Trauma *Trigger Warning*

*Before I go any further this post is going to center around subject matter that could potentially be triggering to anyone who happens to read it, if you are in any way triggered or sensitive to details and writing surrounding sexual molestation, abuse or misconduct and particularly in relation to a child please do not read any further. This post centers around events that have happened to one of our children and thus has affected both him and our family resulting in many of his behaviors that we see today, I feel it is very important to spread awareness of these factors and issues as I believe that many of us as parents are blind to the red flags and dangers that not only surround us but our children on a daily basis, I am in no way saying anyone is to blame for these events or that they only happen to those who do not make themselves aware that these things DO happen to ALL genders on a DAILY basis but I think more needs to be done to ensure that parents and people in general are aware and vigilant and that we ensure that our children are made of the dangers as well.*

This post may jump around, I know I ramble, I know this post will be long and probably a little jumpy but I just have to get this out while I still have the reserve to do so.

In 2013 I was pregnant with my youngest son and sitting at home on the couch with my hubby when my phone rang, it was my sons aftercare, he was 6 at the time and I was told to come down to the centre immediately and so we did.

We arrived at the aftercare and were ushered into an office with the school principal who proceeded to tell me that all of the aftercare children were playing; alone and unattended in a room, a room where there were no cameras which against what we were promised upon enrollment and again I will underline that this group of children ranging from 6 to what I believed was 10 were left alone for an extended period of time.

After a while a teacher went in and when she did she walked in on a 13 year old after care child (female) laying on the floor in what I will call a compromising position with my son; my 6 year old son.

My heart dropped my stomach lurched but then oh but then the owner proceeded to tell me that my son had done something to this girl, I will say it again- 6 year old who had not the foggiest clue about sex or touching etc, but we were told by the principal that is what the girl said and because our son was male who was she to question what she had said. Something did not sit right with us so when we left I immediately got in contact with a trauma center in our area and set up an appointment for the next day.

We attended the appointment which I informed the aftercare principal about, my son didn’t say much but what he did say contradicted what we had been told, I started messaging the aftercare principal to say that we needed to sit down and discuss the situation when she told me that she had sat down with the girl in question and that she had admitted to asking a few of the younger children to do things to her and that she was being abused at home by a family member- my heart broke into a million pieces, how could I as a mother be angry when this young girl was herself a victim, I asked whether it was going to be reported, I was told yes, I asked whether the parents had been called in, I was again told yes and was eventually told that the parents had opted to seek private counselling and the child was removed from the aftercare but that the principal had reported the situation (she did not).

I do not blame the girl (I do know her name but for obvious reasons won't be using it) at all, in hindsight I wish I had reported the situation myself instead of expecting the principal to do what she was supposed to do and said she would do because I eventually removed both of my children from the aftercare in question after the children were being left alone and without proper care on a regular basis, the owner had started a new relationship and was not available and did not come in on a regular basis. I was called one day by my sons shuttle service as the electronic gate which at the time was broken had fallen on my middle son and the teachers who were there had refused point blank to contact me brushing it off as a minor accident and that I didn’t need to know so the shuttle service had taken it upon themselves to do so. I was also called one day by my exes girlfriend who had gone to collect my 2 sons from my previous marriage to say that she had arrived at the aftercare to only one teacher being present and that she wanted to take my youngest with her as she did not feel it was safe to leave him there, several parents had already removed their children and this was the final straw but again in hindsight I was friends with the principal of the aftercare and allowed that friendship to overshadow all of the red flags and concerns that I had; ie leaving a group of young children unattended in a room for an extended period of time with an older child that none of us aftercare parents were aware of should have been enough of a red flag for me to remove our boys but we didn’t.

The girl was gone and we continued therapy on a regular basis until we were told that they did not feel that the events would have lasting or future effects on my son, if only we knew….

Over the next few years my sons behavior escalated in many ways, he was asked to leave an aftercare for asking 2 boys to show him their private areas, he was also asked to leave another aftercare because he ran into the ladies toilets, we continued therapy, we involved a social worker, we went through each and every step and did everything that we were told to do, privacy within our home became top priority doors always had to be closed even between siblings.

Fast forward a few years, my sons behavior settled out quite well and we had no further issues until he started attending a local tutor center, he was fine in the beginning but at one point we started to notice changes in his behavior and attitude once again, we couldn’t understand why at that point but I will get into what we now know was going on later in this post. This school ended up shutting down and my son(s) then attended a cottage school which was co run by myself and someone who I considered a close friend who had 2 daughters of her own, those girls were like daughters within our home, they stayed over several times a week and I adored them as the girls and daughters I never had and my boys treated them like the sisters they never had, in hindsight we should never have allowed them to stay over but they slept separately in their own beds/ own mattresses downstairs and we thought it would be ok, the mom didn’t have much support or help by way of child care or reprieve so we thought we were doing a good thing by helping her catch a break, until my son developed what I would call an infatuation with on the girls, one night he approached her and kissed her on the cheek, the girl was uncomfortable and we ie my husband and I ended up stopping the sleep overs which we believed would cease any further issues until one afternoon I arrived at the school to fetch my boys, I was inside cleaning up the kitchen when I heard the principal aka my friend screaming at one of the kids, I went outside and she was standing over my son screaming and swearing at him, she had her hands on him as well.

Come to find out that she had allowed her girls to get dressed around the corner in the garden, bare in mind that she was fully aware of my son’s issues and what we were dealing with, she then said that my son had run around to that area and tried to peep at the girls. Now my 2 other boys gave conflicting accounts of what happened and the principal and her girlfriend were both outside but otherwise preoccupied with one another when this happened, I am not saying it didn’t happen I think it did but as to why it happened when there were adults standing outside and in my opinion the girls should never have been allowed or encouraged to change outside I cannot say.  All I know is that a week or so later at 3 or 4 in the afternoon I received an email saying that my son was expelled with immediate effect, no hearing no opportunity to discuss anything, I co ran the school and no one had the decency to have a conversation with me or to at least give me some indication of what had happened, the other governing body members were not even told that proper process had not been followed. The governing body was also not aware that same person who was overseeing the care of their children had on previous occasion hit my son (denied it at first), duct taped my child to chair and not told me when he told her that he wanted to end his life; I have never been so angry!!!!

Before this happened and before I knew  I was already looking at removing my boys from the school, in hindsight my intentions were good but I had no idea how to run a school and in the end the children were not being taught properly, the teachers were not getting paid because the fees were not getting paid and more often than not the aftercare children were left alone in the care of a 15 year old boy until their parents arrived to fetch them which I completely disagreed with, every morning I was late for work because I would open the school and stay until at least one teacher had arrived to take over which was often 8 o clock or later given that the teachers traveled via public transport, I did not feel comfortable and had already broached the subject with several of the teachers, some of whom had approached me as well as the children were not being treated equally.

 After we received the letter my exes wife arrived at the school to find the children once again in the care of a 15 year old and she called the police, it went downhill very fast and was an incredibly ugly situation, I tendered my immediate resignation that evening from the board and removed both my sons- when I told them I was removing both my children I was met with a response of dismay and questioning!!!!!

Now I am going to stop right here for all of you who are at this point screaming at me from behind your screens- my son behaviors and actions have NEVER been excused, accepted or brushed aside and that whilst we have of course sought therapeutic aid and help we have never used what happened to my son as an excuse for or to condone his behaviors or actions in ANY way and he has been disciplined/ reprimanded and punished, not once have we EVER swept something under the rug or been anything but upfront and honest with every single person we have work with, every school, our friends and loved ones. Acting out in or playing it forward in a sexual manner whilst normal ie it is statistically proven to happen does not mean it should be brushed off, accepted or ignored.

We did everything that we were supposed to, we followed the advice of all the specialists who assured us that we were doing everything we could and were supposed to, we asked my son many times whether he was being harmed in any way that we weren’t aware of and we even begged the doctors to do hormonal and genetic testing to see if there wasn’t something that we were missing or something else wrong, what happened to him happened when he was so young and we just couldn’t understand why or how it had affected him to this extent regardless of his autistic traits which according to the doctors made him socially awkward and unable to deal with proper socially acceptable behaviors we always felt there was something missing.

Fast forward to this past month which has been a roller coaster ride to say the least, our psychiatrist sat me down and said that our son had spoken to her about something that happened to him at a previous school, when he first mentioned it she had not said anything due to the fact that he had denied anything happening on any account on numerous occasions and due to the fact that my son has a tendency to lie… and he is good at it. At this point I can honestly say that as a mom I wanted to believe him but having been through so much and with everything that was going on I was skeptical.

However he had mentioned it again 2 weeks ago and begged her not to tell us or to say anything he also refused to give details as to what exactly happened and so our doctor scheduled a physical for last week Thursday which we attended, it was supposed to be a short appointment we ended up leaving after 3 hours.

My son underwent a full on internal and external examination, the doctor was instructed to look for evidence of any signs of abuse as well as for signs of puberty as we have been saying for years now already that my son has hit puberty and every time we were brushed off.

My son did have a private discussion with the doctor and after the examination we were both called in for his results…

He told me that whilst there were absolutely no signs of physical abuse whatsoever an internal examination showed scarring that could not be accounted for by something like constipation or any other medical issue, I was told that the age of the scarring coincided with what our son had told him; that something had happened to him last January after school whilst in the care of a teacher who was later fired (the kids did not know this) for not properly watching the children. Internally I was screaming, externally the tears just ran as my son began to shake and breakdown telling us what little he would about what happened, he then got to a point where he refused to speak any further. 

The doctor also told us that my son was in the very late stages of puberty and that he had probably started puberty at around the age of 8/9, just fyi the accepted normal starting point for puberty today is 9 years old which shocked me beyond comprehension but this was something as I said we had brought up before and it at least gave me some sort of minor consolation knowing that we had been right but knowing that something had happened to our son not once but twice completely broke me.

I am not the person who breaks down easily especially in front of others, I tend to keep everything to myself for the most part and would rather cry silently in the shower or scream profanities towards the car roof whilst driving on my own that allow other people to see that hurt but this absolutely broke me and sitting here I can say that I still haven’t properly processed it, I had to go back to work with my son, I had to carry on as if nothing happened because life goes on and doesn’t stand still.

I have trusted too deeply, I have been naïve and I have ignored so many red flags placed before me, when you place your child into the care of another person you trust that your child will be protected and cared for. I no longer allow girls of any age into our home when my son is home, if I visit a friend with a daughter or girl within the home he does not come with, we hardly go anywhere and if we do go into a public space, one of us constantly has my son under supervision, we will not even attempt to enroll our son in a school, general or otherwise because we have gotten to the point where we are not only not willing to risk his behavior but we also do not trust anybody else’s supervision other than our own, we do not even visit family members where there are girls within the home we are that strict and conscious of our situation and will not allow another situation to happen, we have gone to these extreme lengths to ensure nothing happens to anyone else but it makes me so incredibly angry that we were not given the same courtesy and support and are now paying for it and that other children have had to pay for it.  

Statistically we are not the only ones going through this and this is a very real and definitely not an uncommon subject/ series of events facing children and families in South Africa today. When the woman marched for the protection of woman some time ago I cried for a week; as a woman and as someone who has experienced trauma I wanted to fight as a mom of a child who has been through sexual trauma I also wanted to fight… but as a mom to a child who has reciprocated that trauma I felt ashamed and that I did not have the right to stand with those woman.. We have done everything we could and it still happened,these things happen! 

As parents we need to be aware we need to open our eyes these is happening to children of all ages and genders and cultures and it not acceptable, there is not a day that goes by that I do not question how different our lives would have been and how different my sons life would have been if he had not gone through this.

It is a literal nightmare that I live out every single day of our lives…