Two terrible stories about sex and children

Dear Bulletproof,

Yes, my anger was justified, and yes it was invalidated totally, and it never went away because it seethed inside as an injustice to my soul.

I’m actually convinced that most of it was done that way because my teacher, who wasn’t an abusive woman in any way, and my step father, and maybe even my egg donor, didn’t really KNOW a proper way to handle it.

When my own son C was bullied as a second grader on a school bus, I validated him and acted, eventually finding out the name of the 14 year old who was doing it, taking it up with his parents, and putting a STOP to the bullying and actually even getting an apology from the child and a change 180 degrees in behavior.

Validating a child’s feelings when they are injured I think is one of the most important things. Being honest with them about their feelings. Even in my practice when I woujld have to give a child an injection or some other procedure which they were (rightly or wrongly) afraid of, I would not lie to them and say “this will only feel like a little pinch” I would tell them “this is going to hurt some but it is okay for you to cry or scream, but your arm has to stay very still so I am going to have your mommie hold it so you will remember to keep it from moving, but it will be over quickly.”

Even 3 and 4 year old kids would cooperate for even some painful procedures if they were told the truth and validated.

Being able to validate myself even 57 years later after that second grade bully, is “freeing” believe it or not. One of the keys I think to letting go of so many angry feelings is to be able to validate yourself and no longer NEED that elusive validation from others. At least it seems to have been that way for me.

There seems to be a “rash” of creeps here lately in Arkansas that are making the news, domestic violence deaths, a Salvation Army worker shot to death at Christmas time in front of his 3 small children in an attempted robbery, a man murdered and his body tossed in his pick up truck bed, then the truck set on fire with his 2 yr old in her car seat in the cab, the woman driving drunk into the lake with her 3 kids who drowned. Child porn, and our local closest “town” of about 50 thousand people now has TWO full time Internet child porn and minor solicitation cops!@....... Which probably isn’t enough. The high schools are covering every place on campus now with video cameras excerpt the toilet stalls that go 24/7 to the cops. One of the kids was interviewed on the news last night and he said it made him feel like he was in prison at school. I can understand that, but at the same time, I can also understand the need for the video feeds to the cops because many public high schools are becoming so violent, and BTW a coach and principal at a PRIVATE RELIGIOUS school was reported 10 yrs ago to the superintendent who quashed it and didn’t report it to the cops, and he was arrested RECENTLY for molesting a young girl.

I hate to sound like an old person talking about “now back in my day…” but you know, back in my day the “worst kids” on campus were the guys with duck tail hair dos smoking behind the gym. The worst fights on campus ended in a bloody nose, and though I was physically abused by another second grader, that actually was a rare occurance in the schools I attended. There were no “drugs” except a small amount of BEER on rare occasions, but not much of that even. There was unprotected sex (about 14 of my female class mates were preg at graduation) but there weren’t a great deal of STDS that couldn’t be cured with penicillian. So, over all, I think schools WERE safer at least where I attended.

Dear EC,

Nothing that takes place in South Florida suprises me. My husband lived there when both our older kids were in High school or college for a couple of years. I hated it there as the violence in the area was horrible. Car jackings daily, home invasions, and the first day at high school for my little P darling there was a murder on campus, and that was where my P son stole the gun and got his start in crime by taking a gun to school, and robbing our friends and customers.

Son C got mugged on his way home from his job and damn near killed, friends had had cars jacked out from under them, windows had bars and doors had panic buttons by them. I’ll pass on Southern Florida thanks. (and Yea I know this kind of thing happens in all 50 states!) but gosh, it sounds here like there might be some mental illness issues besides or instead of psychopathy, possibly bi-polar. I’m not ruling out psychopathy, but gosh this is terrible!