am saying is I am still protecting my sister even though she doesn't give a damn about me or my child. The flip side is knowing that it could happen to another little girl and devastate her life just because I was not strong enough to speak up.

After 4 years it's a bit late to rehash this or call in authorities and making older children recount memories, from the past, though I doubt they have buried them at all, but cope without guilt. There appears to be no long lasting trauma, so you must have done something right. I think you are right to rally around your own children, and pray your sister can keep hers under control, hard with them being in denial, and sad it's a wedge in your family.

Lose your own guilt at not being able to protect the world from this seemingly troubled kid, and hopefully you and the rest of your family can keep this from escalating further. I think it does no good to shoulder the entire burden yourself when it's a family matter you all have to somehow deal with.

Stay vigilante to and for your kids. As you see you are hardly alone, this happens more often than people care to share.

Good luck.

Since it seems your family knows about this, and have for some time, what do they think?

Thank you for your awesome words of wisdom. I will read and reread and start taking heed. Thank you again.


There were opportunities, and an obligation as a parent, to address the issue of your nephew involving your daughter, in a sexual , pre-planned act. I say pre-planned, because your daughter was the target, the bedroom was the place to go away from all the adults, and your son was told to stay in the closet until told to come out.

That was a plan, and he almost got away with it.

Actually he did get away with it, even with your son telling you what happened, your nephew got away with it. Not only that, the nephew had a backup plan, which was if he got caught, he would claim that your daughter was the one who initiated the sexual contact, by pulling his pants down!

There was/is nothing innocent about what your nephew did. Although it is easier to say that it was 'just' kids experimenting.

I don't know what you said to your daughter when you asked her about this incident, and I don't know why you didn't confront the nephew yourself. Doing so may have given you some insight as to the pre-planned 'game' this kid had in mind, and just how much of a liar he was. You would have at least had some sense of the determination of this nephew. ( Are you certain it hasn't happened before?)

For example, he could have surprised everybody and cried, and been totally embarrassed and apologized on his own.

But, the opposite has happened. He got away with it, and adults covered it up, including you, by not directly dealing with it.

5 year olds know 'good touching' and 'bad touching'. But they are no match for someone older, with a plan, obviously.

It isn't okay to just let this go and forget about it. My advice to you is to make sure that you seek advice from a professional, on what, if anything, can be done now, including how to handle the many years ahead with your nephew and your daughter involved in family activities.

In the meanwhile, make it very clear to your daughter that she is never, ever, to be alone with her cousin, and should her cousin try to separate her from the group, she is to come and tell you immediately. Let your sister know that plan too.

Thank you Jake for your response. You are absolutely right. I failed my daughter because I should have got in this boy's face right when it happened. The whole event was such a shock to me and I absolutely think that I was "frozen" for a few days and it took quite a while to "sink in" that this had actually happened to my daughter in my own's sister's home. One is never looking for this to happen in a family members home. My research since then has made me realize that this happens in a family member's home much more than we realize. I failed her in not making a big deal about this at the very beginning. I brought up the subject with my sister on numerous occasions and we ended up having heated arguments. After a few of those, she just disconnected and avoided me for a long time. We have not spoken for a long time. I made it very clear to her that her son's behavior was not acceptable and that we were not going to back down. They have chosen to remain silent.

I failed my daughter because I should have got in this boy's face right when it happened.

I disagree. I don't think you failed your daughter by not getting in this boy's face. That was not your responsibility. However, I don't know exactly what you did with your daughter at the time. You should have used the incident as an opportunity to reinforce what 'bad touching' is. That the incident was not her fault, but that she should immediately call an adult if it ever happens again.

I also hope you praised your son for protecting his sister.

Try to see this whole picture, as connected.

Having everyone 'aware' of what went on in the sexual assault, is, in a way, setting your daughter up for any and all family gatherings. She will be the victim over and over again, of conversations, 'look's', and all kinds of assumptions and innuendo's regarding that incident. Had it been dealt with at the time, and appropriate steps taken, there would be some validity to innocence as far as your daughter is concerned. Accusations are only accusations, until they are dealt with.

As time marches on, your daughter will have the stigma of noticing that she feels out of place, or that some family members seem distant or even angry with her (the ones that side with your sister and her son's innocence), and you risk cousins, and some adults, making comments, or assumptions, all based on the truth not getting out there.

Not to mention that your sister's son has behavior that is escalating, as evidenced by his behavior at school, and with what you know of how he interacts with other kids his own age. It is reaching a point where intervention now, would require a tremendous commitment from both his parents (who live in denial, and that isn't likely), and therapy.

Both his parents, have failed him, and he is left thinking, rather knowing, he can express his anger any way he likes, and not learn consequences for his behavior.

If this had happened to my daughter, I wouldn't have cared where we were- it could have been in the Prime Ministers' livingroom, I would have hauled the a** of that kid front and centre, and spoke to him in no uncertain terms about what had happened.

Your daughter, while you are a really good mom, is not yet having at least the option of talking to a counselor. She needs to be prepared for whatever comes in the future, particularly those within her family circle as I mentioned.